Taking The Supply Chain Pulse
Sean O’Neill talks about building St. Onge Company’s Healthcare Supply Chain Practice and Facing the Challenges of the Future
How can we build a healthcare supply chain that is both cost-effective and resilient in the face of unexpected challenges? Join us as we sit down with Sean O'Neill, the head of St. Onge Healthcare Supply Chain Practice, who takes us through his journey from defense contracting to healthcare logistics. Sean opens up about the origins of our podcast and shares his vision for a collaborative community fueled by personal connections and industry insights. His narrative, from his beginnings in Delaware to his educational pursuits at Case Western, sets the stage for an episode rich with career and leadership insights.
How can we build a healthcare supply chain that is both cost-effective and resilient in the face of unexpected challenges? Join us as we sit down with Sean O'Neill, the head of St. Onge Healthcare Supply Chain Practice, who takes us through his journey from defense contracting to healthcare logistics. Sean opens up about the origins of our podcast and shares his vision for a collaborative community fueled by personal connections and industry insights. His narrative, from his beginnings in Delaware to his educational pursuits at Case Western, sets the stage for an episode rich with career and leadership insights.
Hello again everybody. This is Fred Frams from St Onge coming to you today with another episode of Taking the Supply Chain Pulse. Today we are blessed with having the leader of the St Onge Healthcare Supply Chain Practice, Sean O'Neill, with us. Sean has been with the company for several years and has some insights that he's going to share about his own growth, the growth of the company and the growth of the healthcare supply chain practice. So, Sean, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2:It's great to be here. Thanks for the formal introduction.
Speaker 1:That's the least I could do. Um, you know, there's one question that I didn't put down but I thought I should ask, and that is, uh, for you folks out there that have heard these podcasts, uh, we owe them all to Sean. It was Sean's idea to do them, and I would say, sean, what gave you the idea to come up with a podcast for St Hodge?
Speaker 2:Well, I think it was, uh, really trying to tap into your potential. Fred, I think you've got a really good way with people. I think you have a charismatic personality. I mean I don't want to give you too much, to give you too much positive energy, but no, I think you have a really great way with people and I think you really care about, you know humans and the connection, and I think it was a great forum for you. So for that, I thought it was a great use of your capability and I think you've just absolutely run with it. So I think we're all incredibly impressed and grateful for your success. And then it also leveraged a lot of your connections.
Speaker 2:But I think, most importantly, we want to try, as we always say, try to raise the waterline of knowledge across the industry. So your ability to kind of tap into a lot of these folks in industry and also in health care and share some of those insights with each other, I think is a great forum. So I think we're hopeful that this stimulates a lot of personal connections with people, a lot of knowledge, maybe some questions people hopefully will reach out to others that have been on the podcast that maybe share some of their, you know, challenges and really just kind of create a better environment. I think healthcare is really struggling, quite frankly, and I think it has for a number of years. It needs engineers, it needs folks that are focused forward on operations excellence, and I think a lot of what you're able to do through conversation is elicit and bring out some of those key pieces of you know insight that I think will be powerful for a lot of folks that do take the time to listen. So Great.
Speaker 1:Well, the other thing is I think it's a great thing for a lot of folks that work at various organizations never get to go to the big meetings, never get to see or meet the folks that are leaders in supply chain, and what I've enjoyed about this is these conversations can sort of put a human face or a human understanding on people that really could give you insights that you wouldn't normally get. So I appreciate the opportunity to have done this. It's one of the one of the things that's been the most fun for me in many years. So tell us the one thing.
Speaker 2:I would just add, if I can, is just, I mean your connection. I mean a lot of folks will downplay it, but your hall of famer, bellwether league status, the fact that you have these incredible connections with folks that you've invested in through friendships and you know, just connections over the last 30 plus years. These folks are willing to talk to you so you are able to get some of the top names in the supply chain, a lot of the folks that are speaking at those conferences. So that capacity that you've been able to kind of draw has really been helpful. So that analogy uses, I think, spot on. You know you're giving the opportunity to kind of bring that knowledge from different conferences to the podcast. So it's great.
Speaker 1:So tell us about your background, how you started out, from your beginning to how you got with St Onge. Again, how far do you want to go?
Speaker 2:back.
Speaker 1:We don't want to go back to being born in a log cabin in springfield illinois.
