Taking The Supply Chain Pulse

So You Moved “South” To Cleveland: Building A Future-Ready Supply Chain Without The Drama

• St. Onge

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We explore how Cleveland Clinic scales supply chain excellence across 26 hospitals and hundreds of sites through daily safety huddles, rapid standardization, and honest system-wide assessments. Sarh Charai shares practical lessons on strategic supplier partnerships, recruiting for purpose, and closing the AI skills gap.

• Role and scope of enterprise supply chain operations
• Daily safety huddles and fast escalation
• Standardizing new acquisitions onto common systems
• System-wide assessments and cross-industry benchmarking
• Strategic supplier partnerships that improve operations
• Co‑op models to develop frontline and graduate talent
• Recruiting for purpose and retaining caregivers
• Addressing the technology and AI skills gap
• Practical advice for new supply chain leaders

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Got a topic you’re fired up about or maybe you want to be a guest on the show? Fred would love to hear from you. Just reach out at fcrans@stonge.com.


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SPEAKER_00:

Hello everyone, this is Michael WithScompany, and I'm excited to work with this week's guest on Equivalent Supply Chain Policy. Today's episode Write Sits Down with Sarah Gerai, the Executive Director of Supply Chain Operations for the Cleveland Clinic. With more than 20 years of supply chain experience, Sarah has seen and led the work from both ends of the spectrum, giving her a uniquely well-rounded perspective on what truly makes the supply chains resilient and effective. We'll be diving into the policies and procedures implemented at the Cleveland Clinic, how they've evolved, and what other organizations can learn from their approach to operational excellence. Let's dive in.

SPEAKER_02:

Sarah has a big job with one of the country's largest and and most uh uh important IDNs. But what Sarah wants to talk about today are some procedures and some policies and some ways of doing business that they have implemented at the Cleveland Clinic that can be applied anywhere. So, Sarah, welcome to our podcast. Thanks for having me, Fred. Uh my first question is how did it feel to move to a warmer climate? Sarah's one of the few people who came from a place colder than Cleveland to Cleveland.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, my my husband jokes um when he said he says, um, when I said I wanted to move south, I was thinking a little further than Ohio. But um, you know, I have I have grown to really, really love Cleveland.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, we're glad to have you. And don't tell anybody about how great Cleveland is because we really don't want anyone to know. Okay. Let them make fun. That's all I say. Let them make fun. They don't live here, they don't know. So so tell us about your role at the clinic. Oh, first off, tell us a little bit about your history because I'll I'd like people to know where you gained experience and where you came to this role from.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so um I have been in um supply chain for over 20 years. I started my um my supply chain journey at Alina Health in Minneapolis, where I was there um for 20 years. I started actually on the sourcing side of the house, and then I moved into operations. So I I actually um have been able to experience supply chain um for on both ends of the spectrum. And when I left Alina, I was leading um supply chain operations at Alina Health and then moved over to uh Cleveland Clinic um about two years ago. And today I lead supply chain operations for Cleveland Clinic. So I lead all of our caregivers that are out at the hospitals and at the site. So that's everybody that's doing everything from doing the receiving at the docks, um ordering and putting away the supplies at all of our sites. Um I also have a team that we call the Center of Excellence. So they're doing things like implementing our inventory management system. Um they're doing things like inventory optimization, um, setting our pars, um, moving product so it doesn't expire from site to site, um, and working on some of our special projects that we do.

SPEAKER_02:

