Nurse Maureen‘s Health Show
Welcome to Nurse Maureen's Health Show Podcast where we dive deep into all things health, sex, menopause, relationships, parenting, communication and more! Hosted by a passionate nurse with years of frontline experience, we bring you expert interviews, real-life stories, and the latest insights on staying healthy aging. Nothing is off limits as we delve into overall health, sexual health, mental health, and sexual health. Whether we’re breaking down medical myths, discussing cutting-edge treatments, or chatting with top health professionals, this show is your go-to for practical advice and inspiring conversations.
Nurse Maureen‘s Health Show
Luká Yancopoulous and Grapevine Medical Supply & Procurement: Transforming Healthcare and Pioneering a New Era in Saving
Some of the most expensive hospital supplies are sutures, scalpels, sterile gloves, blood clotting glue and implants which can cost thousands of dollars per case. Imagine a world where healthcare costs are no longer a barrier to receiving quality care. In this episode, Maureen chats with Luká Yancopoulos, the visionary founder of Grapevine, (go-grapevine.com) who is revolutionizing the healthcare supply chains.
Motivated by the challenges his healthcare professional parents faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, Luká embarked on a mission to streamline inefficiencies and reduce costs in medical supply chains. He shares how Grapevine empowers hospitals by breaking down supplier monopolies fostering a competitive ecosystem that translates to significant cost savings and improved efficiency.
Through Grapevine's innovative platform, healthcare systems have the freedom to choose from multiple suppliers without the hassle of changing existing relationships or products. Luká passionately discusses how Grapevine's AI-driven smart carts automate reordering processes and optimize inventory management, alleviating the hidden costs of manual inventory control.
This approach not only ensures better inventory control but also equips hospitals to navigate supply chain disruptions, reducing dependency on single sources and maintaining a steady flow of critical supplies.
Luká wraps up by painting a compelling picture of Grapevine's future, with a vision to digitize healthcare operations across the board—streamlining everything from patient scheduling to electronic medical records.
Listeners can become part of this transformative journey by signing up for the free-to-use platform at go-grapevine.com. Tune in to uncover how digital transformation can be the key to making healthcare more accessible and affordable for all. https://www.go-grapevine.com/
I had no plans to enter the world of healthcare supply chain or even, frankly, entrepreneurship. I was in a program for renewable energy research and, you know, I always knew that I wanted to be a part of solving the biggest problems that our species. You know humankind would face, species humankind would face, and what I had been taught growing up, where I grew up, was that the biggest problems that we would face would be climate change, global warming, global catastrophe to our beautiful planet, our miracle of a planet that is Earth. So that's what I thought I would be doing with my life when I started out at university. But things rapidly change Perspective shifts when something as cataclysmic as a pandemic happens, especially while you out at university. But things rapidly change Perspective shifts when something as cataclysmic as a pandemic happens, especially while you're at university.
Speaker 1:And my mom is a nurse practitioner, my dad's a medical doctor and scientific researcher and when COVID happened, when a pandemic happened, the headlines were filled with ideas of supply chain shortage. I'm hearing horror stories from my parents while I'm quarantining in my dorm room about how they're being told to reuse the same N95 mask you know for weeks on end. And then you turn on the news and they're talking about price gouging and skyrocketing prices and how you shouldn't be doing the things that they're doing. People are wearing garbage bags. Surgeons are wearing garbage bags in operating rooms because they can't get sterile gowns right. So I'm scared. I mean I'm scared about what's going to happen to the world because of this pandemic. I'm scared about what's going to happen to my loved ones, my parents and my heroes, and I wanted to be a part of the solution.
Speaker 2:Good evening and welcome to Nurse Maureen's Health Show podcast. I'm Maureen McGrath, a registered nurse, nurse, continence advisor, sexual health educator and host of this podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in. I really appreciate it. You know, I'm delighted to have my guest here to talk to you about one of the most critical issues that people face today. And you know, as you heard, we learned that in the pandemic and this young man did something about it. Learned that in the pandemic and this young man did something about it. He went into action.
