Reducing The Cost of Care for Health Systems: Ensuring Access to Critical Medications for Patients

Kennedy Ferruggia, Assistant Editor with Pharmacy Times interviewed Peter J. Siavelis, SVP and general manager of Health System and Provider Distribution & Services at Cardinal Health on the role of the InteLogix platform to enable a more rapid response to changes in the pharmaceutical supply chain. Siavelis emphasizes the goal to help hospitals navigate a volatile market in an increasingly complex supply chain to deliver positive patient outcomes. Additionally, Siavelis highlights the importance of helping pharmacists serve patients and expanding their outpatient settings with accreditation, consulting, and outsourcing solutions.

Pharmacy Times: Can you introduce yourself?

Peter J. Siavelis: My name is Peter J. Siavelis. I am the SVP and the GM of Cardinal’s Health System and Provider Distribution and Services business. I've been at Cardinal about 3 years, and I've been in the health care industry [for] about 30 years.

Pharmacy Times: How can artificial intelligence reshape the pharmaceutical supply chain?

Siavelis: Earlier this year, Cardinal Health introduced the InteLogix platform, which leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning to enable a more rapid response to changes in the pharmaceutical supply chain, and the differences of supply and demand. It was important for Cardinal to collaborate with our hospitals, health systems, providers, and our partners to manage rising drug expenses, supply chain volatility, and, as you know, drug shortages. The InteLogix platform is the first proactive pharmaceutical supply chain solution for hospitals and it's very unique in that it optimizes the pharmaceutical supply chain for all stakeholders. Our goal, and the goal of the solution, is to reduce the cost of care for our health systems and ensure access to critical medications for our patients. The InteLogix platform is a full suite of solutions, and it covers a couple of different facets that I wanted to cover.

One of the first solutions that the hospital and health system customers are using is the InteLogix contract optimizer, and that helps maximize value on drug purchases. So, the InteLogix contract opposite optimizer provides transparent, actionable insights that identifies drug cost savings through contract compliance, cost controls, and product alternatives for generics and blood plasma. During a 3-month period…the program has identified 8.25 million in customer savings…Our next solution under development is the InteLogix inventory optimizer, which is designed to help health systems drive additional value from on-site drug inventories. So, that's a solution that's in development in the first phase, which is in limited release with select customers. It automates the calculations necessary to determine optimal inventory levels, reducing inventory waste, and improving the access to needed medications. Future phases of the InteLogix inventory optimizer will incorporate predictive analytics that will enhance the accuracy of inventory planning, forecasting, as well as product availability.

Image credit: Halfpoint | stock.adobe.com

Pharmacy Times: What are ways your specialty pharmacy capabilities can provide hospitals access to critical medications and identify cost savings.

Siavelis: Cardinal Health helps manage the costs and minimize the complexity of expensive and emergent therapies by providing hospitals with access to critical medications while delivering personalized service and efficiencies. Our portfolio is vast, and our portfolio of specialty pharmacy capabilities include: [first,] consignment progress or specialty medications, which help ensure critical specialty medications are available when patients need them, allowing the pharmacies to focus on patient care instead of the time-consuming manual processes, excessive carrying costs, and/or waste due to obsolescence; [next,] specialty group purchasing organizations (GPOs) for health system outpatient facilities across 8 therapeutic areas, which offer members savings for their specialty-branded and biosimilar-limited distribution drugs; next, supporting hospitals and optimizing their specialty and limited drug distribution and utilization, and outpatient facilities through Specialty Pharmacy accreditation compliance programs; and lastly, access to COVID-19 vaccines and a comprehensive program for flu care.

Pharmacy Times: How could these capabilities benefit the future of personalized service within pharmacy?

Siavelis: Our goal is to help hospitals navigate a volatile market in an increasingly complex supply chain so that we can deliver positive patient outcomes. With more than 1700 clinicians focused on solving today's most pressing pharmaceutical distribution and support challenges that we see, our teams are building a portfolio of solutions designed to make clinicians’ lives easier, and the patients’ lives healthier and longer. Now more than ever, hospital pharmacies need help in managing costs and complexity across the systems and the patients they serve. Cardinal is meeting this challenge, we're meeting this need through the innovation of the supply chain to drive efficiencies and ensure access to critical medications with the solutions that we’ve talked about, like the InteLogix platform, our specialty consignment program, and more.

We're also helping pharmacists serve patients and expanding their outpatient settings with our accreditation, consulting, and outsourcing solutions. These solutions simplify and streamline the supply chain and empower our customers, our pharmacy teams, to focus on delivering patient care and the best outcomes to our patients.

Pharmacy Times: Is there anything you would like to add?

Siavelis: You know, the practice of pharmacy continues to expand, and at Cardinal Health, we focus on preparing pharmacists for what is next with distribution services that grow with their needs, a broad product portfolio that's evolving, and advanced technologies and insights as impactful as the latest therapies themselves. Pharmacists should expect this of their trusted partners. To learn more about our hospital pharmacy programs, please visit cardinalhealth.com/hospitalpharmacy. Thanks for your time.