Pivot point

Not only kids say the darndest things. Sometimes even adults – besides H.L. Mencken, Will Rogers and Yogi Berra – can utter a clever bon mot in a curious way that makes you think.

One dual-degreed, highly intelligent physician executive was quoted in the healthcare trades encapsulating the industry as “riddled with mindless variation.” If the “present progressive tense” verb in that phrase evokes “Bonnie & Clyde” imagery, you’re not alone. The link between “riddled” and “variation” may be coincidence but no less creative.

However, what if variation really isn’t the issue but the descriptor? Perhaps the real emphasis falls on the “mindless” adjective – akin to “unbridled.”

Back in the 1990s healthcare reform movement, administrators and clinicians verbally dueled and sparred over the concept of clinical/critical pathways that critics and skeptics lambasted as “cookbook medicine” and “treat by numbers.” The inherent flaw in such standardized methodology, of course, is that each patient’s physiology is unique, reacting in different ways to myriad and sundry decisions and processes that can lead to varying outcomes – or even to “Happy Meal Healthcare packages.”

Does that make the mindset wrong? Not necessarily. Does that make variability wrong then? Again, not necessarily. Technically, variability should be fine so long as you and your team remain intelligent and nimble enough to pivot while never truly “losing control.” In effect, against the backdrop of a crisis like the recent pandemic, that should be the mantra of supply chain, arguably the engine of a healthcare organization.

Imagine if real-life race cars operated like toy slot cars directed by a hand-held controller. As a kid, slot-car racing was fun because of the crazy wipeouts from squeezing the controller handle too hard, forcing the cars to fly too fast into the curves. For many adults, however, slot-car-style racing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway or Daytona Speedway would be nothing more than a high-speed parade. And really expensive for all involved.

Hopefully, “mindless variation” doesn’t breed “endless strategizing” to combat it. Nothing seems to bug Hall of Famer Doug Bowen more than “analysis paralysis.” Bowen, who was inducted into Bellwether League Foundation’s Hall of Fame for Healthcare Supply Chain Leadership in 2020, represents Phoenix-based Banner Health, the 2021 Supply Chain Department of the Year. Bowen, Vice President, Supply Chain Services, and his award-winning team, comprise an active group of doers who make things happen because they already had planned for them – including adapting for any detours and pivoting for variations.

Bottom line: On the surface, digging a groove may get you somewhere in the short term but nowhere in the long term way too quickly.