Speaker 2:No, no, I I. I grew up in delaware and I just big, big, large uh family, um. And then was blessed with the opportunity to go to college in cleveland, ohio, which is one of the great cities in the country that gets a lot of uh press and people like to kick it, but it was a great experience for me. I went to Case Western, got a mechanical engineering degree and it's something that's been helpful for me, but that kind of immediately led to do some defense work. So I got out of well, I should say this I co-opted Caterpillar in a very mechanical engineering-like capacity in their hydraulics group and then I actually then went to work at Textron Lycoming, which is a defense contractor that made turbine jet engines for tanks and helicopters. So I was on some of the developmental engine program and in a good way.
Speaker 2:There was too much peace in the world was really the bottom line and there's a lot of really smart people leaving the company and I kind of stepped back and said you know, what do I want for my career and thinking about, you know where I want to be in three to five years or when I start having kids and all those things. So I made the move to St Ange in 1990 and really kind of focused on that whole area around factory automation and kind of that future. I felt like that was an area of focus that was very, very intriguing to me and I thought I could apply my capabilities with some success.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, you sent me something that I thought was really interesting.
Speaker 1:You sent me a copy of the uh case western alumni journal and a letter that you had uh written to them about uh the uh thankfulness you had for going there and for their uh willingness to um give you financial assistance and stuff, and in the in the article it said that somewhere along the way you uh, among other things, had worked where you had operated a geiger counter. Now you and I are older people than many of the people that will listen to this, so could you please tell the audience out there what a geiger counter is and what it does and, more importantly, what were you doing operating one?
Speaker 2:so, yeah, I think I got a work, study job at Case and it was for the, I think the I forget what the term it's like industrial hygiene department or something like that. So they had me do many different odd jobs. So one of them was running a Geiger counter. So I go through the different labs and basically try to identify radioactive, you know, material. So a Geiger counter I don't understand all the real deep science behind it, but more or less it can identify radioactive material and it'll give a reading based on the intensity of that.
Speaker 2:So funny story is I was, you know, going through the lab and a couple of these labs. And you know, I was, you know, going through the lab and a couple of these labs and you know they're using radioactive isotopes for a lot of the testing and a lot of the research they're doing with mice and other things. But I get into the you know one room and I use the Geiger counter and this thing is jumping off the charts and I said, well, what's that? And they said, well, that's isotope. Blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 2:I said, well, that's interesting. I said, well, what's that in the brown bag? And the guy goes, well, that's my lunch. So I thought it was interesting. So, um, but yeah, it was good, a good exposure to kind of understand, um, just one of those tools. But yeah, that's been around for a while. Um, I don't have a radio, you know, or a nuclear engineering background, but a lot of folks might have a little more insight than me. But uh, we were just kind of giving them some testing for I guess you'd say good compliance, good industrial compliance type stuff well as a as a um post-war baby boom kid.
Speaker 1:You know, geiger counters were what was used after the bomb was dropped to see how uh how bad, how bad the stuff was and uh, and so the guy was eating lunch in a room with radioactive isotopes. He was going to, like Marie Curie, did he glow in the dark at night?
Speaker 2:He stored his lunch right next to the isotope. He wasn't eating it, he literally had it stored right next to itself in the freezer. So it was an interesting. Again, some folks like the shoe cobbler's kids, right, you're not really too concerned about it when you're deep in it.
Speaker 1:Yep, that's something else. So when you first came to St Onge, what types of projects did you work on there?
Speaker 2:yeah, I started in our manufacturing group so I'd started doing some work at Caterpillar. I did some work at General Electric and they're manufacturing the GE Locomotive Group up in Erie, pennsylvania. A lot of capacity analysis really kind of what I would say is training in a mechanical engineer how to be an industrial engineer, because that's kind of what St Ange does. It's kind of that focus of that systemic view of how an operation or a department works. I was so used to kind of focusing on one mechanical problem with a little bit of a systems bend, but it was interesting to me to be able to kind of zoom out on a problem like an assembly department at G Locomotive or at Warner Lambert we're putting in Listerine lines. So early in my career I did a lot of work in manufacturing and that to ultimately for me I did some work. This Warner Lambert project was a really big one. General Electric, a group called Magnatech.
