The Foundations of a High-Performing Supply Chain with Marisa Farabaugh, SVP and Chief Supply Chain Officer at AdventHealth

[00:00:01] This podcast is produced by Outcomes Rocket, your healthcare-exclusive digital marketing agency. Outcomes Rocket exists to help healthcare organizations like yours to maximize their impact and accelerate growth. Visit outcomesrocket.com or text us at 312-224-9945.

[00:00:24] Everyone, welcome back to the Outcomes Rocket. I am so excited that you joined us once again. Today, I have the privilege of hosting the outstanding Marisa Farabaugh. She is a Senior Vice President and Chief Supply Chain Officer at AdventHealth.

[00:00:49] In this role, she provides strategic direction toward new and sustainable supply chain and business services efficiencies. I'm so excited to have you on the podcast, Marisa. Well, thanks for the opportunity, Saul. This is great. It's a privilege to have you on. And I want to, before we start, Marisa, I want to give our listeners and viewers some context. So, for everybody tuning into this, I just wanted to share why we're doing this.

[00:01:17] So, the Gartner Healthcare Supply Chain Top 25 is the focus. They recognize health systems that set the standard for supply chain excellence. They blend both data-driven and peer-reviewed insights. And earning the number one spot on this list is AdventHealth, which is the team that Marisa leads.

[00:01:39] And so, when you win this award, it signals industry leadership in improving patient outcomes, managing costs, driving innovation through supply chain performance. And this interview with Marisa is a preview of the full conversation we're going to have with her and the rest of the panel at the GHX Summit. So, I'm pumped about this. Marisa, thank you so much for doing this. And really, I want to start off our conversation around strategic leadership.

[00:02:09] You, Gartner, recognize your health system in the number one spot. You were on the list last year, went up about two or three spots to the number one spot. What were the key factors or decisions that helped you earn this recognition? Well, so thank you. I think the answer to your question probably is within Gartner, not within us.

[00:02:28] But it is certainly a very humbling experience to be on the pyramid amid so much so many other great leaders and great organizations that are listed there. At AdventHealth, our aim is not to necessarily be on a pyramid. And what we do every day is not for ranking purposes.

[00:02:52] It's for what we need as an organization and what we do as a team and what we think is the right strategies for us at our organization. It certainly is an honor to be recognized on that list, but it's not our why. And I think that's been an important aspect for our team to know that we're always working on what is important.

[00:03:14] That being said, I think that things that are important to us as a team, number one, probably it's a common theme we talk about regularly. Relationships matter.

[00:03:55] Relationships and partners within our supplier community is critical and key. The second thing I would say is leadership matters. And our leaders and our team members who work together in this space is critical as well.

[00:04:12] We spend a lot of time investing in our own leadership and investing in our own teams, reading books together, learning about leadership together, talking about getting going through training together, having strategy retreats together. We spend a lot of time together. Trying to make sure that we're a tight team.

[00:04:34] And that's a team that is at the broad level and a team that is at my own cabinet level to really ensure that we're connected and we understand all the parts that make up the whole of our team. And then maybe the last thing I would mention is our team really has a bias towards action. Making sure that we're not just talking about things that we're wanting to do, but we're figuring out a way to do what we think needs to be done in our space.

[00:05:03] And that only happens through the relationships that you've created and the way that you can move projects and work along. It is important to us that we are doing what we say we're going to do. We're accountable for that work and that we do it in a way that is respectful and right for our organization. I love that, Marisa. Some really important themes there. The culture piece, the trust.

[00:05:32] One of my favorite books is The Speed of Trust. I don't know if you've ever had a chance to pick that one up. Not yet. I will. It is so good. They talk about the trust tax. If you don't have it, things slow down. It's costly. You're focused on relationships. You're focused on trust. I also really love your thoughts on bias toward action. And that's how you get things done.

[00:05:56] And on the idea of innovation in action, talk to us a little bit about how your organization is leveraging digital transformation, whether it's automation, AI, which you hear everything is AI nowadays, or analytics. How is you and your team using that bias to action to optimize supply chain operations? Yeah, so a couple ways.

