What If Trust Was The Real Cost Saver

We talk with Joe Colonna about how value analysis in the healthcare supply chain creates better decisions by balancing clinical outcomes with financial reality. We also reflect on Bill McFaul's legacy and why trust, inclusion, and change management matter as much as pricing. 
• Bill McFaul's mentorship and his lasting impact on healthcare value analysis 
• Value analysis as a holistic method beyond product standardization 
• Demand matching and using premium products only where needed 
• Building consensus so clinicians and supply chain own the decision 
• Why “new product review” is not the same as value analysis 
• The shadow supply chain and the cost of unmanaged inventory and obsolescence 
• Educating frontline teams so they can explain changes and surface problems early 
• Recognizing supply chain work that stays invisible when it runs well 
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. 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 

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hi everyone, this is Mike With Finance Company, here to welcome you to another episode of Covenant Supply Chain Also. In today's episode, Fridays Down with Joe Corona, the lead supply chain operations at Pon Healthcare Atlanta. Together we dive into the critical role of value analysis on data healthcare supply chain and how it drives smarter and more sustainable decision making. Joe also shares reflections with his mentor, the late Bill McFall, whose influence and leadership left a lasting impact on the industry and on Joe's career. It's a thoughtful and insightful conversation you won't want to miss. So here's your host, Fred Kranz.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Joe, thank you for joining us.

SPEAKER_02 0:39

Well, thank you, Fred. I appreciate it. I appreciate you making the time for me.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

We've known each other for what, about 20 years?

SPEAKER_02 0:46

Yeah, at least.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

I think I've known you before you were at Piedmont.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

Yeah. Oh, uh probably, absolutely. Yeah, I've been here I've been here 17 years.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

Yeah, and Joe, uh, for those of you out there who don't know, actually uh went to Piedmont on a consulting gig and never left. Is that right?

SPEAKER_02 1:03

That's right. That's exactly right. The uh it was when I started, I was about six months here, and the CEO at the time said to me, You know you're not leaving, and I was like, Well, yeah, I might got other work to do. And he was right. As it turns out, he uh he knew what he was talking about.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

So But you know, just uh uh for a few seconds. So you're from you're from the north originally, right?

Joe’s Early Career And Culture Shifts

SPEAKER_02 1:26

I am. I'm from uh I grew up in Providence, Rhode Island.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Okay, and uh and you had you went down to the place that uh Sherman destroyed by bending the railroad tracks in the south. Uh what kind of a cultural adjustment was that for you?

SPEAKER_02 1:41

Well, honestly, before the the bigger cultural adjustment was uh my first when I was working for an outsourced uh supply chain company back then it was a material called materials management still. Um, and and they put me in um Jennings, Louisiana, which was a small town population of 11,000. I had been in the South at uh earlier out of the Air Force or out of the high school, I joined the Air Force, and they stationed me in Biloxi, Mississippi. But that's different because on a military base, you have lots of people from different places. Um the base itself was one of the larger uh Air Force bases, so it was a very large community. First time I think I feel really what you would consider the traditional um South was that uh gig for about five years in Jennings, Louisiana. And it's a great hospital, 49-bed facility, um, literally a gas food lodging stop off of I-10. Um, but that was, I mean, I was actually telling the story earlier. Um, one of my employees is actually leaving to go uh live in Rhode Island, and we were I was sort of preparing her for the cultural change. And I said, one of the things that it was interesting, you're having the reverse that I had, uh, which is what the CNO at this hospital said to me one time, after I've been there about a year, she said, you know, Joe, we like you a lot, but you talk too fast.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

So You do. But you know, you don't have a you don't have a New England accent. You have more of a a Chicago accent, really.

SPEAKER_02 3:07

I've actually never really had much of an accent anywhere I've I've lived. Um most of the time people are like, we know you're not from here, but we don't know where you're from. Um and some of that has to do with my dad, my dad being an actor, um, his whole life, Shakespearean actor and other things. He he really frowned on uh not speaking correctly and using slang and other things. And so so we may even I mean Rhode Island has its own distinct accent as well. And yeah, we never really my brother and I never really picked up that either. Um it was uh so yeah, everybody knows I'm not from here, but they don't know where I'm from necessarily.

