Name: Automating Vendor Compliance in Healthcare Procurement
Uploaded: 2026-10-15T16:16:33.124Z
Duration: 1 h 12 s
Description: Automating Vendor Compliance in Healthcare Procurement

Transcript for "Automating Vendor Compliance in Healthcare Procurement": Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's webinar. We're pleased to have you joining us for this session brought to you by Healthcare Digital Magazine in association with Amazon Business. And today we will be discussing automating vendor compliance in healthcare procurement, improving visibility, reducing risk, and strengthening operational control. Healthcare procurement teams are managing increasingly complex supplier environments, while facing growing expectations around compliance, risk management, supplier accountability, and operational resilience. For many organizations, maintaining effective vendor oversight can be challenging as supplier networks expand and compliance requirements become more complex. Manual onboarding, fragmented supplier records, and inconsistent verification processes can make it difficult to maintain a clear and up to date view of supplier risk. This is where automation and AI are beginning to play a greater role. Rather than treating compliance as a periodic or administrative exercise, organizations are looking at how technology can help automate verification, improve supplier visibility, monitor risk, and make compliance management more continuous. Today, we'll explore what is driving the growing complexity of vendor compliance, where automation can make the biggest difference, and how healthcare organizations can strengthen governance without adding unnecessary complexity to procurement operations. Joining me to discuss this are two experts in procurement, compliance management, and operational transformation, and more. Please join me in welcoming Caitlin Roche, associate partner for IBM Consulting, and Samantha Demick, director of procurement and contracts management at MVP Healthcare. Caitlin, Samantha, welcome. Great to have you. Hello. Thanks, Matt. No worries at all. Great to have you. Look. We'll get into the conversation, very briefly. Just for those watching and those listening, I'm going to ask for an intro if that's okay. Thirty seconds, sixty seconds or so. Just give us a quick overview of your role, your responsibilities, and I guess a couple of areas of focus for you right now. Caitlin, I'll I'll start with you if that's okay. Looking at you first, so, if you don't mind leading us in. Yeah. Absolutely. So Caitlin Roach, IBM Consulting. I am an associate partner in our global supply chain and procurement practice, and my role is, really twofold. One is to support our internal IBM procurement team on our own AI enabled transformation. So have some really interesting observations and and IBM kind of walking the walk in terms of figuring out what is the path forward on, an AI enabled operating model and transformation and then also working with our clients, developing our global offerings around procurement transformation, and supporting clients across, different markets and industries around the world, including health care, and implementing those. And a lot of what we've been focused on recently, what we're really seeing an uptick on in the market is around, contract management, contract compliance, and value leakage, as a result of contracts as well as risk management. So super timely, topic today to talk about. Wonderful. Thank you. And and Samantha? Hi. Thank you for having me. My name is Samantha Demick. I am the director for procurement and contracting at MVP Healthcare. I oversee all supplier contracting and, vendor management for the company. Prior to this, I was actually spent ten years in government, so a lot of operational government work with procurement. And right now, we're actually going through a a merger and acquisition, so we're heavily focused on efficiencies with bringing in a company that's basically doubling our size. So, a lot to do there on the procurement and contract side. Wonderful. Thank you both. Well, look, great to have you here. Let's get started, with a look at some some context, I guess. Let's have a look at why vendor compliance is becoming more complex as we kind of said in the intro there. Organizations are recognizing that compliance management is playing a, you know, a bigger and broader role in their operational resilience, their supplier risk management, and I guess more broadly, healthcare continuity. So, an opening question, whoever wants to jump in first, maybe let's have a discussion from both of you on on what factors are making that kind of vendor compliance part of the process more difficult for health care health care procurement teams, today. Yeah. Maybe, I can start to do the perspective that, I think, like, what compliance means has changed quite a bit, even particular over the past five years. Right? So compliance really used to be about credentials. Are you licensed? Are you insured? Are you registered? And so, it was historically, I think, something that fit much more into kind of, like, a supplier onboarding process as a bit of a check. As the past five years with the pace of change of technology, with all of the disruption that's been happening from a foreign policy perspective, COVID, everything that's, like, created, all this disruption, there's a huge shift, right, from from, credentials to capabilities. Do you have cybersecurity protections in place, health care, in The US and and around the world, traceability regulations. So there's a lot more complexity right around the capability side of it, and that requires a lot more ongoing monitoring. It's not a one time check, but it's, really an evolving capability that needs to have to... Be kept tabs on. And so it's it's creating a lot more complexity in terms of how do you manage