Canadian Blood Services and SCAN Health recognize students for their innovative solutions to achieve “vein-to-vein” traceability
OTTAWA, January 14, 2019 – Canadian Blood Services and SCAN Health are pleased to announce the winning teams of the annual SCAN Health Virtual Business Case Competition 2018/19. Exceptional thinking and innovative solutions were brought forward by teams of undergraduate and graduate students from business schools around the world. Participating teams were challenged to identify, design and implement a solution to achieve “vein-to-vein” tracking and traceability of blood products from the “vein” of donors to the “vein” of recipients. Congratulations to the winning teams:
First-Place – Morgan Sowers, Michelle Davis, Carson Hollingsworth and Abigail Wegman (University of Tennessee)
Second-Place – Jonathan Kong and Amee Choksi (Rotman School of Management)
Third-Place – Noémie Villiard, Amélie Théorêt and Vincent Collard-Tremblay (HEC Montréal)
Sponsored by Canadian Blood Services, the Competition winners will receive cash prizes of $7,500. The first-place team will present their winning solution to Canadian Blood Services’ Executive Management Team in Ottawa this February 2019. The proposals and presentations for the Competition’s top three teams can be found on the SCAN Health Knowledge Mobilization Platform.
The Competition has enabled Canadian Blood Services to identify the conditions and circumstances under which it can optimally integrate its supply chain processes with the in-hospital managed care processes for patients undergoing transfusion events.
Proposals were judged by an esteemed international panel including Dr. Graham Sher, CEO of Canadian Blood Services, Dr. John Blake, Associate Professor at Dalhousie University and Research Engineer at Canadian Blood Services’ Centre for Innovation, Dr. Randy Bradley, Assistant Professor at the Haslam College of Business, University of Tennessee, Mr. Peter Brereton, CEO of TECSYS, Mr. Ron Johnson, VP and CIO of Eastern Health, Mr. Feargal Mc Groarty, National Haemophilia System Project Manager at St. James Hospital, Mr. Peter O'Halloran, CIO of Australian Capital Territory Health, and Dr. Julie Paquette, Associate Professor at HEC Montréal.
To support the semi-finalists in preparing their final proposals and presentations, students had access to a panel of experts in business processes, and health system supply chain and logistics strategy. The renowned experts included Mr. Anders Larsson, Vice President, Healthcare Marketing at TECSYS, Dr. Donald Lighter, Professor at the University of Tennessee and Director of the Institute for Healthcare Quality Research and Education, Mr. Matt Mentel, System Executive Director, Business Integration at Mercy, Mr. Rick Prinzen, Chief Supply Chain Officer and Vice-President, Donor Relations at Canadian Blood Services, Ms. Betty Jo Rocchio, Chief Nursing Optimization Officer at Mercy, and Dr. Amrik Sohal, Professor of Management at Monash University.
This unique virtual competition enables emergent leaders from business schools around the world to compete and demonstrate their exceptional skill, knowledge and innovative ideas to advance supply chain strategy in health systems to achieve value for populations. The next SCAN Health Virtual Business Case Competition will launch in the Summer of 2019. Details and updates can be found at www.SCANHealth.ca.
About Canadian Blood Services
Canadian Blood Services is a not-for-profit charitable organization. Regulated by Health Canada as a biologics manufacturer and primarily funded by the provincial and territorial ministries of health, Canadian Blood Services operates with a national scope, infrastructure and governance that make it unique within Canadian healthcare. In the domain of blood, plasma and stem cells, we provide services for patients on behalf of all provincial and territorial governments except Quebec. The national transplant registry for interprovincial organ sharing and related programs reaches into all provinces and territories, as a biological lifeline for Canadians.
About SCAN Health
SCAN Health is an international knowledge translation platform funded by the Government of Canada, Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) and hosted by the University of Windsor’s Odette School of Business. 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 advance global capacity to adopt and scale best practices in healthcare supply chain to offer traceability of products and care processes from bench to bedside to patient outcomes.