Stephen Tambolas is the Vice President of Supply Chain & Facilities for the Conemaugh Health System, headquartered in Johnstown, PA. Previously, Mr. Tambolas founded and served as the first President of Strategic Supply Chain Management 5 inc., a healthcare consulting firm headquartered in Pennsylvania. The firm is focused on strategic supply chain enhancement programs. Prior to founding SSCM5, he was the Managing Director for Supply Chain at American Healthcare Solutions, LLC in Pittsburgh and the President of Tambolas Consulting, serving group purchasing and hospital clients in redesigning hospital supply chain functions to achieve results. As a consultant he has aided clients in saving many hundreds of millions of dollars.
A senior health care professional with over 39 years experience of uncommon expertise in healthcare supply chain management, Mr. Tambolas served on national and regional task forces for the nation’s two largest group-purchasing organizations and international Delphi panels for e-commerce. He is the author of numerous articles on supply chain, quality management, and outsourcing. He has served as the facilitator/trainer for various workshops - including managing the change of culture in a merger setting.
As the first Chief Supply Chain Officer for the four-hospital Pinnacle Health System in Harrisburg, PA he brought the system to a standard platform within 18 months of merger; exceeded national benchmarks; gained recognition for an innovations in structure, software, and consolidated logistics; served as an alpha development site for the world’s largest healthcare e-commerce portal; implemented the nation’s first hospital supplier certification and control program – recognized as a best practice supplier relations program; reduced the impact of non-traditional supply chain areas; and directed the outsourcing of select other services.
Previously, as the corporate Director of Supply Chain for the Polyclinic Medical Center he implemented industry innovations, including: one of the world’s first networked supply chain information systems, a risk sharing supply arrangement that covered the total cost per admission, and one of the nation’s first orthopedic capitation programs.
Earlier, Mr. Tambolas was Director of Purchasing for the Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh, PA. At Allegheny he was a pioneer in the then new concept of national group purchasing and developed numerous other support services.
Mr. Tambolas holds his master’s degree in Public Management/Health Systems Administration from the Heinz School, Carnegie-Mellon University, and an undergraduate degree in Information Systems and Business Administration from Robert Morris University. In 1981 he was one of the first healthcare supply executives in the nation to achieve certification with the trailblazing Healthcare Materials Management Society. He is a member of the national board of the Medical Industry Group of the Institute for Supply Management, from where he holds supply chain's highest level of certification, the CPSM, and a Lifetime C.P.M. certification, a past president of the Central Pennsylvania chapter of AHRMM and a member of the American College of Healthcare Executives.