that across the different stakeholders within an organization. Thank you, Caitlin. Samantha, what... What's your take on that one? Yeah. I have to piggyback off Caitlin. You really hit it with the cyber risk. So for us, that's a big one. With the breaches that have come out with larger organizations from a technology perspective, especially in the health care space, this has become a real big, both financial risk and, you know, reputation risk with people's personal information. So we've put a lot more focus on cybersecurity addendums and making sure that companies have the right insurances in place, you know, to really cover these massive breaches that we have seen historically and monitoring that they not only have that coverage and are able to take on that type of instance, but ongoing to what Caitlin said. Right? Like, it's not just at the inception of the contract anymore. It's... Maybe it's even biannually because technology is moving so quickly. AI functionality is moving so quickly that it's really completing creating a complexity with what we have to monitor with these vendors in addition to, I would say, offshoring. That's become a very hot topic. So offshoring has always kind of been a thing, but now especially with technology and advancing, I see it going even quicker and a lot more requests for more parts of the world to be allowed to offshore, which, as you know, when you're sharing PHI, it gets very, very complex. So we have to really monitor and make sure that, you know, these companies who are expanding their services, whether it's offshore, that we're monitoring where they're going, who has the data, how it's being protected. And that's a that's a new level that I think we haven't seen in the last couple decades. Right? That... That's new to us. And now that we can connect so closely with other countries, it's becoming more and more prevalent. Thank you. So, Samantha, let let me follow-up with you, if I may. And, Caitlin, please do come in after. I guess we've talked about some of the the the challenges there and and the evolution of of, in this space. Maybe tell me about, some of the some of the risks, you know, when... You know, with with traditional or or current compliance workflows, what kind of risks do they do they bring to organizations and to operations, and and how are they kind of challenging the the procurement function? Yeah. So a lot of the risk that we're seeing is decisions really making, or excuse me, vendors really making decisions company wide without us really knowing until it's over. Right? Because we're just a a subsidy of them or a vendor of theirs too, and they're either getting acquired or acquiring or they're expanding their networks to other countries. And we're not really bringing brought in until they're like, hey. We have this amendment, and now we kind of have this risk of wait a second. Now we're knee deep in this contract. You know, we... It... You know, there might be an implementation standard that we have to if we were to move away from this would cause a year or worse of time. And when we're brought in at the last minute, it's like, okay. How do we go back and monitor this risk? Right? Like, they've already made this decision. We are in this contract. How are we going to stay close to this? And it becomes... It's become really reactive. And so we really need to start focusing on a more proactive approach to getting this information as companies evolve so that we can continue to monitor in real time and not just respond to it. Yeah. I I agree with you, Samantha. And I think it can be kind of, like, summarized as this paradigm shift from, like, did we check did we check the credentials to do we know, like, the current capability posture. Right? And and that requires a much more kind of ongoing, capability and an ability to identify within all the data that we have, all the information that we have about vendors, the changing landscape, when things change, what's important to know about, and what are really the critical risks that need to be managed within an organization. And I think it makes it, particularly difficult, right now because with the evolution of technology and AI, there's a lot of, I think, focus for different organizations about, speed and efficiency. Right? Like, improving the onboarding time... Or improving supplier onboarding, reducing the time, all these kinds of cycles. But, you know, as you start to bring kind of AI and automation to some of these processes, it also increase risks, right, in terms of, are you able to get the right information, see it all the way through, and create kind of the the broader organizational compliance posture that you need to be able to manage that contract, not just from an onboarding perspective, but through the duration of the contract. Alright. So so forgive me if if if you've covered this. I don't want to get you to repeat yourselves. But but where are the biggest pinch points or or, I guess, the kind of biggest challenges or issues in in maintaining that that kind of accurate and up to date supply... Supplier, excuse me, compliance visibility? Is there one key area that... That's the biggest challenge, or is it a mix of all these complexities that we discussed at at the start? For me, it is a mix, but I would say the biggest challenge if you really were to summarize it is the communication channel. Right? Like, we... You know, if let's say a company is making those decisions, we're one of a thousand companies they have that need to be informed. Like, how do we keep that communication channel open so we can be more proactive is really, I think, what we're focused on right now. Thank you. Caitlin, anything on that one? Or or... Yeah. I mean, the the risk really increases, I think, not, necessarily within a procurement organization. Right? But at the handoffs between procurement and