Speaker 2:Then I kind of pivoted to do a lot of work for Procter Gamble. It was a big account of St Onge and still is, and I was kind of blessed with the opportunity. I had a mentor named Paul Ivanka that kind of took me under his wing and taught me kind of how to go about projects. There's a certain kind of industrial rigor that P&G had in doing their work and it really kind of helped me cut my teeth and really understand, you know, what was important as far as engineering analysis, you know, and then looking at some different alternative solutions and the like. But that was kind of early and I did a lot of work for P&G.
Speaker 2:A lot of manufacturing facilities all over the world China, south America, a lot in the United States, a lot of diaper, a lot of Sunny Delight plants, a lot of work with their paper tissue and towel plants, bounty so it was a good experience. I also had a lot of uh focus. Arc st ange was really pushing creativity. It's kind of an area of focus that he believes innovation is really important to the company. And I was lucky and with him another mentor because he used to bring me into all these brainstorming sessions. So any project we had he would bring me to the brainstorming sessions and uh, I think he kind of I don't know if he liked me or I don't know what was going on but I really appreciate it because I really liked that idea of being able to solve a problem and I think that was important to kind of understand how to attack a problem, how to zoom in on a problem, kind of look at it from different perspectives and maybe bring some of those different ideas to the table. So that was really important for me in my development.
Speaker 2:But probably, you know, the first, I'd say, five to ten years was really focused on manufacturing. Then distribution did a lot of work with, uh, beckton, dickinson, johnson and johnson and a lot of work in pharmaceutical plants as well. So I got a really, from a education standpoint, a really diverse background. That that I was really. What would you say? I was learning a tremendous amount, felt a lot of stress, being stretched a lot, but I think it helped me in developing my judgment, which helped me later in my career as well.
Speaker 1:So you spent several years outside of healthcare? Yeah, how did you get sucked into this vortex of working with prehistoric people?
Speaker 2:I don't know if they're prehistoric, I think, for me. Well, we had an opportunity at Johns Hopkins Hospital. There was an architectural group called Thornton Tomasetti that was being asked Hopkins was planning a big million dollar square foot expansion, million square foot expansion, million square foot expansion sorry, on their campus down in Baltimore. And they were being asked by the architect, was being asked to kind of develop some options around receiving docs and some of the operational flows. And we had known some folks at that firm. I think Brian Jensen and Paul had known, or I think Brian knew the firm.
Speaker 2:But we all went down, had a meeting with the team down there and said, hey, listen, we don't have any experience in healthcare but I think we have the right tools and the right approach to really analyze what needs to happen here to support, you know, the design of this new hospital and this expansion.
Speaker 2:So we were lucky enough that they kind of took a shot on us, so to speak, and we really dug in and really tried to understand, you know, activities with that engineering rigor. You know what happens every hour of the day, what's the receiving, what's the flow up to the point of care and back, to really understand and assess. You know it's pretty incredible. You think about health care in the sense that you know the nurse and the frontline workers really are providing care at the patient bedside but there's a lot of kind of logistics, infrastructure and things that have to happen in that supply chain for that to be successful. So you know, so that was an interesting play when we jumped in. But Hopkins was the first foray into the group and it was myself and Dave Jeeves kind of dug into that.
Speaker 1:So what were your original reactions to the healthcare supply chain vis-a-vis the traditional supply chain? I mean, what were the similarities, what were the differences that you saw?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think this is something I struggle. I've struggled with when I first reacted to it and learned about it and then I still struggle with to some level. Because, in some senses, why is it so hard or what's the difference? Because when we deal with these manufacturing operations whether it be a, you know, we did a lot of work at, you know, general Motors and CPG companies and pharmaceuticals. So I brought this pretty diverse industry perspective into health care and pharmaceuticals. So I brought this pretty diverse industry perspective into healthcare when we first started. At the highest level, you're still receiving stuff, staging stuff, storing stuff, picking stuff and getting it to the bedside. So at that fundamental basis it's not that complicated, right. But for some reason it starts to get complicated fast and I think part of it is foundationally there's some missing consistencies. The data that's coming in is inconsistent, so there's not this common platform and theme that allows for a level of communication. I think the SKU base, the items that are used, is large and it also goes through revisions and innovations. So this is a migrational SKU base that continues to evolve, so that variation keeps coming. And I think there's also this.
