Rockin' HIT Sales Podcast
From Local Win to System Standard: The Supply Chain Playbook for Scaling Change
Marisa Farabaugh, Executive Vice President and Chief Supply Chain Officer at AdventHealth, joins Rockin’ HIT Sales to discuss how health systems evaluate vendors, prove value, and move from a local win to broader system adoption.
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Episode Summary
In this episode of Rockin’ HIT Sales, David Hacker sits down with Marisa Farabaugh, Executive Vice President and Chief Supply Chain Officer at AdventHealth, for a practical conversation on how health systems evaluate vendors, supply chain value, and system-wide scale.
Marisa explains why big ROI claims are not enough on their own. Health systems need to understand the assumptions, operational realities, customer complexity, and implementation requirements behind the numbers.
The discussion also explores how value analysis brings together quality, cost, clinical input, and disciplined evaluation — and why vendors build trust by listening first, understanding the customer’s environment, and proving value locally before trying to scale across the enterprise.
For Health IT companies selling into hospitals and health systems, this episode is a clear reminder: system-wide adoption does not start with a bold savings claim. It starts with trust, evidence, local execution, and a solution that works in the real world.
Why This Matters for Health IT Companiese
Selling to a large health system requires more than showing that a technology can generate a financial return. Health systems must evaluate whether the assumptions behind that value are valid in their environment, if the solution can be implemented across different markets and facilities, and if it can deliver consistent results as adoption increases. For health IT companies, this means designing the path from a successful local implementation to system-wide adoption, rather than assuming it. Vendors need clearly defined implementation metrics, customer-aligned expectations, clinical and operational input, and evidence that the solution works effectively at the initial site before scaling it across the organization.What You’ll Hear in This Episode
- Why big ROI claims need context before they create trust
- What “system-wide” really means inside a large health system
- How supply chain balances local autonomy with enterprise consistency
- Why value analysis looks at quality, cost, clinical input, and standardization
- How pilots help health systems test execution before broader rollout
- Why vendors need to listen, understand complexity, and prove value locally before scaling
Questions This Episode Answers
Why aren’t large ROI or savings claims enough to win a health system’s trust?
Because the value of a solution depends on the realities of the health system where it will be implemented. Different organizations have different operating models, processes, scale, and complexity. Vendors need to understand those conditions and the assumptions behind their financial claims before presenting savings or ROI as a certainty.
What does “system-wide” adoption actually mean inside a large health system?
System-wide implementation means more than succeeding at one hospital or in one market. It requires a solution to work across the broader organization while accounting for both enterprise standards and legitimate local needs.
How does value analysis influence healthcare technology decisions?
Value analysis brings clinical knowledge together with cost, quality, operational relevance, and standardization. The lowest-priced option is not automatically the highest-value option; health systems must evaluate how a product or technology will actually be used and what outcomes it produces.
What tells a health system that a pilot may be ready to scale?
Execution matters first. The initial location must be closely connected to the implementation, leading indicators should identify problems early, and customer feedback should show that the solution is working as intended before broader rollout.
How can a Health IT vendor build trust during the evaluation process?
Listen before prescribing a solution. Vendors build credibility by understanding the health system’s complexity, being transparent about assumptions, building relationships, and first determining what problem the organization actually needs to solve.
David’s GTM Takeaways for Health IT Vendors
Marisa’s point about listening before leading with claims connects directly to this white paper on why disciplined listening is an underrated advantage in complex Health IT sales.
Download: Hard Listening – The Underrated Superpower in Health IT Sales
About the Guest
Marisa Farabaugh is Executive Vice President and Chief Supply Chain Officer at AdventHealth, a national health system with 57 hospitals across nine states, more than 105,000 team members, and a continuum of care that includes urgent care centers, home health and hospice agencies, and physician practices.
In this role, Marisa oversees supply chain across a large, multi-state enterprise where vendor evaluation is about far more than price. In this episode, she brings a practical view into how health systems assess value, balance local needs with system consistency, evaluate quality and cost, and determine whether a solution is ready to move from a local win to broader system adoption.Transcript
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