Company Overview

The Strategic Marketplace Initiative (SMI) is a consortium of executives representing healthcare providers; medical products, pharmaceuticals and supply chain distribution companies; and service businesses united to reengineer and advance the future of the healthcare supply chain for the purpose of improving the overall healthcare marketplace in the United States. Through SMI, members have discovered an open, non-competitive forum for innovative idea-exchange and the development of collaborative process improvement initiatives. SMI’s mission is to establish new standards of supply chain performance for delivering healthcare to patients and their communities throughout the United States. Additionally SMI was formed to act as a change agent for healthcare. SMI provides critical mass representing key industry stakeholders and decision makers within the healthcare supply chain interacting and sharing best practices. Through collaboration, tools and techniques are developed that members can take back to their organizations and customize to meet their unique needs. As SMI is dedicated to improving the entirety of the healthcare supply chain, all such tools / findings / improvements / established best practices are shared free of charge with the healthcare marketplace.

Corporate Structure/Governance

SMI is a not-for-profit, Virginia, non-stock 501 (c)(6) corporation operating to facilitate the activities of executives representing healthcare providers; medical products, pharmaceuticals and supply chain distribution companies; and service businesses united to reengineer and advance the future of the healthcare supply chain for the purpose of improving the overall healthcare marketplace in the United States. SMI is governed by a Board of Directors comprised of 12 persons, equally representing Provider and Industry Partners. No monies by way of consulting fees, honorariums or surplus allocation are provided to the Board of Directors or any member. In the unlikely event that SMI should be dissolved, all remaining funds are to go to charity.

Legal counsel has been retained for ongoing review of structure, policies, etc., and continues to be present at Forums. Initiative activities are continuously reviewed to ensure that focus remains on operational issues and processes, making certain that there are no discussions that could affect the competitive process and that discussions are in no way product or brand specific.

BACK TO TOP

Membership

SMI membership is open to supply chain executives serving as transactional trading partners from integrated delivery networks (IDNs) and academic medical centers; manufacturers of medical surgical, diagnostic and pharmaceutical supplies; capital equipment and medical device companies; distributors; service providers; IT companies; and other key suppliers with direct involvement in the healthcare supply chain and delivery of patient care. Each must have a corporate structure owned and controlled by a single entity with a centralized operations function that has the capacity to affect operational change throughout the organization. All members pay a membership fee. Industry Partner membership is tiered such that those with national healthcare sales of $500 million and above pay $25,000 annually; those with sales less than $500 million but greater than $200 million pay $15,000; and those with sales of $200 million and below pay $12,500. Provider members currently pay $2,000 annually. Member fees are the only source of revenue for SMI. On an as-needed-basis, some Providers may receive a capped reimbursement for expenses directly associated with travel to SMI Forums.

BACK TO TOP

Forums

Two Forums are held each year. SMI Forums utilize an interactive meeting process offering a balanced blend of large general sessions, roundtable discussions, and small group work teams designed to educate participants and promote development of meaningful solutions and tools and techniques to enable adoptable improvements for the most important issues facing the healthcare supply chain. No extracurricular entertainment such as golf or spa service is offered. Spouse attendance is not encouraged. Forum expenses are solely funded through membership fees – there are no supplier sponsorships.

BACK TO TOP

Staff

SMI is staffed by the Executive Director, Tom Hughes who reports to the Board of Directors; and the Administrative Director, Teri Gallagher and the Project Director, Dennis Orthman who report to the Executive Director.

BACK TO TOP

Current Initiatives

Value Alignment

The Value Alignment team is focused on How to Build Effective Corporate Relationships.  The team recognizes that this initiative could serve as a "front end" to the existing SMI tool on Measuring Effective Relationships.  The Value Alignment team expects to create a toolkit containing three major components: Effective Information Sharing, Effective Business Reviews, and Goal Setting & Metrics.

Product Recalls

The Product Recall Initiative team is the first known industry effort to explore the challenges of product recalls across all major components of the supply chain - manufacturers, distributors, and providers.  The team is initially focused on understanding the "pain points" being experienced within each supply chain component, while also learning of the regulatory requirements.  It is expected that a gap analysis will highlight any common challenges shared by each supply chain participant, allowing the team to then work toward a meaningful outcome to advance the industry's overall management of product recalls.

Regional Aggregated Contracting

The Regional Aggregated Contracting workgroup is the first effort by SMI to expand on member-led discussions on hot industry topics.  Selected by SMI members as in need of a "deeper dive," this topic reflects an emerging industry trend.  The workgroup currently seeks to develop an educational document that can serve as a primer for the industry about this emerging contracting model.  The team plans to document the critical success factors and mutual benefits that can be expected when trading in this environment.