Taking The Supply Chain Pulse

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Medical Equipment Planning That Works

2026-10-2231:02

Hospital projects do not fail because people do not care. They fail because the right questions get asked too late, after walls are drawn, power is set, and the budget is already committed. That’s why we brought on Rich King, a medical equipment planner with 26-plus years across clinical engineering, imaging services, and health system project work, to talk about what “good” equipment planning really looks like when patient care is on the line. We walk through Rich’s path from Beckman ...

What If Value Analysis Became The Front Door To Better Healthcare Decisions

2026-10-0831:03

Value analysis can feel like a never-ending queue of new product requests, urgent conversions, and “can’t you just get a better price” demands. But when we treat value analysis as the front end of the healthcare supply chain, it becomes something bigger: a decision system that protects patient care, strengthens standardization, and finds savings that contracting alone can’t touch. Fred Crans is joined by Bob Yokl for a forward-looking conversation on value analysis in 2026 and beyond. We unp...

Care Is Moving And Supply Chain Must Move Too

2026-09-2433:48

Care is moving farther and faster than most health systems are organized to support and the supply chain is right in the blast zone. We sit down with returning guest Karen Conway to talk through what she’s working on now, why she’s studying improv, and how those lessons translate into better listening, less bias, and smarter problem-solving in a high-stress healthcare environment where burnout is real and shortages still steal time and attention. From there, we get practical about the bigges...

From Nurse To Supply Chain Leader

2026-09-1032:55

We sit down with Bellwether League inductee Gail Kovacs to trace her path from biology and the lab into nursing, healthcare supply chain leadership, and hospital administration in Cleveland. We talk about the moments that shaped her leadership style, why reimbursement changes made supply chain strategic, and what it takes to earn trust when the stakes are high. • working-class upbringing, Catholic school influences, and early advocates shaping confidence • lab work, research fundi...

What If Most Care Happens At Home By 2050

2026-08-2740:27

We talk with Dr. Rubin Pillay, Chief Innovation Officer at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, about why healthcare needs “unreasonable” thinking to make real progress. We also map a future where AI, automation, and patient-led care shift the system from sick care to wellcare. • Dr. Pillay’s roles at UAB and why a multi-hat view helps innovation • What “thinking unreasonably” means and why other industries hold the playbook • The sustainability crisis in healthcare: access, cost, quality...

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