Susan Schrupp is the SVP and Chief Purchasing Officer for CHS overseeing Supply Chain. Schrupp joined CHS in May of 2018 and has the responsibility for managing the procure-to-pay process for the health system’s spend of more than $4B annually in supplies and purchased services. Additional areas of responsibility include overseeing contract administration, lab and imaging service lines, travel, and biomedical engineering functions. Schrupp has over 25 years of experience in healthcare group purchasing organizations including Premier, Consorta, and HealthTrust Purchasing Group and executive supply chain roles with Catholic Health Initiatives and MNS Supply Chain.
Schrupp holds a bachelor’s degree in health services administration and a master’s degree in business from Western Illinois University.
Repertoire: What is the most challenging/rewarding project you have worked on in the last 12-18 months?
Susan Schrupp: Responding to COVID-19 has not only been the most challenging project in the past 12-18 months, but also in my entire 28-year career in health care. CHS’ focus has always been to secure the supplies needed to protect our patients and staff, and that continues as our primary focus despite the challenges faced in Supply Chain.
Coming to CHS in the role of CPO and re-launching our Supply Chain has been rewarding and gave us a solid foundation for the COVID-19 response. The positive, collaborative spirit by our clinicians, hospital operators, IT, corporate departments, and executive team has been amazing. We’ve set our future vision and outlined key focus areas that include: execution of Clinical Initiatives, enhancing Data Analytics, refining Sourcing, restructuring our Supply Chain Operations, and implementing a single Supply Chain Platform. This is a multi-year journey and we have been highly centered on building the plan collaboratively, communicating our progress and performance, and engaging end users to build an intuitive high performing model. We are seeing a significant return on this investment and we will continue our journey focusing on having the right items, at the right time, at the right price.
Repertoire: What project or initiative are you looking forward to working on?
Schrupp: Upgrading our Supply Chain ERP system by moving to the Cloud. We have opportunities to improve our business processes for our hospitals and better leverage the collective volume of the organization. Making our procure-to-pay system more intuitive and efficient for end users to focus on the right cost management areas is key. Our partnership with finance operations and IT is imperative to modernizing our system.
Repertoire: How are you better at practicing your profession than you were 5-10 years ago?
Schrupp: I believe these areas are essential to continuous improvement in health care supply chain:
- Keep focused on clinical partnering.
- Communicate your plan and openly and routinely measure progress.
- Back assumptions with data. Provide access to data and collaboration with stakeholders to achieve mutual goals.
- Ensure incentives are aligned to move collectively in the right direction within your organization and your group purchasing organization.
- Keep the door open for feedback from leadership and your team members. I am thankful for honest, direct leaders that share what is on their mind and are engaged to make change and improve.