Speaker 2:Luca Yancopoulos is an innovative entrepreneur and founder of Grapevine, a startup revolutionizing healthcare supply chains. His platform helps clients cut medical supply costs by up to 50%, reduce order times by over 90% and streamline vendor management for faster procurement. A dynamic speaker and industry expert, luca tackles key challenges like rising healthcare costs, outdated technology, supply chain inefficiencies and the need for digital transformation, inspiring leaders to embrace modern solutions. And inspire and educate healthcare professionals on the importance of digital transformation in supply chain management. Not to mention, when you go into that emergency room, do you think about the gauze and the IVs and the blood and the other supplies that you might need in an emergency? I'm delighted to welcome to the program Luca Yancopoulos. Luca, how are you?
Speaker 1:I'm doing great and thank you for the great introduction, maureen, you are so great.
Speaker 2:And thank you for the great introduction, maureen, you are so welcome. Well, you deserve a great introduction. What you're doing is amazing and I really don't think people realize. You know they go to the emergency department or admitted to the hospital and you know they're more thinking about. You know the food is not so great or how long the wait time is in eMERGE, and you know and yeah, those are kind of real issues, but very few, I imagine, think about the supplies and how they got there or what you know, what's on back order or what's not available and maybe they have to use something that you know is not necessarily optimal. And you know and the pandemic was a perfect example People reusing masks. I remember one of the doctors that I worked with. He took a mask out of the garbage can to reuse that. So you know, I'm really impressed, if you can't tell, I'm very impressed by this. You know, and Grapevine is revolutionizing healthcare supply chain. So what, actually? What was the aha moment that led to its creation?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say that I mean our creation. We're still in the process of creating what Grapevine is and will become, and the best we can do is learn about the continued problems that we're seeing in health care and solve them. You know, one at a time, with creative, new, new sort of solutions. The, I think, the closest thing to an aha moment is really the thing that everyone can agree on in healthcare. I mean, we've all been patients at some point in our lives and I think we've all thought, wow, this costs a lot of money.
Speaker 1:My medical bill that's really high. Does it really cost much? Thankfully, you know a lot of people are. My medical bill that's really high. Does it really cost much? Thankfully, you know a lot of people are going to, are going to have that bill paid for, hopefully by insurance or, um, you know something else.
Speaker 1:But the idea is that costs are too high and when you break down, what are the actual costs of healthcare? Cause we see it as a patient, we just see a high bill, right, and we hope, hope that our insurance covers it. But the reality is there's a million things that go in to that bill that you don't see and, like you said, it's the needle that gets put into your arm Well, that's $14. It's the IV solution bag that gets hung above you and drips in you. That could be up to $100, right, these things get added up and when you see a bill, it's the all-in cost of that healthcare service.
Speaker 1:By actually cutting the cost of the supplies, you're cutting the cost for the doctor, for the physician, for the healthcare practice, and by doing so they're able to pass those savings forward and lower patient costs. You know, on the bills that we all see as patients, and that's a big goal of ours. We don't want to just lower cost of supplies for medical practices, we want to lower the cost of healthcare universally across this country for every single person that walks into any type of appointment as a patient. And we're right on track and we're starting here with the cost of supplies and we're cutting medical practices costs by, in many cases, more than 60%, and that's something that we're definitely proud of. But high costs, mind-bogglingly high costs, is something that was a key insight that motivates us every day.
Speaker 2:And you mentioned, some people have health insurance, but health care will bankrupt a lot of people and a lot of families, and because a lot of people health insurance, but health care will bankrupt a lot of people and a lot of families. And because a lot of people don't actually have health care or access to the funds to pay for it. And yes, it's shocking to see even the cost of an aspirin or a Tylenol, because it seems to quadruple in price when you need it in the hospital. You've pointed out that many hospitals still rely on outdated 90s technology for supply chain management, and I love this supply chain subject because I don't think a lot of people think about it, but why do you think it's still so prevalent and what barriers exist to adopting modern solutions for hospitals?
