Yale New Haven Identifies $3M in Savings, Cuts Supply Disruption Time in Half
“In an increasingly challenging healthcare environment, we’re looking for partners who can help us weather the financial storm. Clarium is foundational to our strategy, giving us critical insights into our supply chain that has led to direct cost savings."
“The beauty of Clarium lies in its ability to simplify and automate complex processes. Teams are now spending time where it matters most — with our patients."
Corporate Supply Chain
unique items (SKUs) managed by YNHHS
disrupted items per week across the system
days on average to resolve a single supply disruption
unique surgical preference cards that required review
The Challenge
In the wake of the pandemic, YNHHS was struggling with a decentralized system that relied on team “elbow grease”: Supply disruptions were managed out of at least 4 different systems, and there were no shared processes for sourcing substitute items.
In parallel, YNHHS identified a multimillion-dollar savings opportunity by eliminating the overpurchasing of surgical supplies used in the OR. Every surgeon has a list of requested supplies for the procedures they perform, which are stored on surgical “preference cards” in the EHR. Over time, supply lists become bloated and out of date, leading to overordering — supplies were brought into the OR, opened, but never used. With 34,503 unique preference cards and supply lists, ensuring the accuracy of all supply requests was an impossible task without an automated, scalable solution.
The Solution
YNHHS and Clarium worked in close partnership to co-build several flagship Clarium Platform capabilities. To ensure Clarium solved pain points for users and stakeholders across the system, YNHHS included partners from supply chain, value analysis, and clinical teams throughout the development process. The Clarium and YNHHS teams met weekly to sketch out requirements, review prototypes, and provide feedback on beta products.
Together, YNHHS helped Clarium build and deploy flagship capabilities, including:
Supply Chain Control Tower
Centralized platform to monitor supply disruptions across all 158,417 items used by YNHHS. A unified data layer that aggregates all critical product information, risk signals, and purchasing context. Proprietary impact scores help YNHHS teams focus on the highest-risk disruption events, and crowdsourced disruption signals enable faster response to shortages.
Product Substitute Library
Access to a library of Clarium-curated product substitute options to expedite disrupted product replacement workflows. Substitutes are sourced from Clarium partner databases and AI-generated recommendations.
Automated Preference Card Optimization
Analyzed thousands of surgical preference cards against historic case utilization data to identify outdated items and recommend updates to preference cards that would reduce waste and overordering.
Task Management & Collaboration Workflows
Task assignment queues to clarify team roles and prioritize tasks for users across the system. Built-in collaboration features — @mentions, approval workflows, and more — streamline back-and-forth between supply chain, value analysis, and clinical teams.