Bill McFall And Value Analysis Origins

SPEAKER_01 3:42

There there you go. So uh as I said, recently one of the giants of uh of the healthcare supply chain industry, Bill McFall, passed. I know I know he was a mentor of yours, and he he was um he had a big hand in what we now call value analysis. And and over the course of these uh podcasts I have interviewed uh Barbara Strain and Bob Yokel, uh two other folks that are uh you know uh sort of anchor points of value analysis. But why don't you, if you would, tell us about your relationship with Bill McPhal, uh what you learned from him, what his impact on the industry uh has been, and sort of how you've gone about applying that uh across your career.

SPEAKER_02 4:29

Yeah, I so not only was he a mentor, Bill was a a very uh good friend and and probably the single most influential person in my career, especially my early career. Um and he saw things, and it wasn't just me, but speaking about me personally, he sees things in people that they don't see themselves sometimes. And you know, one of the one I I was in still early in my leadership career work actually working for a GPO, a regional GPO, when Bill and I met. And um he was doing some work for the for us as a consultant, and he and I really got along really well and have some very similar background uh in our in the way we came up, and and we really bonded over that. And then I got to um become very good friends with him, and and his family is like second family to me. Um, so I will try not to get emotional during this this conversation. But professionally, you know, he was he he would give you tough love. Like he said to me one time after we'd known each other for a while, and and I was we tell him all the time about like most young people, I want to do this, I want to do this, I want to do this, and I want to, and he's like, Well, Joe, look, here's the thing. You're never gonna technically be the best supply chain leader, but you have the opportunity to be a good leader of people. And when you're young like that, you don't like to hear you're not gonna be great at everything, right? I mean, you're you're not. But um, and I said that, I say, oh, you, you know, my in my head I'm thinking he's wrong, I could be great at all of it. But he turned out to be the some of the best advice I ever got, which is as a leader, you're not, if you're not technically the best at it, find people who are and surround yourself with people who are technically better and good leaders in their own right, but don't try to be the expert on, you know, be it ERP systems or the best way to uh manage inventory or whatever the many aspects are of our career. And and so I have really strive to surround myself with people who are both good leaders but also technical experts that can enable whatever it is we're trying to do. Um, Bill, you know, he um he did that for a lot of folks. He did it formally, he did it informally. There was a at his funeral, there was a lot of conversation. There were people that he'd worked with at Bill at McFall and Lyons, you know, he Bill and Diane Lyons created the true, the first true consultancy focused on healthcare supply chain. Um before then, it we you know, back when there was the big six firms or however many there were back then, in the 90s, 80s, and 90s, you know, there was nobody who was specifically focused on supply chain and healthcare. And in fact, for the most part, most healthcare organizations weren't really that worried about the not the way they are today, worried about their expenses. And Bill brought from a concept that existed outside of healthcare but had not really been uh a way we looked at it, which is value analysis. And now that's not the only thing Bipfall and Lions did. They did a lot of great things, but the whole concept of value analysis in healthcare we owe to Bill McFall and Diane Lyons, but this idea that you're gonna actually come together, bring a group of folks together, and together decide what is the most the device that brings the most value. And we're not just we're gonna look at it holistically, we're gonna look at the the clinical value, we're gonna look at the financial value, and then we're gonna get what I the way I describe it is you're not you may not always get what you want, but you're gonna get what you need to do the job.

