"Preface This book started out as an interesting set of conversations with some very insightful and intelligent people. For twenty-five years, I've studied supply chains in almost every industry, including oil and gas, automotive, electronics, industrial production, and even financial services. And every time I met with executives, I met with the same statements: "We're different-- you don't understand." But in the end, after spending enough time with these executives, it became clear that the same principles of supply chain management applied. Perhaps a different context, different terminology, but in the end, the same rules applied. When I started dabbling in healthcare, I originally encountered the same sets of objections. "Healthcare is different," I would hear, "After all, you have to consider the patient." But as I spent more and more time with healthcare executives, I only rarely heard the patient mentioned in the discussion. More often than not, the discussion focused on compliance, reimbursement, diagnosis-related groups (DRGs), and other terms that had very little to do with patient care. And as I studied the industry more, it became clear that organizations in the healthcare value chain, from the patient through hospitals, wholesalers, through insurance payers, manufacturers, and finally research and development (R&D), were not very well connected at all"-- Provided by publisher.