And what is the scope? Is the scope across the entire Cleveland Clinic Foundation operation, which means Arizona and Florida as well as Northeast Ohio?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, it is, it's enterprise-wide. Um, you know, a lot of people don't realize that Cleveland Clinic is um is bigger than just Cleveland, you know? And so um we do have sites that I oversee and caregivers in our Florida market, um obviously in Northeast Ohio. Um we have a dotted line to um our facility in in London, and then we do do consulting um for our facilities um in over in Abu Dhabi and and in Nevada and Toronto as well.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow. Um one of the interesting things that I learned from uh, and we'll talk probably about this conference uh that I think took place at the end of February, uh, was that um every day the Cleveland Clinic at every level of the organization has a uh a huddle where basically everyone communicates what's going on so that everybody knows everything they need to know every day. Could you talk a little bit about that, how that what that is and how that works?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we call that our it's our safety huddle. Um, and it's it's it's a really great process that we use um to get things done and addressed in in a really quick, efficient manner. Um it's a it's an escalation process. So um it starts at the at the front line. Um it's a way to identify and escalate safety issues and a way to communicate up and down. Um and so it starts early in the morning. Um frontline caregivers meet and escalate to their managers, and it goes all the way up to our all the way up to our top executives, and um things get done really, really quick and addressed really quite um fast. And um it's it's it's a wonderful method to hear what's going on all over the organization, um, and like I said, address any issues or concerns um um at all of our sites immediately.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and just for our listeners uh understanding, how many sites is that?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh well, well, we have um like 26 hospitals, I think, um, throughout the organization. And you know, we have hundreds of other facilities, and um and we're all connected then every morning to what's going on throughout all of them.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that that's amazing. Isn't it so uh and yeah as connected as you are, each area has individual sort of uh uh differences that have to be managed. So you were sitting there working with Tom Lubotsky up in uh in uh Alina, one of my one of my one of my good friends, and a nice place you've been for 20 some years, you couldn't get better, everything was you knew everything. What how did you get wooed to uh to the clinic? And what were you what were you given as your directive and your expectations when you came there?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, you know, um I I always say that um I I hit the jackpot when it came to when it come when it came to leadership. I uh was lucky enough to have wonderful leaders um throughout my whole career, including Tom, as you mentioned, and then to be lucky enough to land here at Cleveland Clinic um and work for someone like Steve Downey. It's uh it's just it's amazing. And it was, you know, it's just uh it was a perfect time in um my life personally to make the move to Cleveland Clinic. But my youngest son was going off to college, and so um personally it was it was we were able to to move and relocate, and just it was a great fit um for me from a career perspective. Um everything that uh I wanted to do from a strategic perspective, um, it was a great match. Um uh all of the initiatives that Steve had teed up uh at here at Cleveland Clinic. Again, just a really great match with everything that that um they had um going on um from a supply chain operations perspective. So excellent opportunity. Feel really lucky, feel feel feel really lucky to be here.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh did you have any uh any performance targets or and did Steve have any framework in mind of what he wanted to accomplish by putting you in the role when you came here? And if so, what were they?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, you know, I think um some of the things that um I had, I think some of the things that I had done um at Alina and um had been working on again was was good um for what Steve had envisioned here. So for instance, you know, I had um aligned case cart picking under materials at Alina, and that's one of the things that um we're doing here at Cleveland Clinic in preparation for, you know, we have a big initiative around um centralization and standardization through our periop strategy that we're working on. Um so that was that was a big perfect alignment, and I had some experience in that. Um, so good really good fit. Um, you know, we're assessing some um off-site um strategies. Um again, I had some experience in that at at Alina as well.

SPEAKER_02:

So nice to Yeah, you used a word there that I think is an important word. I I try to tell people that everybody that's it's in supply chain anywhere should develop a starting point, should should do an assessment of their current operations to see where they are. That assessment uh comparing them to the key performance indicators that they develop as important to monitoring their operation. See where you are to get started. And I and I know uh that um many of the smaller places say we can't do that, uh we don't have time, we don't have the money, uh and or we have a staff that does we don't need to do that because our staff knows what they're doing. Well the Cleveland Clinic is one of the great IDNs in uh this in this country. And if my uh my I always point out uh that if the Cleveland Clinic can decide that it needs to do an assessment of its supply chain operations, then perhaps you should too. Tell us about Steve's uh about the the overall system-wide assessment that that you have undergone.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh yeah, I think um like you said, I think it's always good to uh take a pause and um take a look inward and see where you are and compare yourself not only against um others in your industry, but um also um how others outside of your industry are doing it, right? I mean um we we are also taking a look at um how other supply chains outside of healthcare, um how what what they're doing and what um automation as an example they're using and and some of their best practices. So um yeah, just just taking taking lessons learned and looking at um um how you can do better, what areas of opportunity there are, um it's good to validate things you're doing well and um areas that that you can um improve on, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Right. Um, you know, going from that, well, one of the things that I know that uh you guys have been doing, and this gets to what I wanted to talk about and what I think you're bringing up, is the idea of strategic partnerships with suppliers. And as I have said, probably now in about three or four of these podcasts, I attended a two-day conference that the clinic put on late February uh that was different than anything I'd ever attended before. And it was uh it was uh 200 uh would-be or current suppliers to the uh Cleveland Clinic were present, and the two-day conference uh sort of opened up the Cleveland Clinic's role and its its goals and its mission to the suppliers and told suppliers what they expected as far as the way to successfully do business with the clinic. Could you talk about the concept of strategic partnerships and what that means to you?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I always I always get excited when um we start talking about strategic suppliers and um how can um we can work together in in taking a partnership to the next level. And the reason why is because when it really comes down to it and when you get really serious about um being creative and coming um up with different creative and innovative solutions, so often it starts touching on the operations, right? And that's my world, and so that that's what really gets exciting, and oftentimes the solutions um um they're really fun to work on these projects. And again, they they start getting very into the operations part of part of the equation. Um and uh so uh that's exciting because the they start impacting things that it's about like how can we become more efficient in what we do? How can you know, maybe it's about how can we help um staff, whether it's how they do their day-to-day work, whether it's um helping them from a career advancement perspective. Um a lot of things um that we're working on today with suppliers touch our world, my team, and um that that's exciting to me.

