What do health system supply chain AI buyers want?

Image Credit: Black Book Research

A new survey from Black Book Research gives strong insight into how supply chain tech buyers are thinking. Not surprisingly, it’s with their wallets.

Black Book surveyed 1,604 buyers of health system supply chain technology for its latest report, “State of Healthcare Supply Chain Management Technology Q3 2026.” The results show how important ROI has become to the mindset as health systems adopt and implement AI across the supply chain.

Here are the six trends shaping AI buying trends within health system supply chains, according to Black Book’s survey.

1. Margin accountability is replacing isolated savings claims. Buyers are expecting AI solutions to have an effect on working capital. This is in line with what we’ve heard and seen at Clarium. Amid a margin crisis, health systems need ROI from their AI tools and they need it now.

2. Clinical value is a supply chain requirement. Clinical supplies are being evaluated alongside utilization, outcomes, recall readiness, substitution risk, traceability and physician acceptance. This is one of the biggest challenges for managing disruptions within the supply chain. There is rarely an easy, one-to-one substitution in healthcare. This isn’t substituting Pepsi for Coke. If an item is not available, clinicians need to be involved in the process of validating and accepting the replacement. This is why we include and empower clinician supply chain leaders in the deployment of Clarium. 

3. AI is moving from pilots to governed production. The importance of governance was a frequent topic of discussion at last week’s Association for Health Care Resource & Materials Management (AHRMM) conference. To me, it shows the maturation of supply chains in healthcare.
   
   
4. Cybersecurity and recovery readiness are becoming selection gates. This should come as no surprise to anyone. This year has seen major cyberattacks to two of the industry’s most prominent medtech vendors: Stryker and Intuitive Surgical.
   
   
5. Data quality and interoperability are operating-cost issues. This is right in Clarium’s wheelhouse. We see it all the time. Historically, supply chain data is a mess. It’s segmented and not uniform. The only way to effectively automate supply chain tasks is to unify and clean the data.
   
   
6. Contracts are getting tied to outcomes. This trend is happening because many AI vendors promise the world but fail to deliver. Health systems should only use vendors that have delivered for previous customers.

Clarium is ahead on many of these trends. This is why Black Book’s buyers ranked as the #1 supply chain tech vendor in healthcare across 18 qualitative performance indicators, according to our clients. Specifically, we were ranked as the market leader for resilience, control tower, supplier risk and disruption response.

I believe it’s because we understand what supply chain buyers are thinking. It didn’t happen by accident. Our team goes in deep with all of our customers to know how their supply chain operation works and how we can help them.

Thanks to all of our health system partners who ranked us #1. It’s an honor to serve your organizations.