[00:06:20] And I'll mention two different distinct areas that are part of our supply chain and business services team. From a supply chain standpoint, we've made some investments over the past few years, particularly in logistics and distribution. And that was really coming out of COVID, where the concept of a resilient supply chain just really resonated for our organization. How do we ensure that we have what we need upstream exactly all the time?

[00:06:50] It's our inventory. It's our decision of what we stock. And so we've made some investments and have set up about like a 300,000 square foot distribution center, if you will, adjacent to our headquarters, but accessing all of our different facilities in the state of Florida. Behind that is a huge transportation network that's been set up as well.

[00:07:16] And so with that foundation set, I think we have the right, with that foundation set, plus the right leaders in all of our markets, plus as we're transitioning over to work day and ensuring we've got good new solid reporting and analytics coming out of where inventory is across our organization. We feel like we have an opportunity to overlay more sophistication on that.

[00:07:45] And so we have announced a partnership right now with a company called Parkour to help enable us to transition big data, not just from our ERP, but also our EMR, other different data sources from across the organization, and set up algorithms that start to make sense and give us visibility into what products need to be where ahead of time.

[00:08:15] And you can, we can argue that in healthcare, you never know who's going to walk in the door. There's a lot of data to suggest that we probably pretty much know who's going to walk in the door close enough to know what's needed when. And that use case will help us really even out our inventory patterns.

[00:08:38] We also are aiming to use it for upstream visibility into where is the inventory within our own supplier community. We are the last link on the chain. We are the last link when finished goods have been created and we're a massive consumer of those finished goods. That requires all the links upstream from us to have worked out well and those finished goods make it to us.

[00:09:04] We want to understand signals ahead of time when links in that chain are broken. And we don't want that to be in the form of a phone call. Phone calls are great, but that shouldn't be what we're relying on from our supplier community to understand upstream disruption. So this journey is really at a crawl stage right now. We're just beginning that partnership.

[00:09:28] We're setting up two use cases this year, two more next year, two more the year after, and slowly beginning to crawl, walk, run in this space over time. Very excited. It's being led by Doug Pitlinski, who is our leader over supply chain, doing amazing work with the team there. He's got a great vision, great relationships with parkour and very excited about where we go with that.

[00:09:54] The other space is a little bit different under our business services aspect within the organization. We have a team that does a lot of aligning specifically within radiology lab and some other support services areas. And one of the areas that this team has been very impactful in aligning the laboratory pathologists across the organization and bringing to fruition is around digital pathology.

[00:10:22] Where might that be able to be used in the future? How are pathologists wanting to engage in that space? What value would it bring? And so this team has done a lot around really helping determine if there's a use case there, who might be the right vendors in this space. And I see our organization continuing to really grow and lean into different applications.

[00:10:47] We have also got a smart room concept that's being deployed where we've got patient rooms across our organization with smart technology in it that will alert nurses into different activities happening in the room. It will allow patients to connect with their providers and maybe other loved ones who aren't physically able to be in the patient room with them.

[00:11:10] And we think that's a base platform, again, that can have a lot of automation and technology accelerants built into it over time. So we're very excited. We understand the risks and complexities around AI. We've got governance structures in place as an organization. We're really taking the responsibility aspects of it very seriously, but as an organization excited about what it can bring for us. Some really exciting things there.

[00:11:37] And I think of that smart hospital room, almost like when the consumer field meets health care, right? And the leading health systems are doing this. They're bringing the Starbucks, the Amazon experience to the health system visibility. You know when your package is going to get there. You can reach out to the endpoint when you need to. Like nowadays, you walk into an airport and you scan your card.

[00:12:01] You could take items off of a shelf and that literally walk out the other end and you know what just left. Why can't supply chain be like that? So I love that you're thinking that way, Marisa. Marisa, also important to highlight for everybody listening, the governance structures around how we leverage AI. Super critical. And so lots for us to think about. And a good teaser for everybody that's going to be at our panel. We'll get deeper into these conversations.