SPEAKER_00:

Before we dive back in, you may be asking yourself, is my supply chain future ready? At CNOC Company, we don't just optimize logistics. We engineer smarter, leaner, and more resilient systems from end to end, from manufacturing to retail to healthcare. Our experts bring decades of experience in cutting-edge strategies to transform your operations. Visit and discover how we're shaping the future of supply chain one solution at a time.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh, yeah, you uh talked about um some things like uh well, you talked about the fact that you, like everyone else, has staffing issues. Yeah. And and part of the approach to staffing uh challenges, shall we say, has been uh some creative things like co-op programs with uh with suppliers. Talk about that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, you know, we had worked um this past um this past summer, we had done a a program with one of our supplier partners, Cook, and I I think it's it was an amazing program, and it was it was with a graduate student, and you know, I noticed that a lot of these co-ops and these these partnerships with our suppliers tend to be with college level or graduate level um talent. And you know, a lot of my team is coming out of quite they're coming out of high school and they're they're not necessarily, they they don't necessarily have college degrees, and so I would love to work with supplier partners and look at how can we take that concept and work together and bring it down into like the warehouse level and into some of my team. And and um I would love to explore that a little further because the concept um works so well um in some of these these uh higher skills at higher level. Um I'd love to expand on that. And so when we talk about um what added value can these suppliers bring, um that's the type of creative and innovative solutions that we're looking for when we say um working together to bring added value. Um, you know, I have to think that a lot of these suppliers are dealing with the same type of issues that I'm dealing with. Um, you know, they have warehouses, they're competing with the Amazons and the Targets and the Walmarts of the world to attract and retain talent for their warehouses as well. I would love to see us all, you know, work together to keep this talent in the healthcare supply chain industry. And let's work together to do that, right? Because they too want to have career advancement opportunities. And so if we could come up with programs where you know you do a bit of your co-op at some supplier's warehouse, and then you come to a provider and work at their warehouse or at their um hospital, um, I think that would be um a really fun job opportunity for for that level of caregiver.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, you know, I would you you're you're getting into uh into something a couple days ago. LinkedIn has started to ask me questions and you know uh I I realize that my response becomes a post. But uh one of the questions was um how if I were going to be considering going into healthcare in the next five years or so, what should I be on the lookout for? And one of my one of my answer always about healthcare is healthcare is a we business versus a me business. And that that uh conference that you had opened with uh the most powerful um the most powerful video, I think the Cleveland Clinic Empathy is the name of the video for folks who want to see it. Um how do you how do you what kind of strategies do you have to A recruit people and then B give them the uh feeling that they want to commit to doing this for a lifetime? Right.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, it does take a special type of person. We are kind of looking for a special type of person to come work for us, you know, because we're not gonna be the highest paid, um, we're not gonna be able to pay the highest amount out there. And so we do have to make sure that you're here for the right reasons. And I kind of laugh because um, you know, there's the oftentimes we ask the question, why do you want to work in healthcare? And so often I get the answer, you know, this might sound corny, and then you go, they go into, I want to um, I really want to make a difference. And it it really isn't corny, and that is exactly the type of answer that we're looking for, is we do want those people that really do want to make a difference, um, because um it is hard work, and again, I'm not gonna be able to pay you the top uh salaries out there. Um, so we do look for people that want to make a difference. Um and that that video perfectly states it, I think. Um yeah, it's a really it's a great video for those who haven't seen it. I think it's on YouTube and you can look it up.

SPEAKER_02:

It is, and I and I've watched I why I I show people because because that is that is the big difference. Uh one of the things that that we uh Amy Watson and myself uh from St. Ange last uh uh spring, we went down to the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, which is where Dr. Randy Bradley was teaching. Now he's at Belmont, and we uh addressed both an undergraduate class and a graduate class of uh of MBA students. And um at the end of it, we had about four or five people come up, and this one woman, young woman came up. said I've always wanted to do something that uh is important and and you know this discussion of what it means to be in in in healthcare supply chain Amy Amy uh uh working for us as a as a um uh senior person now also spent several years uh as a healthcare supply chain professional at Penn State Health and some other places so and I've been doing this for sixty years now um and and so they got a they got a picture and really there are people out there that are hungry to do this. And and um and you you probably I know I know I was um supply chain leader at several of uh part places that are now part of the Cleveland clinic. I ran a supply chain at Timkin Mercy Medical Center in Canton back in the 80s.