legal and IT, right, there's a lot more, stakeholders within organizations that are involved in vendor risk right now. So it's, in part identifying kind of, like, where is the... You know, what's the compliance posture that we're looking for? What are the risks in a vendor in that compliance posture? But also kind of, like, who's accountable for carrying it through. And procurement's really, evolving in their role from being kind of a gatekeeper of that compliance information and onboarding to more of, like, a steward of it throughout, like, the n 10 process, of supplier life cycle management. And that's that's a a pretty significant role and a and a little bit of a different role, in terms of playing that across, like, the entire organization than than what's, been the role in the past. Okay. Thank you. And and I guess we talked about some of the challenges to to procurement teams. You you laid those out very well. Thank you. But, if you're looking at the bigger consequences, I guess maybe the kind of organizational level of of compliance failures. Could you both give me your thoughts on those, whether whether it's, you know, reputational risks, whether there's a serious regulatory problem? I'm sure it's a mix of all of those, but, can maybe both of you come in and give me some examples of of where those kind of bigger consequences are? Yeah. On our side, it's definitely a huge financial risk. Our company did go through a a situation with another... One of our provider, one of our main networks that, had a huge security breach. And not only did it jeopardize our reputation, right, people feeling safe with using our our product, but it created a huge financial burden because when their limits of insurance still cover the massive cost that it takes when you have so many people impacted, that's where we have to come in and clean that up. And it could really cripple a company like us because, you know, being in health care, we have a certain reserve that we have to have to stay relevant, that we have to have in the reserves. So if we have a severe secure... Security breach, it could crumble the company, essentially, if we have to tap into our reserves and are unable to actually, mitigate it. Thank you, Samantha. Caitlin? Yeah. I mean, to build on that, really, in health care, the the the biggest stakes right at the risk of the patient, when you have a a noncompliant and and the the the provider is ultimately taking, like, the reputational hit on that, right, not the vendor. And so I think that's a that's a big issue. There's... I I think Samantha alluded to the the financial risk, and there's certainly, like, a direct financial risk. But I think often what's unseen is, like, the the leakage that's happening within the contract. You spend all this time upfront doing vendor negotiations. Right? You negotiate the compliance that's required. You're paying for that compliance. Right? Like, they're passing on the charge of that compliance to you, and so you're paying for it. So when there's some kind of breach or there's some kind of, you know, issue, then you're not only paying, like, the direct cost of, like, what you need to do to remedy that, but you're also paying kind of, like, the indirect cost or the fact that that's baked into the product or service that you're buying. And so it kind of works on on both sides. It's excellent point. Thank you, guys. Well, let let... Let's talk about what we're here to talk about in a way, you know, that that we alluded to in the beginning, the use of AI and automation. As we kind of set out, you you know, health care organizations are increasingly using automation to to reduce that administrative burden, improving control and responsiveness, reduce risk, all of those things we've just talked about. So an opener, and it's it's it's a broad one, forgive me, but, hopefully, we can nail down on that. Maybe you both want to talk to me a little. Perhaps, Caitlin, you start from that broader kind of consulting transformation perspective. Give us some examples of how organizations are using automation and AI to streamline that that vendor compliance management. Yeah. So when we think about the role of automation and AI, in compliance, it's not just to make the process faster, which I think is where a lot of the focus is, but to help design a system, right, where compliance can become the default across the organization, and allow people to spend their time on, like, the judgments that are required versus, like, kind of trying to track down the information. I think some of our, like, lessons from our own transformation, includes vendor compliance, but just, like, more broadly, is that when you're looking at at building kind of AI and automation into a system, it's not going straight to the technology. You know, really where can you eliminate processes, so that you're not just automating kind of a bad process, right, and creating more burden for suppliers, but less burden for your organization. But how can you actually kind of eliminate unnecessary steps? So in a compliance example, if you're buying, desks or equipment, maybe you don't need a cybersecurity assessment because those people aren't touching your systems. Right? So really looking at that as part of the design of the system. Where can you simplify? So, if you have three questionnaires that are going out to a supplier and there's, you know, 50% of, overlap in terms of the data requested, does that need to be, three questionnaires from legal, finance, and procurement, or can it be one questionnaire, right, that captures all the information upfront, as you're kind of doing more automation within your process? Automating kind of the predictable work. So when our credentials expiring, how do you push out, like, requests for updated information. Right? But then ultimately looking, at identifying the things, that