Speaker 1:Sure. Well, I think that no one in this world loves change, or very few people love change. Right, we all find habits, we fit into our grooves of life and you know we find comfort in those habits. And adopting new technology, you know, pushing the frontier of practice and operations forward, it's something that can be hard and that's hard for any business right To stay modern and most businesses don't stay great.
Speaker 1:You know, decade after decade, century after century, when it comes to healthcare, you're not just looking at sort of the cost of switching or changing or adapting and that being an intimidating factor, but you're looking at the risk of adopting change. What happens if change goes wrong? Well, in any other business, you know, there might be a financial cost to it, but in health care, lives can be lost. If we switch our sort of supply chain operations and structure the systems by which we order, you know, place orders and receive supplies, we may. We may have to change our, our practice of care, or we may not receive a pacemaker that needs to be implanted into someone's chest and that person may die Right. So the cost and the risk associated with switching or adopting change is extremely high in healthcare.
Speaker 1:I think the combination of large institutions that fear change inherently because they've got good grooves, good habits, combined with the incredible risk of making change. Those make it hard. Those factors make it incredibly difficult to keep systems modern, efficient and at the forefront of human technology. And a huge challenge that we've had at Grapevine is figuring out how to meet the customer at what we call 1159. 1159 is where the present meets the future, where those things are so close together that it's just another silly minute away and customers no longer fear change, but they're able to hold on to the habits they appreciate while folding in new things that allow them to step into tomorrow effortlessly. So that's been a challenge for us. We initially rolled out and launched Grapevine as a solution that we think came from the year 3000, and we've rolled it back to 2024,. 11.59 pm.
Speaker 2:Perfect. How do outdated supply chains contribute to skyrocketing healthcare costs, and what specific areas of inefficiency have you found to be the most financially draining or the most frustrating?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, sure. Well, I guess I'll start with. We built Grapevine as a solution to shortages, as a solution to supply chain disruption. Right, we were looking at this, as you know, during the pandemic, people had been buying from you know, this gauze, this needle, this scalpel right from one supplier, one source, for the last decade, right, and that's how most of these medical practices or even, you know, big healthcare institutions operate. And when COVID hit and there was a massive disruption event, the chains proved to be only as strong as their weakest link, the one source they had that was holding together their supply chain. It broke and they were left out to dry. They couldn't get the supplies that they needed and they had to revert to all sorts of new, creative ways to keeping frontline workers safe and keeping patients alive. Again, this was a solution built for resilience of your supply chain. So when one link goes down, can we swap in another link. When one source or one supplier runs out of stock, can we connect you with a dozen other suppliers, all who hold the same product in their warehouse, who can fill that gap and keep you sort of in stride. That system and it was a beautiful system for sort of solving backorders became a system for optimizing costs. Once things went back to normal, there stops being so many back quarters. But by looking at the same sort of building a network, a diverse network of suppliers who all have the same products, we don't just need to swap in new products when one goes down. We can swap in new products when the price is right.
Speaker 1:A huge issue that we're seeing in healthcare is that most medical practices are offering a monopoly on their spend to a single supplier. That allows suppliers to charge you whatever you want. Right, if you could only shop at one store and you were only allowed to buy you know that thing from one store, they would charge you whatever they want. They would drive up the prices because they can. They know you're not going to go to one of their competitors and competition forces suppliers to lower their prices. So we're creating a competitive ecosystem by letting you shop the aisles of every store that you'd like to every supplier you know, all at once. And if you click, you know you try to add to cart a product from the wrong store, from the wrong shelf. We're going to correct that and we're going to connect you to the right store and put that in your cart and make sure that order goes out to the right supplier.
Speaker 2:And that's amazing. So you're actually choosing a similar product or an equally you know as good product, but at a better price. Perhaps Is that how you help? Is that how Grapevine helps healthcare systems diversify their supply chain to these vulnerabilities?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so. The way that Grapevine actually works is you start by logging on and there are no products. It's not like Amazon, right? You actually link your existing suppliers and we read in your contracted prices and whatnot. Automatically, through AI, you can now shop all the products you normally shop from the sources that you know and trust.
