Dr. Anne Snowdon, Scientific Director and CEO, SCAN Health and Director of Clinical Research, HIMSS Analytics, discusses the innovative state of Alberta Health Services’ supply chain system during several interviews with national media outlets (See Table 1 for a full list below). These interviews offer relevant and helpful insights into the value and impact of a digitized healthcare supply chain system for policy makers, solution providers, health system leaders, clinicians, citizens and researchers.
“The federal government of Canada’s Networks of Centres of Excellence program had the strategic foresight to support and fund SCAN Health initiatives,” says Ms. Martha Huston, Board President, SCAN Health. “This has positioned Canada as an international leader in mobilizing best practices in supply chain that are required to ensure sustainable health systems and population health.”
An integrated and digital supply chain enables health systems to track and trace all aspects of a healthcare journey to help identify cost-saving opportunities while improving patient safety. The use of automated supply chain infrastructure and predictive analytics at the point of care represents the future of informed decision-making.
“Alberta has tremendous leadership and a clear vision of the critical importance of how integrated supply chain infrastructure enables the safety and care of patients but also the safety of their physicians and nurses,” says Dr. Snowdon. “They have invested in a consolidated system where their procurement team can track and trace every product across their entire system. This provides a line of sight into how much stock they have and how much will be needed.”
Alberta Health Services’ procurement team, under the leadership of Dr. Verna Yiu, proactively began sourcing products in December as news of the pandemic broke globally. This foresight has provided Alberta with the capacity to meet the demands of its own provincial health system while also supplying other provinces in need of essential medical supplies and equipment. Dr. Snowdon’s research on the impact of supply chain transformation in health systems in Alberta Health Services, Canada, Mercy Health, U.S. and the National Health Service, England has demonstrated that supply chain infrastructure based on global standards, improve safety, quality and performance.
Table 1: List of media interviews
| Organization | Date | Link |
| CBC The National | April 12, 2020 | https://bit.ly/2KbUKa3 |
| CBC Morning Live | April 13, 2020 | https://bit.ly/2V6SJ5m |
| CBC Radio - Edmonton | April 14, 2020 | https://bit.ly/2RD99Aa |
| Global National | April 14, 2020 | https://bit.ly/2xojxFj |
| AM980 News | April 15, 2020 | https://bit.ly/2VcNDEs |
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ABOUT SCAN HEALTH
In 2017, the Government of Canada’s NCE provided funding to create SCAN Health. Spanning five countries, including Australia, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada – and with over one hundred partners from industry, healthcare, government and academia – SCAN Health will enable the exchange of information and expertise to accelerate the implementation of healthcare supply chain best practices around the world.