Gartner places Owens & Minor as No. 1 in Top 25 Healthcare Supply Chain organizations

The Top 25 Healthcare Supply Chain ranking, originated at AMR Research (now part of Gartner), combines organizational financial and operational performance with a peer ranking among either healthcare systems or manufacturers and suppliers, then force-fit the two together for a single ranking. Peer voters (including Gartner and other analysts) ranked organizations according to “value” in healthcare, which Gartner defines as:

Patient focus

Collaboration with trading partners

Network visibility

Dynamic supply

Change management.

Based on these criteria, Gartner places Owens & Minor as No. 1, displacing last year’s No. 1, Johnson & Johnson. “Despite some very public quality and compliance issues in its consumer business,” says Gartner, the company is “a leader that continues to drive internal supply chain excellence and external value chain collaboration.” O&M is cited for its “effectiveness for both manufacturers and hospitals” as a medical device wholesaler; the company opened a new healthcare logistics 3PL service this year and is aiming at biopharma as well as device manufacturers.

Sisters of Mercy Health System is No. 3 and the highest-ranked system for a second year in a row. Gartner cites its “strategic move into design and assembly of custom surgical packs,” innovation “in managing physician preference items (PPIs), strategic sourcing and how supply chain intersects with patient outcomes.”

The Big Three pharma wholesalers are ranked No. 4 (Cardinal Health), No. 9 (McKesson) and No. 13 (AmerisourceBergen). CVS nosed out Walgreens as the top retailer; Gartner tags it as “a leader in sharing supply chain and prescription data with its pharmaceutical suppliers.”

Among biopharma manufacturers, after J&J comes Novartis (No. 5), cited for its leadership in patient-driven supply chain strategies, GSK (No. 10), Abbott (No. 11) and AstraZeneca have the uppermost positions.

The full list follows:

Gartner 2010 Top 25 Healthcare Supply Chain Organizations

1. Owens & Minor

2. Johnson & Johnson

3. Sisters of Mercy Health System

4. Cardinal Health

5. Novartis

6. Becton, Dickinson

7. Intermountain Healthcare

8. Mayo Clinic

9. McKesson

10. GlaxoSmithKline

11. Abbott

12. CVS Caremark

13. AmerisourceBergen

14. BJC Healthcare

15. Walgreens

16. Boston Scientific

17. AstraZeneca

18. Eli Lilly

19. Pfizer

20. Fresenius

21. Endo Pharmaceuticals

22. Amgen

23. Geisinger Health Systems

24. Alcon

25. Bristol-Myers Squibb.