Logistics is the aspect of supply chain management that coordinates the navigation of goods from their starting point – where they’re made – to their final destination. It sounds simple enough, but in healthcare, it can be challenging due to the involvement of many suppliers, shippers and delivery points, in addition to other supply chain challenges healthcare organizations face daily.
Healthcare organizations rely on efficient logistics to manage the flow of essential medical supplies, equipment and medications. To ensure smooth operations, many healthcare organizations utilize third-party logistics providers like Cardinal Health™ OptiFreight® Logistics to provide expert supply chain management tools and resources, helping to optimize their shipments, reduce costs and ensure continuous value.
OptiFreight® Logistics started as an idea from a Cardinal Health employee more than 20 years ago, who recognized that many healthcare organizations receive shipments outside of traditional distribution, and without large supply chain teams themselves, would benefit from external expertise in logistics management. OptiFreight® Logistics focuses on management of both direct shipments from suppliers to healthcare providers (inbound shipping) and shipments that healthcare providers send out of their facilities (outbound shipping).
In the two-plus decades since its inception, OptiFreight Logistics has become an industry leader in helping healthcare organizations gain greater control of their logistics operations and direct shipping needs. The business manages more than 22 million shipments annually to 25,000 shipping locations for healthcare providers across the continuum of care, including health systems, hospitals, pharmacies, laboratories, surgery centers and more.
We recently sat down with Emily Gallo, SVP and general manager of OptiFreight Logistics, to learn more about the business and what she sees for its future.
Q: Why do healthcare organizations need OptiFreight® Logistics?
Logistics management can be seen as the glue that holds a supply chain together. That’s vital to any business because of cost, efficiency and expertise. In healthcare, though, proper logistics management is particularly important, because providers must have the products they need, when they need them, to care for their patients.
And, if a healthcare organization is not carefully managing their in- and outbound shipments and supplier relationships, they could be overpaying for shipping and handling charges – and potentially operating inefficiently.
In short, OptiFreight® Logistics helps healthcare organizations gain greater control of their logistics operations for both inbound and outbound shipping needs. Our experts act as an extension of our customers’ teams to help identify savings through reduced rates on shipments that come directly from suppliers, and to implement shipping best practices, such as driving supplier and carrier compliance and leveraging data and analytics to plan strategically and act decisively. In an industry where time is of the essence, we provide healthcare organizations with greater visibility and control over the supply chain.
OptiFreight® Logistics has two great advantages that really set us apart from the competition: Our people and our technology. Our committed experts, including sales and supplier relations teams, region-based carrier specialists, and others, help our customers uncover actionable insights and our technology and digital tools help drive continuous innovation.
Q: Tell us a little more about your team.
We actively collaborate with our healthcare customers, as an extension of their teams, to help uncover value and drive results. Each of our customers is supported by an account representative powered by a vast network of experienced team members specializing in areas like supplier relations, billing and invoicing, and even a dedicated implementation and training team.
A notable example of this expertise is our Carrier Relations team, comprising regional carrier experts who work directly with transportation providers on behalf of OptiFreight Logistics and our customers. This team provides an extra layer of expertise and coordinates local-level alignment to support parcel operations.
The Carrier Relations team's commitment to customer support is evident in their response to unforeseen challenges, such as inclement weather. For example, during a recent winter storm, this team worked with a national transportation carrier to recover and prioritize critical healthcare shipments for a pharmacy customer, ensuring the timely delivery of essential medications. This is just one of many examples of how the OptiFreight Logistics team shows up for our customers.
Q: You mentioned technology, too. Why is that so important?
We continue to invest in technology as both the industry and our customer needs evolve. That investment has enabled the development of our tracking, reporting and analytics solution, Cardinal Health™ OptiFreight® Logistics TotalVue™ Insights. TotalVue™ Insights is a comprehensive, cloud-based platform that tracks, analyzes and reports logistics data to give customers a comprehensive picture of their supply chain performance. That knowledge is power, helping healthcare organizations to realize the full potential of improvements to their logistics strategy.
Organizations can’t improve what they can’t see, and TotalVue™ Insights provides visibility into what’s working and what’s not to help alleviate some of the challenges healthcare organizations are experiencing. Our experts help customers make sense of all the data coming from TotalVue™ Insights and help them establish the most efficient way forward.
Healthcare logistics is an ever-evolving industry, and we are investing in technology to help healthcare organizations uncover actionable insights. With TotalVue™ Insights, our customers can access interactive reporting dashboards, their program performance against key industry benchmarks and near real-time shipment updates, including delay alerts. The platform allows customers to gain greater visibility into their shipping operations and make informed decisions.
We take an agile approach to technology development and involve our customers in the process to gather feedback and help ensure our solutions meet their needs. We did this with our most recent launch of TotalVue™ Reporting, which delivers self-service access to actionable key performance reports focused on answering our customers’ most common questions regarding logistics spend. This launch is a great example of how we prioritize a customer-first mindset and are continually innovating and delivering to better support the leading healthcare organizations we serve.
This video does a great job highlighting the TotalVue™ Insights portfolio of products.
Q: What are some of the most common logistics challenges facing healthcare organizations?
Too often, healthcare organizations are managing complex systems with an inadequate amount of in-house staff to support efficient logistics management. That makes it very difficult to optimize a supply chain. Some of the challenges we hear most from our customers include:
We can help healthcare organizations overcome all these challenges: That’s the value of OptiFreight® Logistics.
Q: What does the future look like for OptiFreight® Logistics?
As the industry continues to evolve, we are focused on advancing and expanding the ways OptiFreight® Logistics supports and drives value for our healthcare customers. Our responsive approach to technology development means that we’re continually uncovering and innovating new ways to support customers, whether that’s through the expansion of new products or impactful customer experiences, and that will continue to be the case as we look to the future. We are committed to working alongside our customers to address their ever-changing needs and support them in their mission to deliver quality patient care.
Learn more about OptiFreight® Logistics here.
Emily Gallo is the senior vice president and general manager of Cardinal Health OptiFreight Logistics, focused on building tech products to innovate the way healthcare supply chain leaders manage logistics and remove cost. While at Cardinal Health, Emily also has led executive customer engagement strategy and several medical product businesses.