From Standardization To Real Value

SPEAKER_01 7:47

That someone should make a song about that. Maybe the rolling stone. So let me let me jump in right here, okay? I'm gonna take you back to my start in uh in uh healthcare management. I became the director of central processing and distribution at Baptist Hospital in Miami in 1973 when I was uh twenty-seven years old. I had been in Vietnam. We had a product standardization committee and we would it was not called value analysis, it was called product standardization. And for you folks out there listening in in those days and and uh and Joe said something a minute ago where he said uh in the early days uh uh cost was not as big a factor uh of consideration in supply chain, that was because prior to 1983 healthcare uh was reimbursed on a cost plus basis. So we were more concerned with getting all the revenue for items we charge for than we were for controlling cost. But I being a young guy you know thought, hey, you know, what we use and how we use it is uh is uh more important than how much we pay for it. So I was in this utilization uh thing and we're in the product standardization committee. The model of those days was community hospitals. If you're in Miami, if your Baptist was in uh Kendall, doctor's hospital was in Coral Gables, South Miami Hospital was in South Miama, and all three of those places had predominantly the same medical staff. So there was the independent practitioners in those days, and uh they could pretty much dictate what they want. So they all did get what they wanted. They got what they wanted when they wanted it, okay? And uh we one year spent a whole year trying to decide on exam gloves as a standardization. Exam gloves, not surgeon clubs, exam clubs. Right. And I, as a young kid, made the mistake of saying to the doctors at one meeting, you know, doctor, when I was in Vietnam, we did not know who made the exam gloves. They came in a they came in a wrapper that said FSN, which stands for Federal Stock Number, and then they had a dash and a whole bunch of numbers after this. And uh the doctor looked right back at me and said, Son, you're not in Vietnam anymore. And I thought, okay, that's it. And and that's that's the milie in which you started and in which Bill McFall started as he came in. So pick it up where I dropped off and tell us how he how things have evolved and how he evolved things.

Getting Buy-In Through Inclusion

SPEAKER_02 10:27

Yeah, I I think the um the interesting thing about the the core idea behind value analysis or product standardization, I think sometimes that's what people think is the only goal is to standardize to a single product, and that's not right. The the goal of value analysis is to figure out what's the best way to get this product and and financially get it in a way that um, yeah, maybe more maybe a more expensive product, but how can we get it and utilize it and make sure that it's bringing the value that we think we should get, which is why it's called value analysis and not product standardization, right? Uh you may land on you're gonna have all the vendors, right? You're just gonna have a mechanism by which you're managing, okay, we're gonna use the most expensive products only on these cases, right? And it was now it's called demand matching. I I think it's all still value analysis. It's just a port, it's a piece of the total value analysis uh puzzle. You know, I gave a talk to a group um not long ago, and I said, you know, I think the misconception about value analysis is a lot. And it's really the opportunity to get voices heard and then build consensus around what the right way moving forward is, balancing both the clinical need and the financial need. You can't, today's environment, you cannot ignore it. I mean, you're right. When I started Fred, it wasn't, I was at the tail end of that portion where you got basically you're still charging for bedpans because you could get paid for bedpans, right? And and that doesn't, you know, that's a long time ago. But but I will tell you an interesting story that I learned. This is before I met Bill Eben, but is that those voices need to be heard. I remember as a young at in that hospital in Louisiana, young, probably in my 20s, I think I was probably about the same age you were, and um I said, I mean I bought a different plastic product. So, you know, the basins and the bed pans and all those. I just switched. And I came to work the next morning and there was a line of nurses outside my door waiting for me, and they were mad because I hadn't taken it, and I forget exactly why, but I the these new products were a different color. And they were up in arms because I had not consulted them before we changed the color. To me, it's like, what do you care? It's a bedpan, right? You know what they're used for, right? But but it matters, right? And that's that was a valuable lesson to me because it was a valuable lesson that you want to you want to let people have a voice. It was really more about this change happened and nobody had told them, and nobody had had consulted them. And they honestly, at the end of the day, only cared more about the way the change happened versus the actual change itself. So I it was you know, those valuable lessons you learn about including people in the conversation and having them become advocates. So it's you know, it's not the supply chain guy saying you can't use your product, it's your peer saying, no, we made an informed decision and together we decided to make this change happen. Um I think too often value analysis now is also confused with new product reviews. And and I think, you know, as an industry, I'm gonna say this, I'm not gonna make a lot of friends, but I think sometimes we have to have some intestinal fortitude and just look a doctor or a vendor in the eye and say, no, we're probably never gonna use your device here, as opposed to saying, well, it has to go through the value analysis committee or it has to go through this product or a committee or whatever, um, or you know, or blame it on the GPO. Well, you're not on the GPO contract, right? No, that's what that's why we get value analysis confused with other things. Value analysis really is meant to be a place where you bring a cross-section of people together to discuss the change that makes the most sense for the organization. Oftentimes financial, this is true, but also when you're talking about clinical and clinical outcomes. And and we we align that very closely with our clinical resources here. And they feel so they feel included in the process. And and I'll give you a quick story. Uh, we did it in my early days here, we did a lot of work. We have a Piedmont probably has one of the best heart programs in the country now. And early on, I worked very closely with the leaders in that area as they started to create the program. And we did a lot of, we were trying to both uh bring in this cutting-edge technology at the same time managing the cost around the entire program. And we've been working together several years. I was at a conference and one of our leader, physician leaders, called me and said, Joe, one of our doctors just called me up in arms because his rep told him that you were gonna make everybody change and you weren't gonna tell anybody. And I told and I said, What did you say to the doctor? And he said, Well, I told the doctor Joe would never do that. And then I said, Well, okay, well, why'd you call me?