Speaker 2:Couple things, two other things I think there's a inventory strategy that's kind of deployed throughout the hospital that inherently sets up this expediter mentality. In other words, they're not just one location. If I go into a GM plant or to a Warner Lambert plant or a GE plant, there'd be one location of that item, probably in the warehouse, and then when it's used at the assembly line or whatever, it's actually one location there as well. In healthcare there's distributed pockets of inventory throughout the whole house and I think that is a good thing in the sense that it's trying to leverage some forward deployment of inventory to enable some efficiencies. But it inherently allows the supplier base not to perform at the level they should. In other words, the deployment of inventory and the order completion levels, the inventory accuracy levels, are below standard. So what it does is it essentially says, hey, this inventory is located here, but it's actually not consistently at the level it should be and we're not getting the inventory resupply at the level it should be. So it then sets up this almost expediter mentality where I have to go and search out items and search out things, and so it doesn't allow the teams to be strategic.
Speaker 2:So I think that's another piece, and then the last one I'd say is a failure in this industry has a name, I think in industry name. You know, I think in industry if we fail at a car, we fail on an inventory piece that goes onto a car. It's a statistic. Okay, we hit 98, we hit 97.3%. That's the difference In healthcare. If something bad happens, it has a name and it has a name and an impact.
Speaker 2:So I think there's this almost ongoing challenge to continue to try and perform and do better but do it in a way that actually doesn't allow any failures to happen. And I think that's just an ongoing challenge. It needs that level of oversight and that conservative nature. But by the same token, I think that's another aspect that makes it a little bit different. So when you said early on, like this archaic healthcare, I think healthcare is kind of operated the way it has in my observations because that's the way it's kind of been set up. I think it's one of those things tell me how I'm going to be rewarded, tell you how I'll perform.
Speaker 2:I think that you know the GPOs and the distributors have come into play because they're thinned down capabilities in each of the health systems. So this resupply infrastructure that's created itself has knitted itself together and done pretty well, I mean. So I think the COVID kind of exposed some real challenges. So you know, it's one of those things where if you want to optimize on costs, you're going to reduce inventory, you're going to reduce some redundancy, you're going to reduce resupply capabilities, and then it kind of certainly with COVID, that certainly exposed a lot of those challenges as well. So a lot said there, but I think those are some of the key points.
Speaker 1:Well, what I like about that is you didn't do what a lot of people that were from industry that have come into health care have done, and that is naively say, come in with the observation of you guys are screwed up, we know what we're doing, it's very simple and we can handle this. And I can't tell you the number of big name folks that have come from XYZ Corporation into healthcare that have left a couple years later shaking their heads, wondering why they didn't succeed.
Speaker 1:And it gets down to. Yogi. Berra once said that baseball is 90% mental and the other half is physical, and I would say that healthcare is probably 90% political and interpersonal, relationship-based, and the other half might be operational, and that's the thing that has to be learned. You can have a formal healthcare I mean a formal training and supply chain but then you need to understand how the milieu that you're going into, which is healthcare, works and be able to build relationships there.
Speaker 2:But I do think, fred, as time goes on, as the technology and some of our capabilities get better, I would hope systemically we could get beyond some of the relationships. I have this theory, like you said, when I walked in I talked to Ken Grant and Bill Kennett at Johns Hopkins and you know you assess people. Hey, they're smart people, you know, and they're doing it this way and to your point, you come in from industry like this is screwed up, this all should be better. You know, I felt like I was missing something. So you have this tendency to kind of just keep being point Amazon came in left, walmart came in is kind of leaving.
Speaker 2:So how do we kind of create the foundational infrastructure? My fear is that there's almost this health care industrial complex that's making money, sometimes that isn't letting go, and I haven't figured it out. I'm not smart enough to kind of dig in and figure all the loose ends, but there's this feeling of this almost inertia that doesn't want to take place. So I'm excited about the idea of what we can do and continue to kind of push and then hopefully in time. You know, relationships are always incredibly important. I would never downplay that. But I would hope that we can get a little more systemic in our replenishments and in our capabilities as time goes on.
Speaker 1:Well, one thing that I would say that I've observed in the last few years is that you know you get the old guys like me, and that we started out we sort of invented everything we had to do to make things work, but we had a very simple environment.