Speaker 1:Nothing has changed, and that's part of that 1159 moment, right? We're not asking you to trust any new suppliers, we're not asking you to buy any new product, and all we do is we optimize your existing vendors. So two of your vendors are selling actually the same exact product not even a substitute, right? The same exact product coming from some manufacturer. Okay, let's switch out supplier one for supplier two, just like you said, and then we slowly recommend either direct to manufacturers why don't you send this order instead of to a middleman, a distributor, who's selling this product? You can connect directly to the manufacturer, who's in the US and will ship directly to your location for next day delivery or we look at new distributors that you can connect with who offer the same products, and we slowly introduce them and build out a personalized network to optimize the dollars that you spend.
Speaker 2:That is amazing, and when do people start seeing the reduction in costs, and does it also improve efficiency?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, of course, if you could imagine I'll start with the efficiency side the first day that they're using Grapevine, right? What once was either two sales reps or two, you know e-commerce websites you could think henryshinecom and medlinecom, those two different screens, those two different tabs just became one screen, one tab, right. So efficiency is seen on day one. You're combining different suppliers, different sales reps, all under one roof. You do it effortlessly, with the click of a button, and now you're shopping from 10 different websites, you know, all in one screen, and that's a pretty cool thing.
Speaker 1:We take efficiency to the next level by using a cool AI system that we've built that studies the patterns in what you order. So a lot of times this isn't like consumer shopping. You're buying a new thing, the brand new model that just came out. Most of the time, these healthcare institutions are buying the same thing on a relatively regular schedule. So we study those patterns in the data. Just watching them use the system, we see how frequently they need certain products and we build like automated reorders right.
Speaker 1:We call them smart carts. So the second you log in, the cart's already built. It's already got all the products you need. You don't even need to search it up or find anything. All the products you would need on this day that you're probably going to order are sitting there waiting for you and you can order 200 products in a single click to restock your clinic on every single item you need. That's efficiency as far as the cost savings. The cost savings as long as you're. If you link one vendor, it's kind of hard to optimize for costs. But if you already work with a handful of vendors two vendors, three vendors then those savings are seen on day one. So we usually see about 20, 25% savings in the first month of using Grapevine. We then connect to new vendors. Encourage you to build out that network which lets you reach, you know, at four or five vendors. That's where you start seeing 50, 60% savings.
Speaker 2:And you know, some hospitals continue to use manual inventory management, and that's actually pretty common, and so they are ordering adhesive tape and cotton balls and bandages and thermometers and stethoscopes, one item at a time. What are the hidden costs of this approach, and how does Grapevine's platform create a more efficient and sustainable inventory system?
Speaker 1:our level right. So if they, you know, today they open the closet and they see a thousand rolls of tape, and the next day they open it up and they see 800 rolls of tape, and they keep doing this until it gets down to 100 rolls of tape, they record that in a system or an Excel sheet and when it hits 100 rolls of tape, that means we're on low stock and automated order might go out. That's considered like a very advanced system, right. The costs you're paying, or the hidden costs, or you're paying someone to count inventory every single day, and that's a little bit crazy. And you're also, you know, trying to track, and oftentimes you're going to have people placing orders anyways. You're connecting sort of inventory insights to ordering behavior and you're doing it, you know, through a manual process, one you're not. You're not it has, you're just reordering the same thing. You're not sort of searching the market and looking for the best price every time you shop, and that's that's another cost that people incur.
Speaker 1:We're building out some new systems for for inventory management where you're going to be able to do it from your feet, from your phone, scan in a barcode and it'll tell how much you have and where you might have it throughout your medical practice, which is kind of cool Not inventory management across a street address, which is a lot of what systems do, but across the different cabinets in your actual office.