can really drive insights to augment human decisions. Right? So if a new certificate is uploaded, how do you do a a scan of that, understand if any of the data... There's any data anomalies, if there's anything that's missing, how do you integrate external data, right, about your vendors, and be able to have kind of risk signals there? So I think, looking at kind of these, practically moving forward with automation, looking at it not just from, like, kind of an efficiency tech perspective, but looking at really the entire system that you're designing. How do we, simplify, eliminate, automate, and identify, is really where, you know, a lot... We're trying to support a lot of our clients in going, so that they can kind of scale that... Those outcomes. Thank you. I would say there's a couple of things that we're doing right now that I am focused on. And the one of the things I'm really focused on, honestly, at the highest level is trying to get my team to stop thinking about AI and kind of what Caitlin was saying. Like, we're just trying to go faster with less people. Right? Where I'm more focused on how do we be more efficient with the task that don't require human interaction so that we can have more human interaction. So when it comes to vendor management and monitoring our vendors and having, you know, compliance overviews, a lot of what we had in the past was, well, I just don't have the bandwidth to be that close to it. So I'm trying to change their mindset from as they go through their day to day and they're doing their tasks. Like, am I am I as a human providing value here, or is this something we could automate? So I'm tasking them with, we're really leaning in right now to copilot agents and tasking them to come up with, you know, throughout their day where do they see that, and how can they potentially build an agent to automate that work for them or even be an out facing agent for internal use. We're gonna... As I mentioned, we're going through an acquisition, and I'm thinking about, you know, just retraining that entire company on how we operate and having an agent who can point them at least in the right direction. Right? Like, here's what I need. Where do I go? And what we're also doing is we're building agents to help them with contract reviews. So building agents so that it can go through and help them identify where there's risk or maybe where the limits of liability might be too low, because we're working, you know, more with less, and people tend to be rushing. And so we're not... I wanna avoid writing bad contracts just because we are trying to move so quick and automate everything. So I'm really positioning it like, how can we be more human interaction instead of less human interaction by doing this? And, there's some things that we're doing that are really helping on the compliance front that we're slipping through the cracks. For example, just automating, you know, certificate of insurance reminders to our vendors. You know, like, to Caitlin's point, she said, we do so much work on the front end, really making sure we have everything. But But then when we hit renewal or the second year of the contract, are we still having that same amount of due diligence on the contract? And so, you know, sending out those auto reminders saying, give me your updated liability, make sure it's in alliance, and then having the bot review it and then us having the final look at it. So... And also, I would say it's impacting our... The roles that we have. Right? And this is the mindset I'm really trying to do is, you know, we have certain roles in procurement. We're sourcers, we're buyers, we're contractors, whatever. But now we might have to start expanding or readjusting what our resources look like because maybe if we have these agents who are helping us do this, we need somebody to monitor them. Right? We need somebody to be continuously updating them. There's now more opportunity in procurement for different skill sets because of technology. So, you know, that ongoing maintenance and review and compliance, I mean, I don't wanna be like a certain company that went down for thirteen hours because an agent deleted code. Right? So, like, we need to be monitoring and controlling these, but they are a tool for us so that we can be more involved. Brilliant. Thank you, Samantha. Wonderful answer there. Look. We'll come back to, I guess, some more of those examples as as we move through the conversation. Caitlin, just let me come back to you briefly. You you talked about, data, supplier data, vendor data. Let me follow-up on that if I can, and ask what what types of supplier data or what kind of key compliance indicators are the most valuable for for that kind of ongoing oversight or that that real time monitoring and risk detection? Yeah. I'd say kind of alignment with this paradigm shift. Right? The most valuable data today isn't really the data that tells you whether or not a vendor was compliant. It tells you whether or not something has changed, right, in the posture of the vendor that warrants, like, an additional look, right, or changes that compliance posture. So if you think about kind of, like, leading and lagging data, right, your lagging data is gonna be more about those kind of, certificates, the licenses, maybe like insurance evidence, things like that. But when you look at some more of, like, the leading data, right, it's, you know, are there any signs that the vendor has changed itself? Has there been things around, like, acquisitions or other things in the market, right, that might change his posture? Have they moved some of their manufacturing offshore, things of that nature? And to your point, Samantha, it's it's hard with the full vendor base, right, to be able to identify, you know, how and when these risks are happening. So you also need to understand which vendors are you