百特醫療 (BAX) 2022 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Baxter International's Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this call is being recorded by Baxter and is copyrighted material. It cannot be recorded or rerecorded or rebroadcast without Baxter's permission. If you have any objections, please disconnect at this time. I would now like to turn the call over to Ms. Clare Trachtman, Vice President, Investor Relations at Baxter International. Ms. Trachtman, you may begin.

女士們，先生們，早上好，歡迎參加百特國際公司 2022 年第三季度收益電話會議。 （操作員說明）提醒一下，此通話由 Baxter 錄製，是受版權保護的材料。未經百特許可，不得對其進行錄製、重錄或重播。如果您有任何異議，請在此時斷開連接。我現在想將電話轉給百特國際投資者關係副總裁 Clare Trachtman 女士。 Trachtman 女士，你可以開始了。

Good morning, and welcome to our third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Joining me today are Joe Almeida, Baxter's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Jay Saccaro, Baxter's Chief Financial Officer. On the call this morning, we will be discussing Baxter's third quarter 2022 financial results and full year financial outlook for 2022. With that let me start our prepared remarks by reminding everyone that this presentation, including comments regarding our financial outlook for the fourth quarter and full year 2022, our 2022 to 2025 long-range plan, the acquisition of Hillrom, new product development, the potential impact of proposed pricing actions, business development, portfolio optimization and regulatory matters contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. And of course, our actual results could differ materially from our current expectations. Please refer to today's press release and our SEC filings for more detail concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially.

早上好，歡迎參加我們的 2022 年第三季度財報電話會議。今天加入我的還有百特董事長兼首席執行官喬·阿爾梅達（Joe Almeida）；和百特首席財務官 Jay Saccaro。在今天上午的電話會議上，我們將討論百特 2022 年第三季度財務業績和 2022 年全年財務展望。在此開始我們準備好的發言，提醒大家本次演講，包括對我們第四季度財務展望和2022 年全年、我們的 2022 年至 2025 年長期計劃、收購 Hillrom、新產品開發、擬議定價行動的潛在影響、業務發展、投資組合優化和監管事項包含涉及風險和不確定性的前瞻性陳述。當然，我們的實際結果可能與我們目前的預期大相徑庭。請參閱今天的新聞稿和我們向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件，了解有關可能導致實際結果出現重大差異的因素的更多詳細信息。

In addition, on today's call, non-GAAP financial measures will be used to help investors understand Baxter's ongoing business performance. A reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measures being discussed today to the comparable GAAP financial measures is included in our earnings release issued this morning and available on our website. On the call this morning, we will be discussing operational sales growth, which adjusts for the impact of foreign exchange and the acquisition of Hillrom. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Joe. Joe?

此外，在今天的電話會議上，非公認會計準則財務指標將用於幫助投資者了解百特的持續經營業績。今天討論的非公認會計原則財務指標與可比公認會計原則財務指標的對賬包含在我們今天上午發布的收益報告中，並可在我們的網站上查閱。在今天上午的電話會議上，我們將討論運營銷售增長，其中調整了外彙的影響和收購 Hillrom。現在我想把電話轉給喬。喬？

Thank you, Clare, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining today's call. I will start with a look at our third quarter performance, including some perspective on the macro environmental factors impacting our near-term trajectory. Jay will provide a deeper dive on our financials and outlook, after which we will open up the lines for your questions.

謝謝你，克萊爾，大家早上好。感謝您加入今天的電話會議。我將從查看我們第三季度的業績開始，包括對影響我們近期軌蹟的宏觀環境因素的一些看法。 Jay 將對我們的財務狀況和前景進行更深入的探討，之後我們將為您提出問題。

Q3 2022 represents the third full quarter since the close of our Hillrom acquisition. Total company sales of $3.8 billion grew 17% on a reported basis and 23% at a constant currency rates. Legacy Hillrom contributed $735 million to sales in the third quarter. Excluding the impact of Hillrom and foreign exchange, third quarter sales rose slightly on an operational basis.