SPEAKER_01:

I ran um uh the um Meridia Health System supply chain which is uh Hillcrest and a bunch of the other places that are now part of the clinic um uh that they had uh devoted employees that have been there forever uh but when you go into these places and this gets back to the assessment you're finding as you acquire a new hospital you're you're acquiring various uh degrees of disrepair and uh infrastructure uh uh needing to be fixed and everything uh how do you go about approaching that and staying ahead of the game like the the the the um one function that I think is easiest to you could walk into any any hospital in this country anywhere and their central sterile supply probably has about 10 things that need to be fixed at least and and uh sterile supply is a place that nothing ever gets done until something breaks oh and and and as you guys as you guys you know build your practice and you acquire these older hospitals um you have to do an assessment and decide how to approach problems in there do you have a do you have a methodology for going about uh assessing those places or um well you know I think um one of the things that I've noticed since I've been here and um you know I've only been here two years but one of the things that I've noticed about the most recent um acquisitions that Cleveland Clinic has done um is that what they do is that they've gone in and at least from a supply chain perspective they've gone in and they've made sure that they move them as quickly as possible to the systems the Cleveland clinic systems and the platforms that um that they're on so as an example they move them as quickly as possible to the Cleveland clinic inventory management system so when you when you look across all of our hospitals and facilities they are all on we're all on the same inventory management system all of them and that um that standardization is very important for all of the um initiatives that we do from a supply chain perspective for for that consistency and that standardization from a system perspective um and um I find that that that's a that's a really great strategy I think right get them on the Cleveland clinic systems get them on the Cleveland clinic platforms um on the standard equipment get them using the standard supplies um yeah that that standardization is important yeah I do you uh do you find that it's a relatively easy transition or do you meet with some pushback from time to time um I think um it's it depends on what I I think it depends on what what you're talking about from a systems perspective probably um a bit easier just because I don't think that they have much of a choice right I mean uh it's um it is what that is the way right um like anything when you talk about moving them to more of a supply right um that there's a bit of more change management that has to happen there um but I think that what I think there's a lot of expectation setting up front and um I think that is um I think because that happens um I think that makes that transition a bit easier.

SPEAKER_02:

That's good. So what are your what are your immediate challenges and what do you where what do you see your organization doing moving forward for the next couple of years?

SPEAKER_01:

You know I think um everybody probably realizes this about Climb Clinic is it's um so the the it moves so quickly from um an innovation and technology perspective. I think that's it's exciting but um the challenges there especially you know obviously I'm operations and um I think um my concern there and something that I uh think about a lot is that skill set gap that I I um am aware I'm gonna have from a team um perspective and going back to that you know going back to where we started um with the strategic partnerships and how can supplier suppliers play a role in that um I think um there's an opportunity for suppliers to help um when it comes to um addressing that skill set gap that we have and and how can we creatively work together when it comes to um minimizing that um minimizing that gap um I that when I when you think about what keeps me up at night, right? Is it the that's one of the topics that keep me up at keeps me up at night that with technology and with all of the AI and automation that's um coming so quickly how do I make sure that my team is ready for it and how do I how do I address the um skill set gap that I that I believe that we we're gonna have.

SPEAKER_02:

Well it sounds like you're on top of it Sarah so that you got that going for you that's that's really good. And you know if you were to give advice to me a new guy entering the field at a um 300 bed community hospital as a the director of supply chain because at a 300 bed hospital I'm probably not going to be a V be a VP what would you tell me what would you tell me to keep my eyes open for don't be afraid um to try new things and uh learn and build a great team of of leaders around you and um and rely on um on on strong partnerships like I say build build a build a really strong team I think that's um that's a key to success is is the strong team that you have a that you build around you. Yep I think you're right I think the only thing I would add to that is find a mentor or mentors that you can lean on. I mean I know you've had you had at least one excellent one that I know and that's Tom Lobotsky. And you work for a you work for a one of the great supply chain leaders in the country now and Steve Downey and and you're active in your uh group purchasing organization and professional uh professional uh groups too the one thing that uh I always back in the real old days when we used paper and telephone long distance calls cost money uh we had to read magazines and we didn't get to go too many places we didn't have the ability to connect and learn uh like we do today that's one thing that's a real a real uh big opportunity for people to take advantage of absolutely but we're glad to have you in Cleveland uh we're happy that someone actually had to move south to come to to to Cleveland uh and uh and we're glad that you're happy here uh hopefully uh we'll be seeing you around soon Sarah and thank you so much for being a guest on our podcast it's been great having you fred well that's all for today thanks so much for joining us and don't forget to hit that subscribe button and connect with us online so you'll never miss an episode and can catch up on all the ones you might have missed.

SPEAKER_00:

Got a topic you're fired up about or maybe you want to be a guest on the show? Fred would love to hear from you. Just reach out at F C R A N S at S T O N G E.com. We'll see you next time

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