Speaker 1:That's something that's coming in 2025 that we're pretty excited about, but I really do believe that inventory management is a crutch to sort of ordering optimal quantities and having those orders automatically placed. So that's a vein that we're investing in more. We want to build even smarter technology to make it so you don't need to look inside your cabinet, but we know exactly what you have. We know how many needles or rolls of tape you're going to need for each patient appointment. That's upcoming, and we make sure that your cabinets are stocked with those quantities. So we're hoping to eventually bypass the need for inventory tracking itself, while minimizing sort of expiring inventory and minimizing the cost of having someone count things up in a closet. You know, every day or every week.
Speaker 2:Right, I mean, that is just amazing and I imagine it is going to. You know, when you have efficient healthcare supply chains, it directly impacts patient care and hospital finances. Do you have any examples that you can share about how grapevine solutions made a significant difference?
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah for sure. I guess on two sides of the coin, one might be costs and financials. There's a company, and I got clearance recently to say this. They're a public company. They're called the Oncology Institute of Hope and Innovation. They've got 100 cancer treatment centers delivering chemo to cancer patients, to cancer patients.
Speaker 1:They spent $5 million in 2024 on medical supplies. They increased from 79 to 89 locations throughout the year 2024. And they have cut their spend. Their annual spend this year is going to be just under $2.5 million. So they've saved more than $2.5 million in those supplies. They're able to put that money into one, opening new locations. Two, providing a higher quality of patient care and three, seeing more patients. Right, they are literally saving more lives and they've saved, you know, 60% on the supplies that they order to do that, which I'm pretty proud of. That's one of our greatest success cases.
Speaker 1:On the other side, of sort of really big impact, we've been able to give these medical practices insights into how many needles they're using per patient appointment. Okay, at this location we're using seven needles per patient appointment. Why do you think we're doing that when in the other locations we're only using one needle per patient appointment? Maybe do you think we're doing that when in the other locations we're only using one needle per patient. Maybe we're poking people in the arm too many times. Maybe we're able to train our clinical staff in a better way. So we're starting to dabble into the areas of patient care that are beyond supply chain and really in sort of patient care practice, and it's a cool. It's a cool evolution for us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is amazing and, you know, eventually down the road perhaps they can, you know, pay health care workers a bit more or actually invest in research and cure some of these cancers. That would just be awesome. I mean, the work you're doing has such a ripple effect, the potential to have such a tremendous ripple effect to improve the health care of people in the US, which is so needed, so much needed. One of the most common and critical supplies needed in health care, for example, is IV solutions, and we've seen a rise of wellness companies. They're increasing the pressure on health care systems because they often use IVs for things like hangovers or vitamins. You've highlighted back orders as a critical issue in the healthcare industry, and how does Grapevine help hospitals avoid these supply chain disruptions and ensure critical medical treatments and surgeries aren't delayed, because that's what happens.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, absolutely so. This system was built to solve shortage and it was then adapted to drive sort of spend optimization and lower the dollar spent. The foundation was built on solving pandemic oriented shortages. So when one of your suppliers is selling a product and there's four other suppliers that you may know, that you may have worked with in the past, we sell that same exact product. Right, you're not only able to find the one with the best price every time you order, but you're also able to solve a shortage. When it happens when your usual supplier for a particular product goes out of stock, one of those four other suppliers gives you a buffer into their warehouses, right into their inventory, into being able to tap into effortlessly, you know, a new source for the same exact product. So add four more suppliers and your ability to survive. You know a shortage event goes up 4x. They maybe keep a small allocation each of those suppliers for you as a medical practice. Now you have allocations in four different warehouses from four different major distributors.
Speaker 1:It is a system that is fundamentally built to solve shortages, and we said it before. But they say a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. And when you work with one supplier for a single product, and that's how your supply chain is structured. Your chain is only as strong as its weakest link and when that link goes out, you're left out to dry and suddenly you're using garbage bags as surgical aprons in the operating room, and that's a terrifying thing. If you've got we call them link swaps, right, if your chain is built with many swappable links, one link breaks down and you just plug in a new one. You plug in a new one, and that's not intensive, you know sort of human oriented process. But that's what Grapevine does in the moment that you're ordering. It curates your products for you based on their availability from the smartest source.