most dependent on and which vendors are, like, the compliance most important, right, where you're single threaded, around a vendor or you have a small supplier base in a certain category. Right? That's an area that certainly requires, kind of more attention in this space, than maybe if you have a a broader set of vendors and it's a little bit more easily to easy to pivot. And then there's things like kind of out... Like, you know, their operational performance. If you're seeing your vendor struggle in certain ways, that tends to be kind of an indication. Right? They might be struggling in other ways. And if there's a level of resistance to kind of compliance, waiting for deadlines, versus kind of embracing and and, approaching compliance as a as a partner. We've seen a lot of this with, DSCSA, those who have, seen the deadlines pulled out and pushed out in The US. And for those who aren't US based, that's the Drug Supply Chain Security Act. But for those who kind of see the FDA deadlines pushed out and say, I can wait another year. I can wait another two years versus seeing the risk, that traceability is trying to address and then working with their partners to build, like, kind of resilient systems. They're seeing, like, the operational benefits, and those are the ones that you know that you can kind of count on because they're being proactive about their compliance posture and risk management. Thank you, Caitlin. So let me kind of pick up on that point and and whoever wants to come in on this, please do. I was going to ask about strengthening supplier accountability. You talked, I guess, about the collaboration and the relationship aspect of that and the partnership. Maybe tell me how how automated compliance systems and and those processes that we've talked about improve that kind of long term supplier performance from the supplier side and and and, I guess, improve transparency and things like that. Samantha, would... You're nodding. Would you like to come in on that one? Yeah. And kind of piggybacking off what I've mentioned in the last question is by by automating the the redundant task work. Right? Now we have more time for contract management, which I think is one big piece that I think gets missed a lot in in companies and procurement in general because we rely on the business owners or the front facing person to do that, not necessarily having all that skill set to really understand compliance tracking and stuff like that. They're more worried about their deliverables. Right? So from this perspective, we need to have more time to have that hands on contract management, more face time with the vendors so that, you know, whether it's quarterly, monthly, however, we're meeting with them, we know what's upcoming. Right? We kinda get a heads up that they're going through an acquisition. Okay. Well, what company is acquiring you? We need to look into that company. Be more proactive. So... And we are also, making sure that we have a strong tiering system. So our tiering system is like a risk tiering system. So to your point, you know, if we we have 2,000 vendors, is it realistic that we can meet with them all monthly? Probably not. But through the tiering system and by keeping that automated and keeping it... Pulling in data from the universe, right, when things update, whether... You know, there's a lot of public information that gets missed, but a... But an agent or something can grab. Right? Company a is getting acquired. I'm probably not gonna know that for two months, but if it's being automated and pulled from Internet Internet, we can know much sooner. So we're doing... That's kinda where we're focused on that point. Thank you, guys. Samantha, can I come to you? You talked a little about some of the the the benefits of of more automation of of compliance in these processes to the organization and your team. I was wondering if you could just expand on some of those, and tell us a little more about how automation improves things like operational efficiency, maybe helps you simplify some of those audit processes that we've talked about. And I was also really interested in the the softer side. You talked about the team, the skills, the the kind of cultural aspect. I I think that's really interesting too. So we are using that as a tool to pull out the data we we spend time searching for so that we can take the human interaction that's needed. If an invoice is not aligning with the contract, that gives my team actual time to pick up the phone and say, hey. We need a new invoice or anything like that. So I know there's a lot of fear, and I heard it from my team, you know, depending on what type of, you know, generations especially are working for you. They have different levels and different types of fears around AI. And the biggest one is that, do I still have a job? And so for culturally, I'm just really pushing, like, if not if not only you're gonna have a job, we probably need more people to manage this. Right? It's just the type of work that we're going to do is shifting. So, you know, I like to relate it back to, like, the factory days when, honestly, electricity came into play versus the water wheel, and this is, like, how I try to explain it to my team. You know, back when they were using the water wheel, they had the batteries and the water wheel powered everything, and then all of a sudden electricity came into place and everything. This is gonna be amazing. It's gonna make everything so efficient, and come to find out it didn't. Because all they did was replace the water wheel with electricity, and they didn't change their day to day processes. Right? So I see AI the same exact way. Our roles are gonna shift. What we do day to day is going to shift. Our processes are going to shift. But quite frankly, it's moving so quickly. If we don't get on the train, we're gonna get left