Lourdes Hospital
Paducah, KY

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JJWild creates strong link in Lourdes Hospital supply chain.

Lourdes Hospital in Paducah, Kentucky is leveraging information technology for the public good with the help of JJWild. They are striving to cut waste and inefficiency from the supply chain at this regional hospital with 389 licensed acute beds and 1,462 employees. The model of practice that they are implementing, if carried out uniformly across the nation’s hospitals, could result in the reduction of healthcare costs measured in the billions of dollars (based on the December 1996 Efficient Healthcare Consumer Response™ (EHCR™) Assessment Study).

Lourdes' President and CEO Dr. Bill Wheeler, Vice President of Operations Dale Mapes, and CIO Gary Wood created a Strategic Information Technology Plan that included Materials Management (MM) via bar coding. They needed to find the right person to implement the MM piece of the plan. That’s where Craig Bassett came in.

Craig Bassett knows how to find the MM department in any hospital. “Just look out back by the basement by the morgue.” That, says Craig, is the traditional home of the MM office in most hospitals. And – with thirty-three years in hospital materials management – it’s a place he knows well. And it’s a place he wants to change because of the potential for enormous cost savings associated with enlightened management of materials across the supply chain.

Craig is in the right place at the right time to have an effect on the way hospitals manage their supply chain. He is passionate about bringing the MM function out of obscurity and making it a valued team member in the delivery of cost effective, high-quality healthcare. And that’s what he’s been doing at Lourdes Hospital under the guidance of the management team. What's more, he has relied on the professional consulting services of JJWild in the MEDITECH environment to bring technical reality to the Lourdes Hospital Materials Management vision.

Modernizing Materials Management

In 1999, Craig was hired by Premier, Inc., to join the team at Lourdes in modernizing Materials Management. Dale Mapes recalls the process that led up to Craig's hiring. “We needed a strong MM person. The department had a series of different directors — some with experience, some without. We were desperate to get supplies under control. Since Lourdes' parent company, Catholic Healthcare Partners, is a Premier partner we opted for contracting with them for our MM director. We were Craig's first assignment. He was very passionate about what needed to be done to accomplish our ambitious restructuring.”

A $3.5 million mission

When he arrived at Lourdes, Craig began implementing his philosophy of teamwork and the hospital's plan for modern MM using the latest technology from the point of delivery to the point of use. Craig's posting to Lourdes was not simply an experiment in enlightened staff management and whiz-bang technology. He was tasked with the very real goal of reducing MM costs by $3.5 million over the next three years. Craig started by rallying the MM staff and working side by side with them to brighten up and humanize the department’s physical plant. He invited staff members to embrace the hospital's vision of change or move on. And he engaged the services of a software company to help move the technology ahead.

An eight-month disaster

The software company pushed a software and bar code scanning solution that included third-party interfaces to the MEDITECH system. The Lourdes team worked unceasingly to bring the new system online. And at the end of eight months it proved to be an utter failure. The software company just didn't understand MEDITECH. The team was devastated.

Getting back on track

At this point, Lourdes called JJWild and asked for help. According to Gary, “JJWild had at least two things going for them: they were deeply involved in bar coding and they worked closely with MEDITECH. With their help we undid the mess we created.”

After a conference call with Lourdes, JJWild consultant Steve Holmes arrived onsite in Paducah. He met with the hospital team, listened to their plight, asked questions, and listened some more. Returning to Canton, MA, Steve and his team developed a plan to get Lourdes back on track using the JJWild handheld bar code data collection solution installed successfully at over 150 sites. With a mix of onsite visits and working sessions with JJWild engineers, he brought the solution online with a direct interface to the MEDITECH system.

He trained the staff at Lourdes and was with them at the system go-live date. The results have been nothing short of miraculous. Less than one year after the system was implemented, Lourdes has already realized a considerable portion of the targeted $3.5 million in savings. Plus, the hospital has migrated the bar code scanning system to the Operating Room with in-room deployment next on the list. JJWild has been with them every step of the way.

Both Gary and Craig are unstinting in their praise of the JJWild team led by Steve Holmes. About Steve, Gary says that he is “just amazing, very knowledgeable in supply chain. He came in, evaluated our situation, and got us back on track. This was our first big project with JJWild and it showed us that they have a special partnership with MEDITECH that enables them to work issues down to the code level. I can't say enough good things about their ability and expertise. Anyone in the MEDITECH environment shouldn't hesitate to give them a call. They definitely have their act together.”

Craig describes Steve Holmes as “an industry pro who epitomized the spirit and character of the JJWild team. They listened and understood what our problem was. And they helped us tailor the program to our precise needs and thoroughly train our staff. As I've come to find out, what seemed miraculous to us in terms of creating a world-class solution is all in a day's work for JJWild.”

To the bottom line

Dr. Bill Wheeler is a strong proponent of the new Materials Management system. He is quick to emphasize that for a hospital to capitalize on the promise of automated Materials Management, it must first, like Lourdes, have a top-notch Information Technology infrastructure in place. Then, and only then, can the benefits accrue. And those benefits are compelling. “From a financial point of view, the system has substantially reduced the amount of money we have tied up in Supplies. And from a clinical standpoint it has reduced the stress on the staff. With the old system, there was always a fear of running out of supplies so more were ordered than required. Now, there is a predictable par level and the staff can concentrate on their medical responsibilities. We've succeeded in lowering the cost of medical care without lowering the quality.”

If the vision of the Lourdes team is realized, when you visit the Materials Management department at any hospital in the United States five years from now, you won't find it just in the back by the basement by the morgue. You'll find it on every floor, in every room, silently, transparently maintaining par levels and accounting for every precious penny of product that goes directly to the hospital’s bottom line.

Lourdes Hospital

Lourdes Hospital Lourdes has operated since 1905, founded by the municipality as Riverside Hospital. With 389 licensed acute beds and 1,462 employees, Lourdes serves as a regional referral center for a wide geographic region, including more than a dozen counties in Kentucky, southern Illinois, southeastern Missouri, and northwest Tennessee. Lourdes offers an extensive array of medical specialists and technologies typically found in much larger urban settings. In 1997, when the Sisters of Mercy joined with three other health systems, Lourdes became a member of Catholic Healthcare Partners and Mercy Health Partners.

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