2022 年第三季度是我們收購 Hillrom 以來的第三個完整季度。公司總銷售額為 38 億美元，在報告的基礎上增長了 17%，按固定匯率計算增長了 23%。 Legacy Hillrom 在第三季度為銷售額貢獻了 7.35 億美元。排除 Hillrom 和外彙的影響，第三季度銷售額在運營基礎上略有上升。

On the bottom line, third quarter adjusted earnings per share of $0.82 were at the higher end of the guidance range we had provided previously. Both top line and bottom line performance in the quarter reflect the continued impact of macroeconomic headwinds, including significant inflationary pressures as well as ongoing global supply chain constraints, consistent with what many others are encountering globally.

歸根結底，第三季度調整後每股收益為 0.82 美元，處於我們之前提供的指導範圍的高端。本季度的頂線和底線表現都反映了宏觀經濟逆風的持續影響，包括顯著的通脹壓力以及持續的全球供應鏈限制，這與全球許多其他公司所遇到的情況一致。

With further regard to the macroeconomic environment, I want to note the impairment charge in our third quarter financials related to the Hillrom acquisition. Jay will provide additional details. But in short, this charge relates to many of the shifting market dynamics, including rising interest rates and lower valuation multiples that they have reduced equity values broadly along with the increased supply chain-related costs that we've previously discussed.

關於宏觀經濟環境，我想指出我們第三季度財務中與 Hillrom 收購相關的減值費用。 Jay 將提供更多詳細信息。但簡而言之，這項收費與許多不斷變化的市場動態有關，包括利率上升和估值倍數下降，它們廣泛降低了股票價值，以及我們之前討論過的供應鏈相關成本增加。

With that said, and with 10 months of progress in perspective, I want to underline our continuing confidence in the potential of the Hillrom acquisition. This is already playing out as an opportunity to expand the reach of both legacy portfolios geographically and across the continuum of care. It is also accelerating our connected care journey, expanding our digital footprint and helping to unlock the next wave of innovation across our R&D pipeline.

話雖如此，並且從 10 個月的進展來看，我想強調我們對 Hillrom 收購潛力的持續信心。這已經成為一個機會，可以在地理上和整個護理過程中擴大傳統投資組合的覆蓋範圍。它還加速了我們的互聯護理之旅，擴大了我們的數字足跡，並幫助在我們的研發管道中開啟下一波創新浪潮。

Integration of our legacy organization is advancing swiftly, and as previously shared, we are achieving even greater value capture through cost synergies than initially anticipated. Additionally, overall demand across the Baxter and legacy Hillrom portfolios remains solid, but we continue to experience meaningful back orders and backlogs due to reduced access to a variety of raw materials and electromechanical components. As I have shared previously, this has resulted not only in higher cost spot purchases but also expedited freight costs as we work steadfastly to get our life-sustaining products to the patients and clinicians who depend on us.

我們傳統組織的整合正在迅速推進，正如之前所分享的，我們通過成本協同效應實現了比最初預期的更大的價值捕獲。此外，Baxter 和傳統 Hillrom 產品組合的整體需求保持穩定，但由於對各種原材料和機電組件的訪問減少，我們繼續遇到有意義的延期交貨和積壓訂單。正如我之前所分享的，這不僅導致了更高成本的現貨採購，而且還加快了運費，因為我們堅定不移地努力將我們的維持生命的產品提供給依賴我們的患者和臨床醫生。

While we see signals that some of these macro factors may begin to ease next year, our current expectation is that select supply constraints will persist into 2023, particularly as it relates to semiconductors, where we continue to see high levels of volatility in supply.

雖然我們看到一些宏觀因素可能在明年開始緩解的信號，但我們目前的預期是，某些供應限制將持續到 2023 年，尤其是與半導體有關的情況下，我們繼續看到供應高度波動。

During the quarter, we experienced several decommits from various suppliers, meaningfully impacting our overall demand planning process. We have also seen supply constraints from other raw materials, which has further impacted performance. In total, we estimate that the semiconductor and raw material constraints we've experienced negatively impacted Baxter top line performance in the quarter by more than $100 million or approximately 400 basis points. And on a year-to-date basis, we estimate this figure to be approaching $300 million. We continue to take decisive action to help mitigate these constraints and position the company for improved future performance.