behind. And I feel that way about a lot of companies and kinda going back to when you're like, what's the biggest risk here? Honestly, one of the risks that we're seeing is other entities, specifically government because we get federal funds for for our health plans, are way behind in the comfort level with automation and technology. So there's a lot of red tape around us even being able to use it, right, and the regulations around it. And so I really hope that, you know, other entities, especially government entities, get up to speed and and come into this this world because it's going to slow us down and, you know, if it slows us down because of regulation, ultimately, we could be left behind in this technology's world. Because, honestly, if you are in the procurement world, if you're looking at technology and it's taking you more than three months to procure it, you're probably already outdated. Right? So it... We do have to move faster but with more human interaction. Yeah. And just to build on what kind of Samantha was saying, I think, you gave some great examples of kind of the efficiency gains within your organization. I I also think that there's a lot of gains to be had from vendors, right, as you start to automate, faster time to, like, onboarding and contracting, audit readiness. Right? Having everything that they've provided in, like, a certain place are much more easily findable so that there's not, like, the level of back and forth. And because you kind of have a better sense of where your vendors are and more visibility into where they are, you can do much more segmenting between, like, where you spend the time and which vendors you spend the time on and that those vendors who, prove to be in a more compliant posture and lower risk, right, then get the benefits of having provided the information that they need, and kind of having having a little bit of an easier path forward in terms of in terms of doing business. So the the efficiency gains work on both sides really in, a win win situation as long as it's designed correctly to also eliminate and simplify while you're automating and identifying and not just, building that into the process that's already a little bit heavy. Yeah. We're doing... We're trying to really automate our supplier onboarding. I know you mentioned onboarding a couple times, and that is a very tedious process done manually. Right? And it's hard to keep it current. By creating portals where the vendors can actually access it themselves and keep it current, it's lowering our risk for things like, oh, this complete entity change or was acquired. Right? Or the contact change, which is a low risk. But, ultimately, they can be providing their own information to keep it current, which helps us too, assuming that they're using it. So that kinda goes back to, like, are you getting on board with the advanced technology? We need vendors to stay up to speed too for the same reason. Okay. Fantastic. Samantha, you mentioned risk there. You talked about some of those. I have to ask before we we we take more future facing stance. Obviously, the the, you know, this is a a a transformation of sorts. This is a journey. You know, technology adoption and and process change doesn't happen overnight. So maybe let me ask you both. What do you see as some of the main kind of challenges that that organizations are encountering as as they look to bring in more automation, look to bring in more AI, or or modernize that that compliance management process? For our company, quite frankly, it's it's a lot of startups in in the AI world. Okay? We put out our fees for some a... AI technology, and we're getting massive amounts of responses because now so many people are able to create products, create software, create the next best thing. And for us, you know, like I said, we have a reserve we have to maintain. So if we're investing significant money into AI technology, there is a risk with these start ups. Right? Like, are they really going to make it? Do they have the right investors? So now not only are we looking at the company, we have to ask deeper questions than we've had to ask in the past, like, who are your investors? Like, is this a company that we can financially invest in? And there's that financial risk that I think wasn't as predominant in the past, because we were using long term companies that have been around forever. Well, now this AI is so new and there's so many of them that you're all... You're you're kind of taking a huge risk when you go into business with these companies because they're all new. Right? It's not like you could be like, oh, sorry. You're too new. We're gonna go with this established company. They're all on the same platform and they're all on the same level pretty much. So you kind of have to decide where you're going to invest and where you're not. And, you know, especially with a company like ours that has to have a reserve, that's that's important because we have to make sure our money is going to the places that are going to have ROI or are going to last. And we don't know. Nobody knows until we've actually gone through it and it's evolved. So... Yeah. So to build off Samantha, I think, kind of two two different perspectives on this. One is that, as you start to look at, like, AI and AI technology, right, you're you're opening up a whole new level of compliance and risk, right, that hasn't even really fully been defined yet about what those what those rules are going to be. So I think that's a whole new world for procurement is trying to manage not just, like, the pace of change in industry, but also the pace of change of risk and compliance, right, that is with this entire new kind of category of the types of things that you're you're buying. On the kind of non tech side, I think a lot of the challenges that we're seeing, are kind of the... I know