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Just wanted to make sure I was right.

SPEAKER_02 14:52

But that, I mean, that's where you want to get, right? You want to get where there's a level of trust that and they're included in the process, so they know that if somebody says, Well, so this change is happening and nobody told us about it, the uh folks say, Well, that's not true. It's a it's a strange that we all decided to do together. And Bill brought that concept. Before then, that wasn't the concept, right? It was it felt either the physicians decided what you were going to use, clinicians decided on their own, and basically you bought it, or administration did things by dictate, by dictate, right? And um, and I I feel like there are while there's still organizations where that may feel like what the how it's working, the high functioning organizations haven't done it that way in years. And and and that's part of, I think that's a legacy, that's one of Bill's legacy. The other is um the number of leaders that you know, I mean, I'm sure I'd be surprised in your conversations with Barbara and others that Bill's name doesn't come up at some point. Um Yokel, I think, I think Yokel did a lot of great stuff, has done a lot of great stuff of value analysis, but I think he also recognizes that that exists because of the work Bill did. Um and and you know, he he was a genuinely, he could be tough and he could be relentless when it came to driving a need for change, but he also understood the value. You know, we I worked with him on a special project for a few years when he retired, when he was thinking about potentially coming out of retirement, but he'd become very um uh interested in change management and what it takes to change cultures and what it changes takes to change people. And he started talking about a concept of instead of a uh materials manager or a supply chain VP having an executive for all things expenses and and having a person, and I think that's what these roles have morphed into. I know here at Piedmont um supply chain is is much more than just dealing with supplies, right? I mean, that's the core function, but it's we get involved in much more than that and have essentially become internal consultants to the organization. And we apply that value analysis idea to all the things. It could be an IT tool, it can be a purchase service, it can be it's still the idea of being inclusive in the way you're making a decision. Doesn't mean you're not challenging people, doesn't mean everybody's gonna walk away with their favorite vendor or their favorite product winning, but it but it means everybody felt like they had a voice in the process, and and and then you get even greater support after you've made the decision.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

Before we dive back in, you may be asking yourself, is my supply chain future ready? CNOG 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.

The Shadow Supply Chain Reality

SPEAKER_01 17:43

You know, the there uh just uh implementing a process. If you look at, you know, you've you've been fighting this fight for a long time, and I was the other day I was talking with our mutual friend Ed Hiscock, and Ed brought up something a long time ago that I wrote remembered and wrote down. In healthcare, we don't have a single supply chain. We have we have a whole bunch of meat or boutique supply chains. Any any discipline has its own supply chain. And along with that comes the influence and the attempted leverage of the directors or the doctors or the clinicians that are uh responsible for managing that discipline. And that can even go into facilities and other places wherever there are things needed, there are people that think they know about these things better than any anyone else. And rather than applying a methodology with uh responsibility for certain aspects taken care of, they want to do it themselves. Uh I I'm sure you uh I'm sure you uh experienced that when you came to Piedmont.

