EP 49 - Vanderbilt's Teresa Dail on How a Clinical Background Shapes Supply Chain Leadership

Teresa Dail, Chief Supply Chain Officer Emeritus - President at Vanderbilt Health Purchasing Collaborative, spent 17 years as an ICU nurse and nursing leader before being hired back to Orlando Health to close what she describes as a "Grand Canyon" of disconnect between materials management and clinical teams. That background shaped her entire approach for Vanderbilt. The physician-led process she collaborated on with three physician champions ultimately established the capabilities of bringing physicians together to drive sole and dual-source contracts across physician preference items including total joints and cardiac rhythm management.

It also produced the price performance and compliance rates that became the foundation for the Vanderbilt Health Purchasing Collaborative, now operating across 48 states with acute and non-acute membership. Teresa walks through how that two-decade foundation culminated in a full restructuring of Vanderbilt's executive value analysis committee, where any product or technology with a negative contribution margin now requires sign-off from the Deputy CEO, CMO, CFO, and hospital presidents, shifting accountability for supply chain decisions to the people who can actually enforce them.

Topics discussed:

• Why a bedside background accelerates credibility with physicians and surgeons in supply chain leadership

• Building healthcare's first formal value analysis processes by bringing competing community physicians together for technology decisions

• Driving sole and dual-source contracts on physician preference items via structured engagement with orthopedic, cardiac, and surgical specialists

• Commercializing an internal supply chain model into a purchasing collaborative now operating across 48 states

• Standing up an offsite case card operations center for supply chain and sterile processing to support rapid OR and ICU expansion

• Launching and later divesting a wholly owned DME company to improve discharge velocity and patient satisfaction, then transitioning it to a joint venture

• Restructuring the MEOC committee to escalate all negative-margin tech decisions to the Deputy CEO, CMO, CFO, and hospital presidents

• Defining the next generation of healthcare supply chain leadership around technology fluency and financial acumen