Five Questions With: Curt Miller

North Kingstown resident Curt Miller brings decades of experience to his position with the Healthcare Supply Chain Association. / COURTESY HEALTHCARE SUPPLY CHAIN ASSOCIATION
North Kingstown resident Curt Miller brings decades of experience to his position with the Healthcare Supply Chain Association. / COURTESY HEALTHCARE SUPPLY CHAIN ASSOCIATION

Curt Miller has been named executive director of the Healthcare Supply Chain Association’s Committee for Healthcare eStandards. With more than 30 years of health care expertise, Miller had most recently served as chief information officer for Amerinet Inc. (now Intalere). In that capacity, he was responsible for the company’s information systems strategy, application development, network infrastructure, data management and unified communications. Earlier, he served as director of group purchasing for Providence-based Vector Healthsystems. Miller, a North Kingstown resident who holds two degrees from the University of Rhode Island, talked with Providence Business News about his responsibilities at HSCA and its Committee on Healthcare eStandards.

PBN: What are health care estandards and what is the role of the Committee for Healthcare eStandards at the Healthcare Supply Chain Association?

MILLER: In health care, there are many parts of the supply chain, starting with the manufacturers that produce drugs and equipment, and ending with the doctors and patients who use them. Each sector of the health care supply chain uses an electronic system to identify and track their products. Ideally, these systems would all use standardized data so that a product – for example, a pacemaker – could be easily traced from its manufacturer to a warehouse to the patient in whom it is implanted.

Unfortunately, the health care supply chain isn’t there yet; different sectors and companies often use different data systems. The result is that the systems can’t ‘talk’ to each other, and key information is locked in silos. This makes it difficult to track health care products from start to finish, with serious implications for patients and providers.

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If a manufacturer recalled our hypothetical pacemaker, we may not be able to identify the patient in whom it was implanted. This lack of system ‘interoperability’ can also make it difficult for hospitals to keep track of their ordering, and making sure that the right products go to the right patients. When data is ‘locked,’ patients can even have trouble accessing their own health records.

The CHeS is working to develop and promote the implementation of industrywide data standards that would enable all parts of the health care supply chain to communicate with one another. These electronic standards will make the industry more efficient, save hospitals and other providers money and help to ensure patient safety.

CHeS is part of HSCA, an organization that works to advance innovation and efficiency in the health care industry. HSCA is made up of member group purchasing organizations, which are entities that help health care providers – such as hospitals, nursing homes, surgery centers and clinics – realize savings and efficiencies by aggregating purchasing volume to negotiate discounts with manufacturers, distributors and other vendors. Due to group purchasing organizations’ relationships with all aspects of the supply chain, CHeS and HSCA are in a unique position to help unite the health care supply chain behind common eStandards.

PBN: Can you explain your key responsibilities as the newly appointed executive director of HSCA’s CHeS?

MILLER: The mission of CHeS is to help develop, advocate for and expedite the adoption of shared data standards within the health care supply chain. As executive director, I am primarily responsible for supporting CHeS’s work and helping all HSCA member organizations speak as one united voice for health care supply chain standards.

CHeS is already moving the needle when it comes to eStandards adoption. CHeS has endorsed the global standards organization, GS1, and its supply chain standards for health care. Last year we worked with GS1 US, a membership organization, to create its web-based application, “GS1 US Attribute Explorer,” which gives health care suppliers and purchasers a streamlined method of identifying relevant attributes for their products to industry purchasers, empowering purchasers through accurate, real-time data, thus promoting interoperability.

PBN: What types of medical equipment and products do HSCA’s members sell to medical facilities? How many HSCA members are there nationwide and in New England?

MILLER: Ninety-eight percent of all U.S. hospitals utilize a group purchasing organization to provide value and cost savings. Group purchasing organizations are also purchasing partners to non-acute facilities like long-term health care providers, clinics, surgery centers and home health providers, of which there are more than 68,000 in the United States.

The health care supply chain may be the most comprehensive supply chain in the world and these group purchasing organizations offer their members access to discounts for virtually everything a health care provider may purchase – not just medical supplies and pharmaceuticals, but also capital equipment, food and housekeeping supplies, office supplies and equipment, computer hardware and software and a wide variety of services, as well.

Because each health care provider has unique needs, group purchasing organizations help source and purchase every type of product and service. For hospitals, group purchasing organizations source the best value on everything from such basic supplies as cotton balls to such advanced technologies as defibrillators. Non-acute facilities require many of the same supplies and services, plus additional support unique to long-term care such as addressing wound care, improving patient monitoring to help prevent falls, bedding, nutrition/food and pharmacy. Group purchasing organizations also deliver essential medicines to hospitals, pharmacies and long-term providers, which help ensure that patients get the treatment they need for recovery.
HSCA has 12 member group purchasing organizations across the U.S., including Yankee Alliance, headquartered in Andover, Mass. As of 2010 (the most recent year for which such data is available), Yankee served more than 500 acute-care and non-acute-care providers, mostly across New England and the mid-Atlantic states.

PBN: You spent 15 years in supply-chain management in the health care industry with Vector Healthsystems. Are there practices in Rhode Island that might serve as lessons in what to do – or what not to do – on a national scale?

MILLER: Based in [Providence], Vector Healthsystems was a founding shareholder of Amerinet, a national group purchasing organization. Vector Healthsystems was responsible for Amerinet’s customers in the eastern United States, from Maine to Louisiana. At Vector, I was fortunate to work with a leadership team who believed that values matter and promoted basic principles such as putting the customer first, having integrity, investing in people, treating people fairly and doing the right thing. My experience has been that, if you start with those principles and apply them to a sound business strategy, you will be successful. Both Intalere and HSCA have similar philosophies.

PBN: How will your experiences in the industry shape and guide your decision-making and responsibilities at HSCA?

MILLER: I’ve been directly involved in financial, operational and technical aspects of the health care supply chain for more than 30 years. During my 10 years at Amerinet, I served as chief information officer and was responsible for the company’s information systems strategy, application development, network infrastructure, data management and unified communications. Before that, I was director of group purchasing at Vector Healthsystems here in Rhode Island. Those experiences helped me understand the advantages to and challenges of implementing data standards. CHeS is working to advance and promote standards that are both technically and financially viable in the short term, while proving operational efficiencies and cost-savings over the long term.

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