在本季度，我們經歷了來自不同供應商的多次離職，對我們的整體需求計劃流程產生了有意義的影響。我們還看到其他原材料的供應限制，這進一步影響了業績。總的來說，我們估計我們所經歷的半導體和原材料限制對本季度的百特營收產生了超過 1 億美元或約 400 個基點的負面影響。從年初至今，我們估計這個數字將接近 3 億美元。我們將繼續採取果斷行動，幫助減輕這些限制，並使公司為改善未來業績做好準備。

Some of the actions we have already undertaken include extending the horizon of our demand forecast out to 24 months for supply-constrained categories to allow our suppliers to allocate capacity and inventory to Baxter over a long horizon; validating alternate supply options to provide flexibility in sourcing; establishing direct buy relationships with critical secondary component suppliers; enhancing our manufacturing processes to further optimize material usage and reduce waste; and meeting with the management teams of our key suppliers and select government officials to reinforce the criticality of Baxter's products.

我們已經採取的一些行動包括將供應受限類別的需求預測時間延長至 24 個月，以使我們的供應商能夠長期為百特分配產能和庫存；驗證替代供應選項以提供採購靈活性；與關鍵的二級組件供應商建立直接購買關係；改進我們的製造流程，以進一步優化材料使用並減少浪費；與我們主要供應商的管理團隊和選定的政府官員會面，以加強百特產品的重要性。

We are confident that these actions will further enhance our ability to help mitigate supply chain impacts on Baxter's near and midterm performance. At the same time, we remain focused on improving the operational efficiency across the organization. We've already implemented several initiatives that I expect to drive improved future performance, including ensuring that we have the optimal organization structure and business processes in place. In addition, we are pursuing some near-term actions to help offset the increased expenses we're experiencing.

我們相信，這些行動將進一步增強我們幫助減輕供應鏈對百特近期和中期業績影響的能力。與此同時，我們仍然專注於提高整個組織的運營效率。我們已經實施了幾項計劃，我希望這些計劃能夠提高未來的績效，包括確保我們擁有最佳的組織結構和業務流程。此外，我們正在採取一些近期行動來幫助抵消我們正在經歷的增加的開支。

These actions, including recent restructuring initiatives, broad hiring freeze, reduced discretionary spending and accelerating our Hillrom integration efforts. Additionally, we do expect to realize savings this year through lower annual employee incentive bonuses, which are directly tied to business performance.

這些行動包括最近的重組舉措、廣泛的招聘凍結、減少可自由支配的支出以及加快我們的 Hillrom 整合工作。此外，我們確實希望通過降低與業務績效直接相關的年度員工激勵獎金來實現今年的節省。

Also, as mentioned last quarter, we have already passed on a portion of the incremental costs we've absorbed to our customers and are collaborating with them to finalize agreements, which include revised pricing terms to address continued cost pressures. We deeply value these relationships and appreciate the challenges that our customers themselves are facing. Upon successful execution and implementation of these agreements, we anticipate the related reviews will be reflected in our results next year. We believe that these actions will help underscore our unwavering commitment to our patients and customers. Collectively, these initiatives are fueled by the sustained emphasis on operational efficiency and cost base optimization that has powered our transformation to date. And as I will continue to stress, we will never pursue any actions that compromise our fundamental mission to save and sustain lives.

此外，如上個季度所述，我們已經將我們吸收的部分增量成本轉嫁給了我們的客戶，並正在與他們合作敲定協議，其中包括修訂定價條款以應對持續的成本壓力。我們非常重視這些關係，並理解我們的客戶自己所面臨的挑戰。在成功執行和實施這些協議後，我們預計相關審查將反映在我們明年的業績中。我們相信，這些行動將有助於強調我們對患者和客戶的堅定承諾。總的來說，這些舉措是由持續強調運營效率和成本基礎優化推動的，這推動了我們迄今為止的轉型。正如我將繼續強調的那樣，我們絕不會採取任何有損我們拯救和維持生命的基本使命的行動。

We are also actively advancing our strategic review of the portfolio to ensure the optimal structure to execute on our vision of transforming health care, to improve patient outcomes, enhance workflow efficiency and enable cost-effective care. We anticipate that we will be in a position to provide more details on these ongoing activities early next year. I want to reiterate that our strategic core and prospects remain firm, as is our commitment to driving long-term value for our shareholders and the many other stakeholders we serve.

