Healthcare Supply Chain: Old enough for a man, but pioneered by a woman

By Rick Dana Barlow

Depending on your definition of a “healthcare supply chain professional,” you likely would have to acknowledge that the earliest known example of such an essential individual is a woman you might not ordinarily consider … until you looked rather closely at the details.

Bellwether League Foundation did.

Even though, by and large, the healthcare supply chain historically has been considered and documented as a male-dominated profession for much of the last 150 years, there have been many times when women have made tremendous contributions and noteworthy differences to push the profession forward.

Perhaps a prime example is one of the first examples of a pioneering attitude.

Clara Barton, Bellwether Class of 2019, may be historically interwoven with the launching the American Red Cross, but to the Hall of Fame for Healthcare Supply Chain Leadership, she surpasses even that feat.

• Provide troops in the battlefield front lines with necessary medical supplies? Check.

• Work closely with physicians and surgeons in delivering healthcare with the right supplies they needed – or when necessary, functional, clinical or available equivalents? Check.

• Butt heads with corporate, government and military leaders and bureaucrats about the need to offer care and provision during times of crisis? Check.

 

And this all took place during the late 19th century and early into the 20th.

• No insurance companies or payers – not even Medicare – with which to contend.

• No managed care or diagnosis-related groups (DRG) coding.

• No disruptive healthcare reform, integrated delivery networks (IDNs) or mandated cost containment protocols.

Just a passionate woman leader dedicated to the proposition of providing care and relief when it was needed.

In short, Barton (1821-1912) arguably carried the healthcare supply chain torch before anyone else. That’s why she became Bellwether League Foundation’s historically earliest-known inducted Bellwether in 2019, the last time a live, in-person event was held before the global pandemic hit several months later.

Barton began her career as a self-taught nurse, schoolteacher and writer, opening the first free public school in New Jersey that served more than 600 students. However, she endured culturally accepted gender discrimination that frowned on women in enterprising and leadership roles. This eventually motivated her to relocate to Washington, DC, in the 1850s to work in the U.S. Patent Office under President James Buchanan. Unfortunately, Barton faced more gender persecution as she was performing at least on par as her male colleagues who didn’t appreciate her ability to match them in capability, compensation and progress. She was demoted and dismissed in 1857.

When Abraham Lincoln succeeded Buchanan as President, Barton returned to the federal Patent Office, hoping to pave the way for more opportunities for women to serve in federal government.

At the onset of the Civil War in 1861, Barton sought to help Union troops by collecting and distributing supplies to wounded troops transported to Washington after involvement in a riot in Baltimore. Barton took supplies to the unfinished Capitol Building to help the soldiers of the 6th Massachusetts Militia that were caught up in the fighting. (When the 6th Massachusetts arrived in Baltimore, they had to change trains to continue south to Washington. The citizens of Baltimore were largely secessionist and fighting ensued when the troops tried to transfer between the trains.)

By 1862, Barton used her own living quarters as a storeroom and recruited a few friends to help distribute medical supplies and other provisions to the battlefield. She offered emotional support to the soldiers, and kept their spirits high by reading to them, talking to them and writing to their families, in addition to caring for their physical needs.

Curiously, her storage and distribution methods for supplies met with opposition from the War Department and among field surgeons. Still, Barton gained permission from Quartermaster Daniel Rucker and others, including Sen. Henry Wilson of Massachusetts, for her cause and operations.

When the Civil War ended in 1865, Barton spent the next four years or so working for the War Department to locate missing soldiers and either reunite the living with their families or give the dead proper burials. She also gave lectures around the country, sharing her war experiences, and earning widespread recognition. Along the way, she met Susan B. Anthony, associating with the women’s suffrage movement, and with Frederick Douglass, associating with the civil rights movement he led at that time.

Barton’s efforts took such a toll on her physical and mental health that her doctor ordered to take time off and go somewhere to rest. She traveled to Europe in 1869, but her vacation was short-lived. In Geneva, Switzerland, Barton met up with representatives of a relief organization called the International Red Cross, which was helping troops during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. Barton provided civilian relief in Strasbourg and then Paris. In fact, her supply distribution efforts fortified the people of Paris, earning her two prominent post-war honors and decorations – the Golden Cross of Baden and the Prussian Iron Cross.

After returning to the United States, Barton launched a movement to recognize the IRC and lobbied to establish an American branch of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Her efforts were rebuffed by President Rutherford Hayes who felt that the nation would not experience another war like the Civil War, which obviated the need for such an organization. Barton remained resolute, convincing Hayes’ successor Chester Arthur that an organization called the American Red Cross Society could respond to and provide relief during any crises and not just war, including natural disasters, forest fires, hurricanes, etc. It worked.

After nearly a decade of lobbying, the American Association of the Red Cross (AARC) was founded in 1881 with Barton as its first president. She was 59. Under Barton’s watch for the next 23 years the AARC provided assistance and relief for victims of major disasters, including the Johnstown Flood in 1889 and the Galveston Flood in 1900, as well as aiding refugees and prisoners during the Spanish-American War. During this time, Barton also represented the AARC in Armenian territories and Cuba where she helped to provide relief, humanitarian aid and hospital management.

Unfortunately, an internal power struggle within the AARC prompted Barton to resign her position in 1904 at the age of 82. Her assertive leadership style and idealistic humanitarianism ran counter to the male-dominated scientific and organizational experts who espoused different ways to manage, operate and structure a charitable organization in the emerging Progressive Era. Still, Barton continued giving speeches and lectures, and wrote her autobiography. She also founded the National First Aid Society. In 1912, at the age of 90, Barton died from pneumonia.

Clara Barton simply had a heart for people, a head for organizing and managing and the fortitude to face and stand up to opposition rooted largely in societal beliefs about gender roles. She helped to set up a school and multiple hospitals, consulted with politicians and relief organizations around the world and, of course, established the American Red Cross and the National First Aid Society. Barton trained hundreds and her work affected thousands, if not tens and hundreds of thousands of people during her lifetime. In fact, disaster relief and humanitarian aid to this date owe her a debt of gratitude for paving the way.