that we'll we'll probably get to this a little bit more, but it's it's really, like, around the governance of how you're building systems and your compliance systems. And, really, that soft stuff tends to be the hard stuff. There's a lot of technology available out there. The technology has the capability, but how you actually get the outcomes from the technology that you're looking for really requires relooking at an AI enabled op model, within your organization. And we're seeing a lot of organizations where, maybe procurement is really ready to move forward, but maybe legal and finance aren't. Right? Or everybody's kind of moving forward because of the pace of change and looking at building their own agents or their own solutions, right, within their own organizations. But the collaboration across when you're looking at something like compliance and risk and making sure that you're covered at those handoff points, not just, like, within the silos is where a lot of the challenges. And so, really critical to kind of being able to not just pilot, but actually scale and get the enterprise value out of these programs is being able to bring the groups together and look at kind of the whole intent operating model and how you're gonna design that system towards kind of driving driving towards, managing compliance in this, like, increasingly dynamic world that we're all living in. Wonderful. And Caitlin, a brilliant segue into, I guess me asking you about some of that scaling and some of those kind of future takeaways. So let's pick up on that point and and get you on that right now. How do you do that? How can organizations strengthen that compliance as we talked about? Bring in more automation while still effectively managing that governance part and bringing you know the collaboration between all of those stakeholders within the organization. Maybe talk us through some of those. And Samantha, please please come in after. Yeah. I I think, you know, automation doesn't remove the need to coordinate. It actually, like, increases the need to coordinate. And while vendor compliance was never really kind of one team's job, you risk modernizing kind of always just seeing your piece of the picture and, pushing the gap to someone else. So, you know, these shared systems, there still needs to be cleared owners clear owners of, like, who is responsible for the end to end system and the different parts of systems. And, this kind of speaks back to procurement evolving from, like, the role of the gatekeeper to really, like, the steward of the end to end process. Right? And what does that mean in terms of how you interact with other parts of the business, as part of this design, and and kind of how do you carry that accountability through? Because regardless of where the failure point is, right, the accountability question is always gonna come back, and there's going to be kind of, finger pointing to to those who own the vendor relationships when there's a compliance issue. Just to piggyback off that for for me, one thing just a little bit of a different mindset and approach to the to the question is one thing that I'm trying to do, and it's not always successful because vendors, you know, they don't always wanna share this information. But as we're going, especially through RFPs and proposals and presentations, I'm asking them back to my last answer because I feel like a lot of them are on the same level and growing at the same pace. What's your road map look like? Right? Like, if we're investing with you, what is your plan road map? What do you have on the horizon? What are... What type of technology are you investing in to enhance this product? How is this gonna help me a year from now? Right? Like, really getting into what their goals are for growing their technology, gives you more insight to how this is gonna help you long term. So when you are making these large investments in automation, you're picking a vendor and a partner that also has a strategic vision of growth. Right? Because their growth is gonna be your growth. So by reviewing that with them, I think you get a better perspective. And it also creates more of a relationship. Right? Like, it feels like you're invested in their company and they're investing in you when it's more of a bilateral relationship rather than what can you do for me. So that's kind of the approach I've been taking recently with with these automation vendors. Thank you. Thank you both. So so let me ask you, Samantha. If if I may, I'll start with you. To try and wrap this up in... Into some future facing kind of outlooks and takeaways. I I mean, how do you see this space evolving, over the next three to five years, whether that's through a technology lens, whether that's through a a pure compliance lens, but also I'd I'd be keen to hear your thoughts on how this changes the role of the procurement team because you've talked a little about that as well. Yeah. It really does. So I think it changes our role kind of what Caitlin would say. We're no longer paper pushers. Right? We're not just the people who get the signatures and issue the PO. Now we have to really use more strategy. It opens up space for strategy, for planning, for growth, for efficiency, and so that we have more time to really grow our our brand, our product, our services, and put our human time into that. Get us... I always say, you know, get the automation working so we can get back to white boarding. Right? Like, get in the room and start talking. And I see as we grow, I mean, to say I know where technology is gonna take us would be crazy because I... It's... It could go... It's insane. The limits are endless. But what I hope to see is, more accuracy. I hope that it's creating more accuracy. It's allowing less gaps, less things to fall through the cracks, and more human interaction. More time to address the