The Future of Supply Chain Summit Recap
NOVEMBER 5–7
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HOUSTON, TX
Over three days, more than 20 health systems came together to connect, collaborate, and spark innovation at the Future of Supply Chain Summit.
From inspiring panels to late-night conversations over Top Golf and bourbon, this group is redefining how healthcare works together.
Summit Highlights
Experience the best moments from the 2025 Future of Supply Chain Summit, where healthcare leaders tackled the industry's biggest challenges, shared visionary insights, and forged powerful connections to build a better tomorrow.
Why Healthcare Supply Chain Is The Next Frontier
Kicking off the Future of Supply Chain Summit, Clarium Founder and CEO Steve Liou shared his vision for building a truly connected, data-driven, and clinically integrated supply chain — one that redefines how health systems work together to solve long-standing challenges through innovation, collaboration, and long-term thinking.
Clarium
Supply Chain Technology Common Ground: A Stakeholder’s Tale
The opening panel brought clinical, CMIO, and supply chain perspectives together to find common ground in technology, emphasizing platform thinking, tighter governance, and reframing “supply chain” as a system-wide network. Conversations spanned AI as an enabler, cross-site standardization, and moving from “hunting and gathering” to integrated operations.
Swifties, Startups, and the Singularity
In our Thursday opening keynote, Dr. Stephen Klasko pushed the room to think beyond incrementalism, laying out a 2035 vision and the near-term steps to get there: senior-level sponsorship, reworked incentives, and scaling practical technologies like AI without breaking today’s business model.
Closing the Strategy to Execution Gap: Lessons from the “Messy Middle”
In these rapid-fire “TED Talks,” we heard from leaders across health systems on how they're collaborating with with different functions, tackling complex problems in new ways, and ultimately carving a path through the messy middle.
Rethinking Variation Reduction
René and Nattie from Ochsner talked through a pragmatic playbook for OR optimization: clean the data foundation, align ERP–EHR workflows, formalize preference-card governance with clinical champions, and shift ordering to trained supply chain staff while reducing requesters. The throughline: build shared governance and usable data first—then standardize, automate, and scale.
Rewiring Work for the Modern Supply Chain
Facing a 10% cost reduction target, MultiCare explored how to rethink roles, span of control, and technology to build a more adaptive, analytics-driven supply chain. By blending automation, AI, and process engineering, their team is upskilling talent, redefining decision-making, and proving that efficiency doesn’t have to come at the expense of people.
The Leadership Behind Standardization
Bridging clinical insight with supply chain strategy, St. Luke’s has built a model for transformation from the inside out. With a new Consolidated Service Center and Dr. Michele Ebbers as the Supply Chain Medical Director, the team is proving how standardization, data, and physician partnership can unlock both savings and trust.
Standardizing Preference Cards: Lessons Learned
Behind every technology leap is culture change. Steve Downey showed how Cleveland Clinic is reimagining supply chain through AI, automation, and clinically aligned standardization. His message: operational precision and data-driven leadership are the new foundations for clinical excellence.
Bridging Pharmacy and Supply Chain
Mary Beth Lang and Mike Hopkins explored how integrating pharmacy and supply chain can strengthen resilience, improve visibility, and redefine partnership. From managing shortages and data sharing to rethinking warehousing and procurement, they emphasized that true progress comes from working together.
Workshop: From Supply Data to Financial Insight
In a dynamic, hands-on workshop, the team from Yale New Haven Health challenged participants to rethink how supply chain performance is measured — and who defines success. Through breakout sessions spanning finance, clinical, and operations, leaders worked to identify the next generation of KPIs that truly connect cost, care, and collaboration.
Workshop: Roadmapping the Future of Supply Chain
In an energetic roadmapping workshop, supply chain, finance, and clinical leaders worked side-by-side to define the next frontier of healthcare supply chain — from smarter spend visibility to autonomous inventory management. Their ideas will directly shape what Clarium builds next.
Closing Keynote: The Next Frontier for Health Systems
We ended the summit with a conversation that brought it all home. Dr. Toby Cosgrove shared stories from the operating room to the boardroom, on transparency, courage, and the role of empathy in leadership. His message to leaders in the room was simple but profound: the path forward isn’t just about efficiency or technology, it’s about people, purpose, and bringing care back to the center of every decision.
Plus good food and great company!