Speaker 1:We just had to know how to back the truck up to the dock, how to pull this stuff off the truck and how to push it until it got to where it needed to go. I mean, that's oversimplifying, but we were a single site acute care hospital. Now we have multi-site systems. There were very few of any of us that were formally trained in supply chain. The ones that did have training in logistics came from the military and those guys the military was great at providing logisticians and people that knew that stuff. But now we're actually getting schools that produce that knew that stuff. But now we're actually getting schools that produce healthcare specifically trained supply chain people. And with the growth of the systems to becoming larger and more complicated, we're getting the systems are realizing that they need to have people with genuine credentials and genuine capabilities, and I think that speaks well for it too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think, if I could add to that, I mean, I think if you see the systems getting bigger, what you're going to see is more and more healthcare systems really have to kind of build out their own supply chain organizations, right With capable folks, so they can't rely on the GPOs and the distributors they're going to have to kind of build out, or, if they're going to direct them, they really ought to have that capability as well.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I think there's hope in the sense that I think there's a lot of things in play are going to get better. But I also feel frustrated personally because some stuff hasn't moved nearly as long as I think it should have. You know, we should be further along, we really should, and it feels like a lot of the default is and I'm not no disrespect to your comment but it's like, hey, it's all about relationships. It's like no, if we could figure this out systemically, we could take a large chunk of this, turn it away from expediting, turn it away from the people and allow it to operate very systemically, and I think there'd be a lot of benefit inherently to these health systems and ultimately money that could then be used for either paying the frontline workers, more or more care provided to the patients or more equipment provided for the patients, so we could free up capital in that regard.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that the systems that are making that progress the most are the ones that have taken away the single, the single most volatile variable, and that was the fact that prior to, within maybe the last 10 years or so, there were so many independent practitioners, doctors practicing medicine at community hospitals that they held the, the, the operation, hostage. Now, so many of the doctors are working for the systems and when you have, when you, when you have those, when you've created an infrastructure where you have Accountability there, then you can start to move toward those other things. And I think that's I think you see that in all the places that are performing really well now that the doctors are no longer able to just dictate the outcome by wanting someone something or and being able to get it because they asked for it yeah, we did a lot of work for view med, which is a military treatment facilities across all the navy hospitals, and it was unique because there everybody's an employee as well.
Speaker 2:So it was an interesting perspective because it's not, you know, surgeons that are really dictating, it's a little more operations focused, but you still have some of those tensions and they're they're real. Yeah, perspective because it's not, you know, surgeons that are really dictating, it's a little more operations focused, but you still have some of those tensions and they're real.
Speaker 1:Yep. So how did you go about building a healthcare specific team and how much did you borrow from the other side of St Onge, the non-healthcare side?
Speaker 2:Well, since I pretty much everything I learned was from the other side, I borrowed everything. Well, since I pretty much everything I learned was from the other side of water and everything. So I think from my perspective, I saw health care as a bit of a laggard when it comes to operations, excellence and supply chain. So I felt, like you know our organization, it happened in every industry. I was doing work in pharmaceutical industry and we kind of lifted some really good ideas from grocery we're doing a lot of work with consumer products and lifted some really good ideas from grocery we're doing a lot of work with consumer products and lifted some really good ideas from pharmaceuticals. So, in the same sense, really look to cherry pick the best ideas across all the industries and bring those into health care. So in that sense I would say you know the rigor at which we go about doing our work, that industrial engineering lens, like how do we really look and attack a problem, the best practices, whether they be the process or the automation from other industries, and that whole rigor and business case evaluation, I think were kind of the core components that we really borrowed. So, and you know we were doing lean studies. I did lean studies for GE at that nuclear or that nuclear power fuels plant and also the locomotive plant 20 years ago, like late 90s, you know 2015,. I'm doing lean studies for healthcare, I mean that's just gives you an idea of some of the where things were. So I think that kind of brought some visibility.
Speaker 2:And once we started doing the rigor and brought that level of analysis to the table, it became pretty apparent we needed more engineers. So a lot of our staff that's on our end, is a part of our team, is really kind of this unique blend of operations and engineers, but really industrial engineers applied industrial engineers. So that allows us to kind of attack the problem in that context. But then over time we've also added folks like Ash Crow, who brings an operations piece. So you can't have too many engineers because you know engineers will over-engineer anything At some point. I say you got to stop the calculations, shoot the engineer and make a decision. So we need this blending of that operations mindset and judgment that comes from running an operation in combination with the engineer and the analytics.
