Pharmacy procurement has never been more complex — and the tools most organizations rely on haven’t kept up. At a featured session during Becker’s Spring Chief Pharmacy Officer Summit, pharmacy leaders and a technology expert examined what it takes to align cost, supply and compliance in an environment where a decision made in one silo can quickly create problems in another.
Panelists included Todd Karpinski, PharmD, assistant dean of health system services and chief pharmacy officer and system vice president at WVU Medicine (Morgantown, W.Va.); Tony Li, PharmD, assistant director of pharmacy at Medical Center Health System (Odessa, Texas); Nilesh Desai, chief pharmacy officer at University of Miami Health System; and AJ Rivosecchi, PharmD, product director at Bluesight.
Here are four key takeaways from the session.
Note: Quotes have been edited lightly for length and clarity.
1. Point solutions are no longer enough; procurement demands an integrated approach
The panelists agreed that the era of managing pharmacy procurement through separate tools for cost, supply and compliance is creating more problems than it solves. Dr. Rivosecchi described the current state as “decision whiplash” — teams unable to move fluidly between competing priorities because the data and workflows don’t connect.
“Anyone that’s going to do a good job for the next five years is going to be thinking about how to consolidate these into one consistent train of thought,” Dr. Rivosecchi said.
Mr. Desai put it plainly in his closing takeaway: “Having one solution that can do it all, from procurement down to reimbursement, I think that’s the preference, because we all don’t have time for 35 different applications.”
2. Inventory visibility is the foundation everything else is built on
When asked what procurement capability leaders should invest in over the next 12 to 24 months, all four panelists landed on the same answer: inventory visibility. Dr. Karpinski described it as a patient safety and operational imperative. “If there’s an IV fluid disaster, I need to know exactly how much I have at each of my sites,” he said, noting that critical access hospitals sometimes hold excess stock of drugs running short at the academic medical center.
Mr. Desai agreed: “If you, at a stroke of a key, don’t know what you have, then you have a problem.” He added that true inventory visibility also strengthens negotiating leverage with manufacturers and wholesalers.
Dr. Rivosecchi framed it structurally, describing inventory as the base of an inverted pyramid — the single point that every other procurement decision rests on.
3. Connecting procurement cost to reimbursement is the next frontier — and no one has fully solved it yet
An audience question about tools that integrate procurement and reimbursement data drew a candid response from Dr. Rivosecchi: “The answer is right now, none. That’s actually our roadmap for the next 12 months.” He and Dr. Li described an active partnership working to tie claims data — including 837 and 835 files — to procurement decisions, so pharmacy leaders can see true margin rather than just cost of goods.
Dr. Karpinski added another dimension: surfacing payer preference data at the point of prescribing, so providers can make covered choices before a claim is submitted and a prior authorization battle begins.
4. Evaluate AI tools by what problems they actually solve
AI was featured prominently in the session’s closing discussion, with panelists offering a measured take on its role in pharmacy procurement. Dr. Li cautioned that AI will handle algorithmic workflows and routine decision support well, but that high-level synthesis — the kind needed to innovate workflows and anticipate organizational needs — still requires human expertise.
Dr. Rivosecchi echoed that framing, urging leaders to evaluate any AI tool with two questions in mind: does it augment expertise rather than pretend to replace it, and is it solving a real problem rather than generating “a bunch of pretty graphs”?
He noted that every vendor in the market will claim an AI solution, and urged leaders to cut through the noise. “Make sure it’s working through the workflow that your team members are going to need it to work for,” he said.
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