Q&A: Amanda Chawla at Stanford Health
October, 2021
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In October 2021, I interviewed Amanda Chawla, Chief Supply Chain Officer and Vice President at Stanford Health in California. You’ll learn how Amanda rose quickly into a leadership position and was recognized by the Journal of Healthcare Contracting as Contracting Professional of the Year.
Amanda’s Supply path is grounded from a clinical perspective having operating roles in the OR, Cardiac, PT, Food Service and Supply Chain. She talks about the need to transform the traditional supply chain into a supply chain network. Anticipating the impact on PPE products during the pandemic, Amanda organized a group of similar large organizations to share inventory and knowledge to navigate through.
Amanda talks about “Value Based Management” vs. traditional Value Analysis. It includes physician lead committees and service line leaders so that decisions span the entire enterprise. Her perspective on the “Clinically Integrated Supply Chain” is also unique. While CQO (Cost, Quality and Outcomes) is important, they also focus on utilization and results by looking back on decisions that have been made to see if they have had the intended impact.
Their GPO, Vizient, helps focus on non-labor spend. Which includes anything in products and services while their national distributor coordinate supplies to their 3 hospitals and 60 clinics throughout the area.
Amanda’s group has an acronym that describes the sourcing “PROCESS”: Purchasing Reliable products, Outcomes based, with Customer coordination from Equitable and Sustainable Sources.
Listen to the interview to learn more about the future of Supply Chain as Amanda describes “Uniquely Stanford” and how a leading Academic Medical Center and it’s people believe in “One Team, One Dream”.