我們還積極推進對投資組合的戰略審查，以確保以最佳結構來執行我們改變醫療保健的願景，改善患者治療效果，提高工作流程效率並實現具有成本效益的護理。我們預計，我們將能夠在明年初提供有關這些正在進行的活動的更多詳細信息。我想重申，我們的戰略核心和前景依然穩固，我們致力於為我們的股東和我們服務的許多其他利益相關者推動長期價值。

Baxter's strength is founded on our diverse, durable portfolio of essential health care products, which will continue to be enhanced by our focus on driving innovation in connected care and core therapies.

百特的實力建立在我們多樣化、耐用的基本醫療保健產品組合之上，我們專注於推動互聯護理和核心療法的創新，將繼續增強這些產品組合。

Baxter's industry leadership and increased scale, combined with our rapidly advancing digital capabilities, create a spectrum of prospects to help advance our impact in line with our life-saving mission and, in turn, to share our success with our shareholders and other stakeholder communities.

百特的行業領導地位和不斷擴大的規模，加上我們快速發展的數字能力，創造了一系列前景，以幫助我們根據拯救生命的使命提高我們的影響力，進而與我們的股東和其他利益相關者社區分享我們的成功。

Finally, I want to recognize and thank our employees for their remarkable effort always and especially as we navigate the current macro environment. Our global team consistently embraces our life-saving mission above all, rising to meet each new challenge with dedication, passion and a keen focus on serving the many stakeholders who depend on us.

最後，我要承認並感謝我們的員工一直以來的非凡努力，尤其是在我們駕馭當前宏觀環境時。我們的全球團隊始終將拯救生命的使命放在首位，以奉獻精神、熱情和專注於為依賴我們的眾多利益相關者提供服務來迎接每一項新挑戰。

Now Jay will provide more details on our third quarter performance and outlook for the remainder of the year.

現在傑伊將提供更多關於我們第三季度業績和今年剩餘時間展望的詳細信息。

Thanks, Joe, and good morning, everyone. As Joe mentioned, our results for the quarter came in largely as expected, with some impact to sales due to select supply chain-related constraints. As discussed earlier, our teams have been and continue to identify opportunities to help mitigate the unprecedented macroeconomic headwinds we continue to face, and we remain committed to delivering on our long-term objectives.

謝謝，喬，大家早上好。正如喬所提到的，我們本季度的業績基本符合預期，但由於選擇的供應鏈相關限制，對銷售產生了一些影響。如前所述，我們的團隊已經並將繼續尋找機會來幫助緩解我們繼續面臨的前所未有的宏觀經濟逆風，我們將繼續致力於實現我們的長期目標。

Turning to our financial performance. Third quarter 2022 global sales of $3.8 billion advanced 17% on a reported basis, 23% on a constant currency basis and rose slightly on an operational basis. On the bottom line, adjusted earnings decreased 20% to $0.82 per share falling within our guidance range of $0.79 to $0.83 per share. Earnings in the quarter reflect the increased cost of raw materials, freight and labor as well as the impact of rising interest rates, foreign exchange headwinds and a higher tax rate.

轉向我們的財務業績。 2022 年第三季度全球銷售額為 38 億美元，按報告計算增長 17%，按固定匯率計算增長 23%，按運營計算略有增長。歸根結底，調整後的收益下降 20% 至每股 0.82 美元，位於我們每股 0.79 美元至 0.83 美元的指導範圍內。本季度的收益反映了原材料、運費和勞動力成本的增加，以及利率上升、外匯逆風和更高稅率的影響。

Before I review our financial performance for the quarter, I wanted to spend a moment discussing the noncash impairment charge that we recorded related to the Hillrom acquisition. When we purchased Hillrom, we valued the business based on anticipated cash flows, Baxter's prevailing cost of capital and market EBITDA multiples at the time of the transaction. As Joe mentioned, the primary reason for the write-down was due to changes in external factors that have occurred since the acquisition date, specifically, the significant increase in interest rates we have seen and the reduction in market-based EBITDA multiples.

