Carol Martz Knows How to Build the Case for Supply Chain at MetroHealth

Carol Martz didn’t expect to leave her role at Cleveland Clinic, especially after fourteen years. Martz’s transformation from a paralegal role to purchasing manager isn’t just nontraditional, it’s unheard of. But when Cleveland-area’s The MetroHealth System asked if she’d be interested in a director-level role, it was too great of an opportunity to pass up. Five years in, the now VP of supply chain at Metro Health has a lot to celebrate.

Martz is proud to have helped transform the health system’s supply chain from a transactional, often invisible function into a documented, metric-driven partner across MetroHealth. The timing couldn’t have been more important.

“Nobody knew what supply chain did before the pandemic,” the VP says. “My mom used to joke that my job was to ensure that doctors had paper clips. Now that we’re past the COVID-19 pandemic, I think the entire industry needs to do a better job of telling their story. We were vitally important for a minute, but now it’s up to us to demonstrate our value and create those partnerships in our health systems.”

Martz came to MetroHealth just a month after the world shut down. She and her team were sourcing PPE as fast as they could while also meticulously mapping every process, creating new playbooks, standard operating procedures, and crisis protocols. It’s a rare leader who is able to understand the opportunity of a crisis and both navigate that crisis and learn from it in real time.

Documentation is everything, the VP says. Every workstream, from sourcing to inventory, now has clear documentation. This kind of clarity enables quick adaptation and ensures team alignment. Martz has also introduced rigorous metrics that allow her team to allocate time efficiently and, again, quantify supply chain contributions so the broader organization is justified in further investment in supply chain operations.

That investment includes the successful rollout of “ReadySet Surgical,” a platform that automates and streamlines the management of surgical vendor-supplied inventory. Martz’s team worked collaboratively with MetroHealth’s IT department, clinical staff, and vendors to replace manual processes. The new platform has the capacity to significantly reduce double-billing, errors, and it will provide cleaner, more accurate data for leadership decisions.

“This is a great example of so many stakeholders coming together to figure out how to leverage a new tool,” Martz says. “There are a number of issues that have stuck around for years, and this is an ideal solution. We’ve been live for two months, and we’re already seeing huge savings.”

Martz is executing another long-range initiative aimed at balancing clinical choice with fiscal responsibility. An extensive product standardization initiative aims to pare down duplicative medical-surgical products while ensuring clinicians retain essential options. The long-range vision is to optimize purchasing at scale and contain costs while also improving health outcomes. It’s not the only complex task she’s managing at present.

There’s also the early talks of a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that is roughly slated for 2026, should it receive board approval. Any ERP implementation is a big deal, but when it comes to the healthcare industry, lives are truly on the line.

“We’re still in the early stages,” Martz says. “It’s something I’m both really looking forward to working on while still understanding just how much work it’s going to entail.”

Martz says being open to an opportunity has been crucial for her own evolution and development. She may not have been “conventionally qualified” for some of her early purchasing roles, but she understood how to apply her organizational expertise and, maybe most importantly, her adaptability to a new area.

Martz spent the better part of two decades as a paralegal, and she was good at it. She became an expert in policy, procedure, and contract work. When a role in the Cleveland Clinic’s supply chain department became available, she figured she could handle the role, at least in theory.

“It was going well, and then they were looking for someone to manage the purchasing team,” the VP remembers. “I figured it was just following the policy and some critical thinking. So I raised my hand.”

The pandemic, unfortunately, wasn’t the hardest part of coming to a new organization. Shortly before she joined MetroHealth, Martz lost her mother. The VP’s mother didn’t contract COVID-19, but the timing made it difficult for Martz to grieve such a painful loss. In starting a new role, she had to compartmentalize her emotions while focusing on the urgent needs of staff and the rest of her organization. In short, she couldn’t afford to be off her game when lives were at stake.

“I owe a lot to the incredible team here,” Martz says. “They were able to pull me into our processes quickly and help me adapt to a new system. I learned that I can take a lot on, a lot more than I thought possible.”

“Partnering with Carol and The MetroHealth System is a powerful example of what’s possible when operational excellence meets technology that fits,” says Brendan Shaw, SVP, Alliances & Partnerships at ReadySet Surgical. “Carol’s leadership drives efficiency and clinical alignment, and ReadySet is proud to provide the visibility, consistency, and control surgical services needed to streamline coordination and deliver high-quality care.”

Martz is also grateful to her network of friends and family who were able to help her heal, especially her husband.

“Bless his heart, he puts up with all of my crazy ideas,” Martz says, laughing. “I’ve been very lucky to have a partner who supports me in seeking out these new kinds of opportunities.”

But one gets the feeling that if you’re lucky enough to be in Martz’s orbit, you feel a great deal of gratitude as well.