The Medline Newsroom recently met with Tabitha Welsh, Northwestern Medicine’s director of materials management information systems, and Brian Harty, executive account director, Medline, to talk about the importance of the GHX award and the value of healthcare organizations and distributors working so closely together:

Medline Newsroom: We’ll start with the obvious: Congratulations on being celebrated by GHX. What do you think it was that caught their eye?

Tabitha Welsh: GHX has always been a leader in the data exchange market, so they know supply chain. They know healthcare. They’re intimately aware of what it takes to do what we do. So while Northwestern was onboarding with the GHX Exchange at the same time we were going through our optimization and alignment project with Medline, GHX had visibility into our data, and they encouraged us to apply for this award based on the outstanding condition of our data. That feedback was what prompted us to apply. It’s a thrill they thought what we’d done was so impactful. We put a lot of work into it. And it couldn’t be done without Medline. It truly has been a collaboration.

Brian Harty: We see our role as doing everything we can to bring the right resources forward to meet the evolving needs of Northwestern Medicine and their patients. Tabitha was kind enough to recognize me along with her team on the award application, but there are so many teammates on the Medline side who share in this. And when you think about the other organizations in consideration for this award each year, it’s many of the best around the country, which makes this recognition really special and validates the collaboration and focus on process improvement that our teams continue to build upon.

Newsroom: Northwestern Medicine is also now one of the organizations helping to pilot the Mpower™ solution that Medline is planning to launch in early 2026. And the organizations worked together before 2021, right?

Harty: Yes, with both of us being Illinois-based organizations, we’ve been doing business going back decades, but Northwestern had other strategic distribution partners until a few years ago. Over time, through new opportunities and things that were changing in the industry, we were able to have more purposeful dialogue, which allowed some of our synergies to show and a new level of collaboration to happen.

Welsh: Once Medline became our Prime Vendor, my team and I recognized this was the opportunity for us to really take the time to realign and cleanse and organize ourselves around better processes, better data and better inputs into our system. We immediately went to Medline to say, “Here’s our set of problems,” and “Will you come to the table and help us solve this?” They were on the other side of some of the data, and we wanted to sort out issues at the beginning. Implementation with a new distributor can be a bear in and of itself – reorganizing and realigning yourself to that distributor’s systems. But there was no hesitation from the Medline side. It was, “Yep, let’s do it.”

Medline was amazing, seeking to understand what we needed and why we needed it a certain way. It was challenging at times because you’re dealing with two different ERP systems, cultures and your daily operational work. But in the end, the results speak for themselves. Our match exceptions are extremely low, price accuracy between 97 and 99%, and monthly Medline reconciliations are almost flawless. You don’t get there with a distributor without a lot of hard work.

Harty: I couldn’t agree more, and the saying holds true: “Individuals go fast. Teams go far.” The meticulous focus on data precision and operational excellence has laid the groundwork for our teams to thrive in an environment centered around continuous improvement. Today, we’re achieving alignment across nearly every aspect of data integrity. And with that solid foundation, we’re no longer just reacting – we’re proactively planning for what’s next.

Newsroom: Can data ever truly be perfect?

Welsh: Our philosophy has always been to get it right the first time so you don’t ever have to touch it again, but vendor supply chain data is a moving target. A vendor might change their unit of measure. They might have a packaging change. They might have a recall or be out of stock. But by being on the same page with Medline at the beginning, we can minimize the exception work.

Harty: As an example, if Vendor A changes their price and notifies Medline today but doesn’t notify Northwestern Medicine until the first of the month, we’re going to have different pricing in our system. So we’ve got to have the right cadences, people and processes in place to be able to consistently stay in alignment. And going back to the GHX award, that’s what they’re recognizing people for – maximum performance through automation, efficiency and accuracy to drive out the cost of healthcare and improve patient care.

Newsroom: How do you see our collaboration evolving now?

Welsh: The intensity of it may wax and wane, but there will always be groups of people in various parts of our supply chain working with Medline on cleansing and resolving exceptions in data alignment and procurement accuracy.

Harty: Every day, there are new items and new data sets that our teams have to work on. Some we know about. Others we don’t. But through the teamwork we’ve established, I feel like there’s no challenge we can’t address together. That can’t be said for all relationships in healthcare, and I think that puts both Northwestern Medicine and Medline in a unique position to truly support and grow together.