Frontline Education And Daily Value Analysis

SPEAKER_02 18:47

Yeah, I I call it the shadow supply chain, right? And the and the shadow supply chain are areas that manage in some cases very expensive devices, not all, but very expensive products, and and really don't have professional supply chain training. And so their their priorities are just different, right? The the in the shadow supply chain you'll find that it's more about never run out, um, always get the duct keep the doctors happy, right? I mean, it's it's just a function of their role, which primarily some cases is clinical, and then they do this as a side hustle, right? And and I think the you know what we've done is try to embrace that shadow supply chain and educate them on the other aspects of what you should be looking at. I mean, and the shadow supply chain is where you see a bunch of uh obsolete stuff because the doctor changed their mind or a new doctor came in, and so they just keep it's additive, it's almost rarely deductive. And oh yeah, um, and it's because you're really just focused on on keeping the shop open and keeping the doors on. And and what we what we say is let us do that other aspect for you. Let us partner in that. And my promise is we're not gonna let you run out, right? But we're also gonna ask them questions like, okay, doc, you you said you want to use this instead. What about the you know, six-month supply of product we brought in for you before? I need you to do something with this before, right? And and having those kind of conversations and and and being specialists. I want clinicians to be clinicians, right? We have such a shortage of nurses and specialists right now and doctors. And I want I don't want them worried about supplies. I just want them to feel like it's there, right? They just show up and the stuff is there, and and if it changes, it's not a surprise because they've been well informed as to what the change is. Um, you know, I think the that that alignment is there's the official value analysis meetings, and then there's the day-to-day value analysis of those conversations, right? I I talk to our frontline employees all the time, and um, and I have a you know, I think we have like 800 team members now across our 24 hospitals. And my commitment is that uh I will meet all of them either virtually or in person in their first 30 to 90 days. And one of the things I say, especially to the frontline, is for most of these folks, you are supply chain. They may never get to meet me. We have 40,000 employees at Piedmont now, right, across huge geography. I would like to meet everybody, but I probably won't. So the day-to-day, the person restocking those shelves, that is supply chain to them. And I want that person to understand why the change is happening too. I want them to be able to explain what's going on. I want them to be able to raise their hand and say, hey, the docs aren't happy about this, and let me tell you why. And to me, that's that's part of that trust and relationship building that we talk about, right? Where you get, and that that's where the real the rubber hits the road is and and they're also the ones who have to explain when there's back orders, and they're the ones who have to explain when there's a challenge with products, and they get to you know get beat up on even though it's not their fault. And you know, I often and but to me that's all part of value analysis is that inclusiveness and that education and making sure everybody understands what we're doing, why we're doing it, and um, and then feels feels ownership, right? I mean, it's the I will say that I noticed. With physicians, the the most recent generations, their understanding of the financial aspects of it are much greater. And I don't know if that is what's going on in school or they just care or they they realize they can't not care about it the way maybe some of the older physicians used to be able to just come in and say, I don't want to hear about the numbers, I just want to take care of patients. That's just not the world we live in anymore. And but in both cases, they want to be part of the process, they want to know what's going on.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

So are are your physicians uh uh uh individual practitioners or are they uh employees of Piedmont?

SPEAKER_02 22:35

Both. We have both.

SPEAKER_01 22:37

Because you know, really when you look at the uh the clinics, the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, and Marshfield Clinic, any were any place that's got the word clinic in there. Right. It's usually usually owned by physicians, and those guys were always aware of what the decisions meant to their pocketbooks. So that they were they were sort of leaders in standardization, leaders in these processes because you know it it it uh it was meaningful to them. Whereas in uh in the uh traditional standalone community hospitals, you had individual practitioners. So you've been there 17 years.