Speaker 2:And it sounds like it's so much less labor intensive. I know I've worked in managing inventory in hospitals when I've managed units and you know it's just overwhelming. But AI and digital tools are at the core of Grapevine's platform and you're a vocal advocate for a digital overhaul in the healthcare supply chain. And what do you say to healthcare leaders who are hesitant to invest in this transformation?
Speaker 1:I think it's important to know what you're comfortable letting go of and plugging in sort of digital integrations for Right. Of course, turning over the entire machine, all decisions in something as risky as health care, to a machine or to a computer, that would be insane and that would be irresponsible to a machine or to a computer, that would be insane and that would be irresponsible. And I think, as someone at the one of the biggest believers in sort of digital health, I share that belief. When it comes to picking the parts of your process that are lower risk, that can be done by a computer and overseen or signed off on by a real person, a real decision maker. Those are clear things.
Speaker 1:There are certain decisions we have to be comfortable with turning over to a machine because it's what machines are better at than we are and things like finding the exact same product from an alternative source that you already know and trust. Right, that's like a perfect problem for a machine or for a computer. And I think, yeah, we got to do a better job of not saying, well, we're scared of change, but instead saying what change would we be excited about and then pursuing that. And I think all healthcare leadership needs to adopt that mentality, because when we get comfortable and we think we're in a perfect place, that's really where we start falling behind. We need to keep evolving and keep demanding more from ourselves and from our systems to become smarter and make this whole healthcare system a whole lot better.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and maybe just walk before they run, you know, just get comfortable with it, see the benefits, see the benefits to the patients, to healthcare, and also see the cost reducing, you know. And as people get more comfortable, you know, take it on in a bigger way. What's next for Grapevine? Are there any upcoming innovations or plans that you're excited to share that will further disrupt the healthcare supply chain space?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean we want to focus on enabling healthcare providers you know doctors to end all illness and we think that there's a lot of things that stand between a doctor or a researcher and that sort of fundamental idea.
Speaker 1:Things like business operations, things like supply chains that are constantly being disrupted, things like a lot of the business administration aspects of having you know an independent to do to practice medicine right, and I think the more of the workload we can take on to turn you know any practice into a perfect business that revolves around their centerpiece of medical providers and frontline heroes. That's, I mean, that's our goal. So, beyond supply chain, we're looking at things like patient scheduling, things like you know, like patient billing and insurance, electronic health records and transmissions. I'm totally unhappy with my experience in this US health care system as a patient and I can identify a hundred problems that great my name's to solve over the next decade. For now, for the next six months, I mean it's going to continue to revolve around supply chain until we make things perfect and sort of autopiloted for these customers of ours, for these medical practices, but shortly thereafter we're going to follow up on all things that stand between a doctor and their attempts to end illness.
Speaker 2:That is awesome and I wish you the best of luck in that, Luca. How can people, especially health care professionals and health care administrators, administrators and healthcare systems get more information on Grapevine?
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure. So Grapevine's a totally free-to-use platform. I would recommend signing up and then you're going to get sort of prioritized to the top of our outreach and customer success team's queue. You can go to our website and again sign up for free at go-grapevinecom. That's like go hyphen symbol, grapevinecom, and it's grapevine like the Marvin Gaye song. Heard it through the grapevine. I think it's Marvin Gaye. It is that would be embarrassing if I got that wrong.
Speaker 2:Me too. How efficient are we? That is great, so that's go-grapevinecom.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Well, luca, thank you so much. I wish you all the best of luck and I'm going to check in with you in a few months' time, see how you're doing Sounds good Thanks, Maureen. You're so welcome. That was Luca Yancopoulos, an innovative entrepreneur and founder of Grapevine, a startup revolutionizing healthcare supply chains. If you want more information and to sign up for free, it's go-grapevinecom. Just remember that song by Marvin Gaye. We're going to Google that later. Anyway, I'm Maureen McGrath and this is Nurse Maureen's Health Show Podcast.