Speaker 2:And sometimes, like you know, sometimes the engineers are going to win part of that argument, sometimes operations needs to win part of that argument. But that tension that we can create is a really positive one because that'll vet the ideas in a way that I think it's in the best interest of the health care institution, vet the ideas in a way that I think it's in the best interest of the healthcare institution. So we're going to continue to build out capability like that combination of the operations and this industrial engineering. So we just recently added a pharmacist to our team and we're pretty excited about Sharon and what she's going to bring to the table. It really allows us to kind of leverage that skill set as well. And there may be some other areas like that that we really want to tap into. But it's really that combination of engineering rigor but then that operational mindset, because people are typically part of the solution. So we really want to be thoughtful and judgment in that regard as well.
Speaker 1:Well, that's great, and Sharon is I. Sharon has been a guest already and she's a wonderful job. She, she has the unique skill that I really value she can take complex things and make them so that they are understandable to the average person, and that that that is a real talent, and that's how you and I learn Right we need people like that around because I ain't that bright. I'm still looking for my parking tickets for the concert on Thursday. So what successes are you particularly proud of with the team since you started it up?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I'm reflecting a little bit on my career when we talked a little bit beforehand, but I think I was really excited about some of the one-off projects I was involved with at CLACSO and some of these others, but specifically the healthcare team. I think I'm more excited about seeing the development of our team, seeing the opportunities that we're getting for the institutions that we're blessed to be part of and then ultimately seeing the impact of our work. I think the work we do will have an impact on nursing and patients and you know I've shared this story many times, but you sit in a if you just you know if you're lucky or unlucky enough to sit in the waiting area at the front of a hospital to meet somebody, but you just observe the people that are coming through and some of the challenges they're up against. It's a pretty heady impact and it's a pretty humbling component if you think about our capacity to potentially, in a positive way, impact some of those people in a good way.
Speaker 2:So, whether that's improving the environment so the nursing staff has a better situation, or designing the hospital, that's very thoughtful about these things to allow capital to be reallocated to other areas in the hospital. So I think those areas are big. So I think it's the ability to kind of get involved in the projects we've been involved in and the team I mean the power of our team and the collaboration of our group. I think that's pretty cool stuff. I mean to sit in some of our Wednesday meetings, not really say a whole lot, and just see the level of thought and care that comes from our people. I think that's pretty impactful. So I would say those are the areas. That's how I'd answer it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'd have to say that from someone who's definitely not even close to being an engineer. I am so impressed with the people we have, the young folks, the rigor they put into what they do, the way they discuss. They discuss issues and get variable, varying inputs from other of their peers. Those Wednesday meetings are really, really good. I've learned an awful lot from those things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's fun and you know, with COVID I think it's some of the things we learned, just to adapt, because folks didn't want to come in the office and we kind of old school like you need to come in the office. But then it became a. You know, they challenged us saying if we're going to come in, what are we going to do differently? So that led to let's have some very intentional collaboration and that could be brainstorming a project. It could be talking about a new technology, it could be talking about a project we just completed, so shared some shared learning. So it's been really. You know, nobody can I can't certainly claim those ideas as far as having the meetings, but very impressed with and thankful that've kind of went down that path.
Speaker 1:So what direction do you see the practice going over the next five to 10 years?
Speaker 2:Well, I think the practice is going to continue to hopefully continue to maybe help set the standard on on the planning side. I hope that we Chiron gets integrated really well, I think, as healthcare systems are kind of trying to manage their costs. I think this centralization or this consolidation is going to continue to happen. The centralization of support service functions is going to happen, as a lot of the C-suite is going to ask questions like how do we leverage scale? How do we, you know, how do we get more efficient? Is there a way to reduce the built environment? How do we, you know how do we get more efficient? Is there a way to reduce the built environment? How do we get more operationally efficient? And I think those levers are really coming from you know how do we think about the world differently. So the problem isn't now necessarily at the department level or even at the hospital level. It's a system level.
Speaker 2:I'm excited about that for our company because I think these consolidated service centers, these off-site locations that serve multiple assets in the health system, really played our strengths, which is logistics centralization, creating centers of excellence for capability like central, sterile pharmacy, mail order pharmacy, operations, distribution, biomed and the like.