在回顧我們本季度的財務業績之前，我想花一點時間討論我們記錄的與 Hillrom 收購相關的非現金減值費用。當我們購買 Hillrom 時，我們根據預期現金流量、百特的現行資本成本和交易時的市場 EBITDA 倍數對業務進行估值。正如喬所說，減記的主要原因是由於自收購日期以來發生的外部因素的變化，特別是我們看到的利率大幅上升和基於市場的 EBITDA 倍數的下降。

As we evaluated these environmental factors and coupled them with the supply chain impacts we've incurred, which we carry forward in our projections, we deemed it appropriate to reduce the carrying value of goodwill and certain other intangible assets associated with Hillrom.

當我們評估這些環境因素並將它們與我們所產生的供應鏈影響相結合時，我們在我們的預測中進行了預測，我們認為降低商譽和與 Hillrom 相關的某些其他無形資產的賬面價值是適當的。

I want to reinforce Joe's earlier comments that we continue to see tremendous potential for our combined portfolios. We have accelerated our cost synergy targets, which continue to track ahead of our expectations, and our commercial leaders are driving actions to unlock the growth of the combined company.

我想強調喬之前的評論，即我們繼續看到我們合併後的投資組合的巨大潛力。我們加快了我們的成本協同目標，這些目標繼續超出我們的預期，我們的商業領袖正在推動行動，以釋放合併後公司的增長。

Now I'll walk through performance by our regional segments in key product categories. Note that constant currency growth is equal to operational sales growth for all global businesses and Baxter's 3 legacy geographic regions. Starting with sales by operating segment. Sales in the Americas were flat to the prior year on a constant currency basis. Sales in Europe, Middle East and Africa grew 3% on a constant currency basis, and sales in our APAC region decreased 2% on a constant currency basis. Quarterly sales in that region reflected a slowdown in growth in China due to the country's Zero COVID policy, which we estimate impacted sales by approximately $10 million in the quarter, as well as the anticipated impact from various value-based procurement initiatives being implemented in the region.

現在，我將介紹我們在關鍵產品類別中的區域細分市場的表現。請注意，恆定貨幣增長等於所有全球業務和百特 3 個傳統地理區域的運營銷售增長。從經營部門的銷售額開始。按固定匯率計算，美洲的銷售額與上一年持平。歐洲、中東和非洲的銷售額按固定匯率計算增長了 3%，而我們亞太地區的銷售額按固定匯率計算下降了 2%。該地區的季度銷售額反映了中國的增長放緩，原因是該國的零新冠政策（我們估計該政策影響了本季度的銷售額約 1000 萬美元），以及正在實施的各種基於價值的採購計劃的預期影響地區。

Moving on to performance by key product category. Global sales for Renal Care were $942 million, increasing 4% on a constant currency basis. Performance in the quarter was driven by solid growth in our PD business, where we observed an increase in PD patients globally. PD growth was augmented by 2 discrete items totaling approximately $20 million.

繼續按關鍵產品類別劃分性能。 Renal Care 的全球銷售額為 9.42 億美元，按固定匯率計算增長 4%。本季度的業績受到我們 PD 業務穩健增長的推動，我們觀察到全球 PD 患者的增加。 PD 增長增加了 2 個離散項目，總計約 2000 萬美元。

Performance in the quarter was partially offset by lower in-center HD sales partially due to HD monitor supply challenges due to component availability. Sales in Medication Delivery of $725 million were at similar level to prior year sales on a constant currency basis. Within the quarter, we observed strong demand for products in our IV Therapy portfolio. This growth was more than offset by lower infusion system sales as component availability remain challenged, coupled with a large hospital system order in Q3 in 2021, which created this difficult comparator to the prior year.

本季度的業績被較低的中心高清銷售額部分抵消，部分原因是由於組件可用性導致的高清顯示器供應挑戰。 7.25 億美元的藥物配送銷售額與上一年的銷售額相似，按固定匯率計算。在本季度，我們觀察到對 IV 治療產品組合中產品的強勁需求。這一增長被較低的輸液系統銷售所抵消，因為組件的可用性仍然受到挑戰，再加上 2021 年第三季度的大型醫院系統訂單，這與上一年相比造成了這一困難。

Pharmaceutical sales of $525 million declined 3% on a constant currency basis. Performance in the quarter reflects declines in our global generic injectables portfolio due to continued increased competitive activity, which were partially offset by increased sales of inhaled anesthesia globally.