[00:12:30] Marisa, on people and collaboration, we've talked about trust. We've talked about the importance of relationships. Talk to us a little bit more about that. How are you fostering collaboration across departments, especially with clinical teams to ensure lasting impact? Yeah, that's a great question. And AdventHealth, our culture is one where, you know, shared accountability or shared progress towards a common goal is very common.

[00:12:59] And so we're not just doing some of the routine items around bringing our VAT team, our value analysis teams, having make sure. Those are table stakes. That's part of the world that I think we all have to live in. But we're also hardwiring in some dotted lines and dual reporting work.

[00:13:27] So the team that I was just mentioning on the business services side, who our system, we call our system ancillary and support services team. They co-report into our CMO. And so there is line of sight into the work that's happening there. There's shared accountability there. There's also that partnership that exists between myself and our CMO from that aspect.

[00:13:52] Similarly, in our environmental sustainability space, which I co-lead that with our chief investment officer. There's, again, that hardwired partnership into the work where you have multiple leaders who have different skills to bring to solutioning together, working on different problems. Similarly, in our construction space, I'm working very closely with one of our CFOs in that space to help co-create in that area.

[00:14:21] And so you start to see that there's a lot of intentionality around setup to make sure that our spaces are being developed and worked on with multiple leaders and stakeholders that bring different perspectives, that solution towards a common goal. But also, and I think about this in all my areas, it certainly stands out for me in our environmental sustainability space.

[00:14:48] I think together we are stronger. It stands out to me in our clinical space too. Together we are stronger in our environmental sustainability space as we have launched that work. That's just been very clear that we are able to get farther because we have one another in this world.

[00:15:08] And we have a multitude of different governances as well throughout our organization that bring clinical leaders, our nursing officers, our finance officers, our operating officers, our executive officers together as we are really approving different strategies across our organization.

[00:15:31] So there's a lot of areas to connect in and make sure that we're aligned. Our team in supply chain and business services should not have an agenda. Our agenda should be the organization's agenda.

[00:15:50] And we have the responsibility of helping make that come to life, but through feedback and coordination with all of our different regions, divisions, and markets to ensure we're all aligned. That's fantastic, Marisa. And you have a great way of kind of just saying things like hardwired, right?

[00:16:12] And if you have this idea in your organization, thinking to yourself, how can I improve the way that collaboration happens? You got to ask yourself, are you hardwiring it into the organization like Marisa and her team have? So what a great way to just explain how it should be done across the organization when you're dealing with a large organization. So I really love that, Marisa.

[00:16:38] As I said, this is a teaser session for the full panel. So we're going to go ahead and close out here. I want to thank you very much, Marisa, for joining us, sharing your perspective. Another congratulations for getting the number one spot in that Gartner Top 25 in healthcare supply chain. What closing thoughts would you leave to our listeners, other supply chain leaders in healthcare, wanting to make a big impact in their organizations? Well, it takes a team.

[00:17:08] I'm grateful for having such a great team of folks to work with inside the organization, outside the organization. So I would say continue to build great teams out there. We are all successful as an industry together when we're moving in the same direction. And there's a lot of opportunity for us in this industry as well. Come see our session at GHX if you're not already coming there. And Saul, thank you for what you do for our industry too. It's very important work.

[00:17:37] And I appreciate all that you do to help further knowledge and everything that's happening in our space. Thank you, Marisa. I really appreciate that. And yes, couldn't agree with you more, folks. If you're going to be at the GHX Summit, excited to see you there. Make sure you attend our session. It's going to be a great one. And if you're not, don't worry. We'll be providing insights at the tail end of that. Thank you all for tuning in. And Marisa, thank you so much for joining us today. It's my pleasure. Thank you for the opportunity.

[00:18:16] This podcast is produced by Outcomes Rocket, your healthcare exclusive digital marketing agency. Outcomes Rocket exists to help healthcare organizations like yours to maximize their impact and accelerate growth. Visit OutcomesRocket.com or text us at 312-224-9945.