Speaker 2:So I think that trend is going to continue and I think our team is going to really respond and our capability to really address those problems and maybe even lean more on our you know, our non-healthcare brethren. If you will. To look at some of the logistics modeling, maybe route analysis, some of the other tools that we use to really optimize, we've used linear what is it? Mixed integer, linear program modeling to help assess where you put a distribution center. So it's a pretty intensive optimization tool and we've actually used that for one health system I think it was HCA. We did that analysis. So I'm excited about where those tools can go as well. So I think, in that breath, I think we're going to add a little more capability to our team and we're going to continue to expand and I think the team's in a really good position and Tom Redding's getting ready to take it over. So I think we're going to be really in a good position going forward.
Speaker 1:Well, I I tell you what. Um, I think you've done a great job while you've been here, sean, and it's uh, it's been my pleasure and privilege to know and work with you, but so what did I miss that you'd like to talk about?
Speaker 2:I think maybe the one thing that for me that's really intriguing, fred, is and it's maybe some research I've been doing on my own too, but it's that whole idea around the convergence of artificial intelligence, more computing horsepower, the idea of a digital twin for a human, all those things that really is going to disrupt healthcare in a good way, right? So I think Cleveland Clinic's actually done some modeling this recently. You know, care at home. People don't want to come to the hospital. I love my dad dearly. I mean, he's 93 and he makes these statements that are pretty simple but yet important. He's like you know, you think about it, sean.
Speaker 2:The whole concept of the hospital is pretty flawed and I said well, what do you mean by that? He goes, we take all these different sick people and we put them in one building. It's like, yeah, you create a soup. So it was interesting. But I think the point is that if we can care for folks at home, that's important. But I think more importantly, like, can we get beyond this? Can we get beyond this reactive care, this sick care? Can we get to preventative care? Like, can we really take Sean's DNA, which used to cost a half million bucks to actually profile. Now they can do it for a hundred bucks or a couple hundred bucks. Can they take all that information about me? Can I take my Apple watch and 15 other things and do a really predictive and proactive monitoring and helping me to stay out of the hospital and kind of put an end to a lot of this incredible pain and suffering? And I think, with AI, honestly, I think it's coming.
Speaker 2:So for me, I'm excited about the potential future of health care, and people have used the term healthy care. I'm excited about it because I really do think we're going to get there, you know, and I think maybe it's a little too optimistic. I look at a couple of the futurists. There's a guy named Ray Kurzweil. He's a futurist at Google and his what do I say? His predictions are spot on. They're usually about 10 years off, but directionally man, we're going in some really, really good places.
Speaker 2:But you think about how many people go to get health care that aren't necessarily going to need health care if they're properly managed beforehand, and I think that's the kind of stuff that super excites me. So I'm excited about that and I'm excited about, you know, what impact we certainly can have. But that was just the other piece and certainly you know, appreciate everything you've been doing, fred, certainly for the industry, for your whole career. I also appreciate what you're doing now and I think this is a good place for you to be with these podcasts. You look cool, you act cool and you're a cool dude, so we really appreciate everything you're bringing to the table.
Speaker 1:Well, I like the way you read the material I sent you. You read it real well.
Speaker 1:No shauna as the people would say you're the dude yeah, I'm the dude, the uh, the one thing that I think is going to be interesting and and we're almost at the end of our thing, but um, everything that can be moved forward can be accomplished, but the folks that are at the status quo and profiting from the status quo are going to fight it every way and that's that's the difficult part, that's the part that's going to going to, I think, is going to be tough I think that's where I said that when early on, when I got involved.
Speaker 2:I think there's this almost I'd say I can't think of a better term but it's almost the industrial complex of healthcare and there's a lot of people making money off of healthcare, some of it very above board. There's incredible doctors and incredible nurses, incredible people out there, and there's other folks that I think honestly, think they're doing great work but maybe it's not as efficient. And then there's other folks that may be a little little more concerned about their pocket than they are about the care of people and somehow, if we could disrupt this you know it's always it's funny, you know it's how can you get the doctor closer to the patient on a consistent basis? Right now we've got all these, you know people and layers and layers and layers. And I think when we were working that project, you and I in Penn State and I can't remember the supply chain guy's name, but he sent us the flow- of money.
Speaker 2:Yeah, bagley, richard Bagley. He sent us the contextual reference of all the flows of money, and boy it's confusing. So there's some folks in there that are getting some money along the way. But great point, I agree with you.
Speaker 1:I think there's hope and, sean, I really appreciate having you as a guest and uh hope to have you again before you uh sail off into the sunset sounds good, fred.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much, yep. Thank you take care take care bye.