I will promise that this is going to be my last post regarding healthcare supply chain (for the next two weeks!) but this piece of news which I recently received was kind of cool so here it comes:

VHA Inc., the national health care alliance, has hired Jeff McLaren as senior vice president for national supply chain services.

According to Dallas Business News, this is a new position for VHA, and McLaren will be responsible for developing and guiding the VHA field team members who work with VHA hospitals on supply chain improvement. Last fall, VHA created 10 new positions for regional vice presidents for supply chain services. VHA filled most of these roles with people who are already working with members on supply chain improvement strategies. Overall, VHA deploys more than 200 people who work directly with members across the nation to help them develop standardization and logistics strategies and to apply VHA's supply chain management and analytics tools that help members reduce their supply chain costs.

McLaren joins VHA from Huron Consulting Group where he was a managing director of its health care and supply chain consulting practice. From 2003 through 2005, he was a partner and the supply chain practice leader at CSC's Global Health Solutions Consulting Practice. In 2002, he joined Cap Gemini as a senior manager of the healthcare business transformation practice. McLaren began consulting in 1995 when he joined APM Healthcare Management Consulting, which was eventually acquired by CSC to form its health solutions practice. Prior to consulting, he was an associate at Morgan Stanley and Co. from 1993 to 1995 and a hospital sales and marketing associate with Eli Lilly & Co. from 1988 to 1991.

McLaren received his bachelor's degree in 1988 in economics and French language at DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind., and he received his master's in business administration from Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., in 1993.