8 AUGUST 2023Ryan Garland is the System Director of the Radiology and Respiratory department at Edward-Elmhurst Health, where he manages 16 satellite facilities and two hospitals. Ryan has a background in Masters of Healthcare Administration (MHA) and has been working in the healthcare industry for over 22 years. He's part of multiple committees that look for opportunities to grow the market share and manage trials and tribulations.WHAT ARE SOME OF THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES IN THE HEALTHCARE SECTOR RIGHT NOW?The biggest challenge in the healthcare sector right now is staffing. The pandemic has painted a specific picture of the profession where people don't want to get into healthcare because of COVID-19. We are forced to look at agency staffing because the school system, which is one of our major sources Healthcare Sector and Its ChallengesAn Interview With Ryan Garland, System Director of Radiology and Respiratory, Edward-Elmhurst Healthof employment, is not getting enough students to fill the quota. Whereas a few years ago, students were put on a two or three-year hold to get into the Radiology or Ultrasound program. The younger generation of employees are quitting work at the hospital to go work for the agency because they pay significantly more per hour. We're rehiring them through the agency and paying twice their usual salary.This problem is just exacerbating, especially during a time when staffing is at an all-time low, and we're seeing higher-than-ever volumes in the healthcare sector. The burnout is real, and it's probably the biggest challenge right now.HOW DO YOU SEE MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS IN THE HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY HELPING HOSPITALS?Mergers and acquisitions add a lot of value in terms of cost advantages that a hospital obtains due to the scale of operation. Our merger with Elmhurst, a standalone private community hospital in Chicago Suburb helped us gain economies of scale in terms of saving money on contracts and being able to have better pricing with operational items that we use in the healthcare industry. In January, we went on to merge with NorthShore, which had gone through a similar acquisition and has six hospitals.Most of our focus with these mergers has been on the economy and where we can get better contract pricing. Our supply chain folks have been looking at the details of our contract and finding ways so that we can essentially save money. We've saved a substantial amount of around 10 million in the first year since our successful merger with Elmhurst and NorthShore. HOW DID THE SUPPLY CHAIN DISRUPTION AFFECT YOU?The supply chain disruption caused a ripple across the industry, and everyone had to switch gears to try and react to that. We had a CT contract, and 90 percent of our contract was made by GE Healthcare in one plant Ryan GarlandIN MY OPINION
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