Leadership Legacy And The Next Generation

SPEAKER_02 23:12

Yeah, you know what's interesting. I just I just want to finish the thought about Bill. Um the other thing that was great about Bill is you know, somebody will sometimes you see that somebody comes up with a really great idea and then they hang their hat on that for the rest of their career. Bill was always in flux. Bill was always trying to figure out how he could make it better. He was he was a rap rabid reader, um, always wanted to know what was going on, even after he retired, always wanted to hear about how it was going, what was going on, would always come up with different ideas, wasn't afraid to have his original ideas blown up or challenged, and and just really um I think that that is one of the things I strive for as well. I'm not always good at it, but one of the things he he instilled in me is don't get stuck in one way of doing things and don't be afraid to listen to other other voices and and change when necessary or modify what you're doing. And I've said that is one of the reasons I say when people, you know, I've built the supply chain, we have built the supply chain at Piedmont that Piedmont needs for their vision mission. I might build a different one if I was at a different health system based on what their mission is, based on what their goals are, based on what their their philosophy is. But I think that willingness to change, and and I think most importantly, um, and Bill, you know, Bill was very successful and smart and had an ego like the rest of us. But I think the other thing is don't ever let that be the thing that, you know, it's it I'm not building the Joe Colonna supply chain. I'm building the Piedmont Healthcare supply chain. Right? It's not it and it's not mine. I have the privilege of leading it, but it's not mine. I'm building a supply chain for Piedmont Healthcare to support what they're trying to do. And if and if you ever get out of that zone where you think it's about you, you probably need to move on.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

Oh yeah, and the organization needs to move on from you. Uh I I can say that when I was working with Tom Hughes at at uh BD Healthcare Consulting or Concepts and Healthcare, when I was working with Cap Gemini Accenture, we did we did what probably you talk about all expenses, we did non-salary expense reduction projects, okay? Uh but I would say that 70% of the stuff that we found out found and identified and got organizations to implement had already been identified and attempted to be told to the leadership by the people that had worked there for years and years and they had just been ignored. The people had not been included in the process, and it was almost like stealing money. I would I would I would take make it a point in my presentations if if uh somebody told me something to tell them where I got this from. Because I think the people needed to be recognized for it. Hey, you weren't listening to them. You're paying us big money because you weren't smart enough to listen to people you already had. And I think what you're talking about, what Bill McFall was talking about, is encourage people to speak up, not to be afraid of you or intimidated by you. And and and and if you do that and you apply the processes that you've talked about for formal value analysis, you're gonna have some pretty good outcomes.

SPEAKER_02 26:18

Yeah, agreed. Agreed. I think you know, what's the old joke? And uh, you know, you were a consultant, I've been a consultant. It's the old joke of you know, what's how you what's the definition of consultant? Somebody that looks at your watch and tells you what time it is, right? I mean, that's that frustration still exists. It's it's I've seen it um uh in others in other aspects and other ways, and it it really is there's nothing worse than sitting in a room and having somebody present your idea like it's theirs, right? I mean, there's just no worse feeling.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

Uh yeah, that that kills me. I've I've seen so many guys at the big meetings, and and the one guy that I always admired, and this is off the subject and we'll wrap it up here in a minute, but I always thought Bob Simpson did a good job of identifying his people and pointing them out who had come up with uh ideas. And Bob Simpson was a big personality and a you know, large, large person in our business, but he knew he knew the importance of the people that he had working with.

