AHRMM09 - Wednesday, July 22, 2009

I am missing the closing of the conference in order to catch my flight home, so I will give my own closing remarks. (Thanks, no applause, really, thanks . . )

To begin, let me say, what a terrific conference. Benchmarking , evidence based process improvement, if you don't report to your CFO, now is the time to start creating your own report and getting the CFO to notice your contributions, great vendor exhibits, and sharp, informed new contacts are only a portion of what I am taking away with me, back to Cincinnati's Jewish Hospital and our IDN, the Health Alliance. Thank you to the faculty, organizers, vendor sponsors and AHA.

I'm looking forward to AHRMM10 in Denver and may attend whether my hospital pays or not. One of my favorite snippets of information is the ratio of cost of attending to the typical savings in dollars generated by implementing lessons learned: 1:3. Even more exciting is $1 saved in Supply costs can generate overall hospital savings of up to $25. I've got to go now and start implementing, benchmarking, data gathering, report writing . . .

Thanks to Tracey Heusner of AHA. Hope I wasn't to much of a pain. Good luck to all!

AHRMM09 - Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Who else enjoys AHRMM09 for the vendors exhibits? Meeting the reps, listening to them tell your colleagues about wonders that are their products, services, websites, magazines. Even a simple lunch can be educational, or in my case, therapeutic. I like hearing colleagues have similar problems and stresses.

The conference serves an important function just bringing Supply Chain professionals together to chat and interact.

AHRMM09 - Tuesday, July 21, 2009

AHRMM09 Day two

Eight minutes until the fourth Learning Lab at 7:30 am after a fun night of, how shall I say, networking. Very brieflly: New contacts, new vendors, new opportunities, new ideas.

A great openinng by Ross Shafer. Imagine getting your clients, patients, customers, to love you. What a message! The Supply Chain business continues to develop. Beverly Slate says I need to bring my CFO up to speed on what my Distribution Department can do and how we are crucial to saving bucks for the hospital. Two other learning labs and much, uh, networking, . . . later.

AHRMM09 - Sunday, July 19, 2009

Anticipation

The conference is about to begin. I have my schedule of learning labs, my conference bag, and a cup of coffee. The day promises to be filled with new information, ways of doing things, and new names and faces. This has been coming for a long time. I'm full of questions. In these tough times, will my hospital be willing to innovate? Will my organization be open to the advances I'll bring back from this conference? Will I only be able to apply the learing to my own department and the work we do for our 209 bed hospital? Too soon to tell.

Introducing James Fothergill

My name is Jim Fothergill. It will be my pleasure to blog as an attendee of AHRMM09. Currently, I am the Manager of Material Distribution for The Jewish Hospital of Cincinnati. My materials background began thirteen years ago when I became the Pharmacy Buyer for that same hospital. Prior to that I was a Pharmacy Technician for several years. My current responsibilities include operations management for the medical and surgical supply staff, linen distribution, mailroom operations, and receiving dock operations. Each of these areas includes a bit of IT administration. That brings me to blogging and this opportunity to provide my impressions and observations from this year's conference.

The Director of Supply Chain for our six hospital IDN, The Health Alliance asked me to attend AHRMM09 as a representative. It will be an excellent chance for me to learn from experts and thought leaders who will be presenting the state-of-the-art seminars and other presentations at the conference. Networking and hobnobbing with those same folks along with a plethora of vendors will also be high on my agenda. I have attended a Technology Conference presented by the AHRMM in 2006, in Chicago and took home a great deal of information and learning from it.

If you see me at a seminar or associated event, stop, introduce yourself, and give me some of your impressions.