issues, more time to strategize, more time to be a team, less time sitting in our desks just doing data entry, and more time collaborating. Right? That's where I hope to see it go. And when I try to promote it to my team, that's my that's my that's my message. Right? This is not to get us farther apart. It's to bring us closer together. Wonderful. Thank you. Caitlin, would you like to build on that from your perspective? Yeah. Absolutely. I think some of the trends that we've talked about, you know, continuous monitoring becomes the baseline, rather than the one time check, continuous monitoring and how do we kind of enable that throughout our organizations. A lot of what we're seeing is on the technology side, kind of the the contract management, and risk management platforms, coming together, with a lot of interaction between the two. Right? So, contracts capture what the vendor is committed to, but then your risk platform helps to assess whether or not they're seeing it through. And so we're seeing a lot more of, like, convergence in those two areas whereas before they were managed, kind of priced quite separately as part of disparate processes. And then I think, you know, the other thing that we talked about that's, certainly going to to come into play is just, how vendors use AI being more of a compliance lens than it's been in the past. It's... There's a whole new world in terms of, you know, data security and risk and and all of that. And so that's going to be an interesting new dynamic to have to incorporate into into the procurement contracting processes. Brilliant. Thank you. Look. We we have a couple of minutes left. You've both been fantastic. It's been an amazing conversation. We... We've time for a takeaway. We we love a takeaway at the end. So I I want you to put your thinking caps on and give me an answer for this one, both of you. And you can jump in on this. I guess for for people listening, for healthcare leaders, for procurement leaders listening, and watching this webinar who want to start this journey or continue the journey, let's let's hope they're on the journey, what are the fundamental steps? What's the one key action or area of focus that the people should really be thinking about after they kind of leave listening to this conversation? I don't know who wants to come in first with their takeaway, but I'll I'll let you go for that yourselves. I guess I'll just step in and say, honestly, at the most basic level, I'd say have an open mind and get rid of that's how we've always done it mindset. Right? So have an open mind, do your research, make sure you're vetting, don't, you know, talk to your first vendor who shows you the most magical thing and just decide that they're the best because there's so much out there that's growing every day. Do your research, but also, you know, continue to build the relationships with these vendors. That's what's gonna matter as they grow and when you grow. But really the open mind is the key. You know? All of us, even the younger generations. Right? This is fairly new to us. Right? Like, I still remember AOL. So this is fairly new to us. Remember that it's going to continue to evolve. Instead of being scared at it, look at it as an opportunity to grow and have more human interaction. Thank you. Yeah. And, I I think my starting point would be, as you're entering this, rethink the process. Don't just automate it. So a lot of, you know, what we've talked about today is, a a lot of opportunity out there. Right? And there's a lot of interest in, like, kind of small scale pilots and figuring out how to build your own, solution and things like that. And all of that is creating, like, incremental productivity for individuals. But when you look at kind of, an enterprise scale of how do you drive, like, an efficient, effective, secure compliance and and risk management capability, really, like, looking at that end to end process and and and rethinking, is is this the workflow of the future? Is this the way that it needs to be done? And and thinking about kind of reinventing that system to not just get kind of incremental gains, but to get kind of, significant increase in outcomes, would be my recommended starting point. Brilliant. I love that. No lifting shift. Sorry, Samantha. I talked over you. There's another takeaway. No. I was... I just love what you're saying because the lifting and shifting is where we go wrong. Right? It's like reinventing the process. Thinking of it that way, I love that. I I love it. Thank you so much. Some some some brilliant takeaways there. And and Samantha, Caitlin, what a fantastic conversation. I've I've really enjoyed this. There's so much to talk about here as a subject. Right? We we we scratched the surface, I'm sure, but it's been fantastic. Sadly, though, we we have reached the end of today's session, brought to you in association with Amazon Business. A sincere thank you to both of our speakers, Caitlin Roche and Samantha Demick, for sharing their insights and expertise. One of the key themes from today's conversation is that vendor compliance is becoming increasingly connected, continuous, and intelligence driven. As healthcare procurement environments grow more complex, organizations will need stronger visibility, faster access to supplier intelligence, and more proactive governance capabilities to manage operational and regulatory risk effectively. Automation is helping healthcare leaders modernize compliance oversight, improving efficiency, strengthening supplier accountability, and supporting more resilient procurement operations overall. Thank you again to our speakers. Thank you for watching. Remember, this recording will be available shortly, so you can revisit the session and share it with your teams. Thank you everybody for joining us today. We will see you again soon at another session. Goodbye.