SPEAKER_02 27:14

I think you know, if if I was to if a thought I want to make sure that we talk about with Bill especially, but Bob and others is you know, there was no the concept of the idea that there would be an executive role in supply chain in a healthcare system or a hospital was nowhere on the radar 40 years ago. Right? Nowhere on the road when Bill started going out and and others, you know, we stand, I stand firmly on the shoulders of Bill and Bob and others. And my hope is that my shoulders are broad enough that the next generation stands on mine, and I'm doing things that they couldn't even think of, right? That it wouldn't even they were still knocking out the, you know, uh uh Nick Toscano is another one, right? He he was in the early days, he and Bill and others created, probably created what we can, the early stages of what we now see as the GPOs, right? They were involved in some of those conceptual ideas, the first distribution centers where hospitals would own their own distribution center uh just in time, right? Or or where stock what became stockless, you know, the Ted McFarlane or the Ted Allmans at Claflin who were the first ones to do bring that idea of a stockless to those all of those things didn't exist when I started. And the idea of them, and then those of us who got the privilege of now leading as an at an executive level in an organization that fully embraces uh the concepts of value analysis and the the value of a high functioning supply chain team, that's directly credited. We have to credit Bill and Bob and others and Barbara and others that we stand on their shoulders. And and my job now, you know, I've got probably 10 years left is to make sure that I I help the next generation. And I don't just mean in hospitals, I mean on the vendor side too. I've I'm starting to engage more with the vendor leadership and saying, let's I don't want to meet with salespeople much anymore. I want to meet with operations people. And how do we take that next level leap of how do we make each other mutually more efficient? You know, uh Ed Hiscock's comment about the multiple supply chains is spot on, but it doesn't have to be that way, right? I mean, there's all this technology that didn't exist that's available to us, right? There's new ways of looking at the work. And I, you know, I had I see the kids come, I say kids, the 30-somethings coming up and they're challenging everything. And I remember doing that when I was 30 in my 30s, and and I'm more than happy to be challenged. And but all of it ultimately sits at the feet of Bill and others who who challenge the norm and challenge the way things were looked at, and really have have made a real difference in in a lot of people's lives and the business, the business as a whole.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

Well, uh uh Joe, I think we're sort of winding to the end of our time, but uh, you know, I would characterize what the way you uh talked about what Ed said is instead of having multiple supply chains supporting multiple disciplines, have one really excellent supply chain supporting multiple disciplines with the input from those disciplines.

Invisible Work And How To Recognize It

SPEAKER_02 30:19

And I and I would the one thing I'll close with is let's not forget to recognize the team members who are doing that work. And and the reason I say that is um a really high-functioning supply chain for the most part is invisible to the clinicians. You know, when I when I talk to young talent coming up and they want to work in supply chain, I say, okay, but you recognize that if you're looking for daily affirmation, supply chain is not for you. It's right more often you recognize when something breaks than the day-to-day. And the example that I'll give to non-supply chain people is um if you stay at a hotel and you stay overnight, and the next day you go out and do whatever and you come back, if the room is immaculate, how often do you call housekeeping and thank them? But if it's if it's a mess, you're on the phone in a heartbeat, right? And so what I tell them is you should take pride in the phone call that doesn't come.

SPEAKER_01 31:12

You're right, you're right, you're right. And and how often, you know, do you do people stay in hotels and never leave a tip or never never tip to folks that take care of them?

SPEAKER_02 31:22

Well, you want to freak them out, call them. Call them and say thank you. Like perfectly clean room, just call them and say, I just wanted to say thank you. And if it they're like, Are you kidding? Are you being sarcastic? Like, no, I legitimately just wanted to say I appreciate the good work that you've done.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Absolutely. Well, Joe, it's been a been a pleasure having you on uh on the podcast. We have to have to get you back again because I'm I as I told you earlier today when we're taught just talking, I'm writing a series on uh what the uh winning supply chain needs to look like, and I think you've got you probably have a lot of good ideas that I need to uh ask you about and uh and some pearls to put in there.

SPEAKER_02 31:59

I'll let you know when I figure it out.

SPEAKER_01 32:02

You know, we're talking about when we were young. Uh I I had a couple of friends that are really good friends of mine. One of it was a guy named Jay Mitzel who's passed recently.

SPEAKER_02 32:11

No, I know I know Jay.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

And I told people, I said, I've known Jay since 1983. I said, I couldn't stand the guy when I met him. Because he thought he knew everything. And how could that be? Because I did. Right. And as we as we as we as we grow older, we realize uh how little we really know and how much we need to draw upon others, and how folks like Bill McFall and the people we've talked about uh uh have done so much and deserve so much uh respect and um and recognition for what they've done. So thank you for talking about Bill. Thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_02 32:48

Absolutely. Thank you, Fred. This is great stuff. Keep it up.

Closing Thoughts And How To Reach Us

SPEAKER_00 32:53

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. 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 S C R A N S at S T O N G E.com. See you next time.