按固定匯率計算，藥品銷售額為 5.25 億美元，下降 3%。本季度的業績反映了我們全球仿製藥注射劑產品組合的下降，原因是競爭活動持續增加，這部分被全球吸入麻醉劑銷售額的增加所抵消。

Moving to Clinical Nutrition. Total sales were $231 million, increasing 4% on a constant currency basis. Performance in the quarter was driven by demand for our broad multichamber product offering, partially offset by supply-related challenges for our vitamins.

轉向臨床營養。總銷售額為 2.31 億美元，按固定匯率計算增長 4%。本季度的業績受到對我們廣泛的多室產品需求的推動，部分被我們的維生素供應相關挑戰所抵消。

Sales in Advanced Surgery were $247 million, advancing 6% on a constant currency basis. Growth in the quarter reflects recovery of elective procedures relative to pre-COVID levels. Surgical volume recovery was strong in Europe, while procedures in the U.S. and APAC region came in slightly below our expectations. Within the U.S., we observed a slow start to July with an uptick in August and September.

Advanced Surgery 的銷售額為 2.47 億美元，按固定匯率計算增長 6%。本季度的增長反映了相對於 COVID 之前水平的選擇性程序的恢復。歐洲的手術量恢復強勁，而美國和亞太地區的手術量略低於我們的預期。在美國，我們觀察到 7 月開局緩慢，8 月和 9 月有所回升。

Sales in our Acute Therapies business were $158 million, declining 9% on a constant currency basis and reflecting a tough comparison to the prior year, where we had experienced elevated demand for CRRT given the rise in COVID cases. BioPharma Solutions sales in the quarter were $172 million, declining 10% on a constant currency basis and reflecting a step-down in sales of COVID vaccines compared to the same period last year. COVID vaccine sales for the quarter totaled approximately $30 million. Hillrom contributed $735 million in sales for the quarter, which included $380 million of sales in Patient Support Systems, $279 million of sales in Front Line Care and $76 million of sales in global Surgical Solutions.

我們的急性治療業務的銷售額為 1.58 億美元，按固定匯率計算下降 9%，這與上一年相比情況嚴峻，由於 COVID 病例的增加，我們經歷了對 CRRT 的需求增加。本季度生物製藥解決方案的銷售額為 1.72 億美元，按固定匯率計算下降 10%，反映出 COVID 疫苗的銷售額與去年同期相比有所下降。本季度 COVID 疫苗銷售額總計約 3000 萬美元。 Hillrom 本季度貢獻了 7.35 億美元的銷售額，其中包括 3.8 億美元的患者支持系統銷售額、2.79 億美元的前線護理銷售額和 7600 萬美元的全球外科解決方案銷售額。

Hillrom declined mid-single digits on a constant currency basis as compared to Q3 2021, when the company was a stand-alone entity. Performance in the quarter reflects a difficult comparison to the prior year period as well as the impact of the semiconductor supply constraints we've discussed. We continue to experience record levels of backlog for the legacy Hillrom business. Our order book remains strong. And to date, we have not seen any significant cancellations from customers. As mentioned last quarter, we remain somewhat cautious on capital spending as hospitals continue to assess their budgets in light of the current market environment.

與 2021 年第三季度相比，Hillrom 在固定貨幣基礎上下降了中個位數，當時該公司是一個獨立實體。本季度的業績反映了與去年同期的艱難比較，以及我們討論過的半導體供應限制的影響。對於傳統的 Hillrom 業務，我們繼續經歷創紀錄的積壓水平。我們的訂單依然強勁。迄今為止，我們還沒有看到客戶有任何重大取消。如上個季度所述，由於醫院繼續根據當前市場環境評估其預算，我們對資本支出仍持謹慎態度。

Moving through the rest of the P&L. Our adjusted gross margin of 42.9% decreased by 110 basis points over the prior year, reflecting increased cost of goods sold primarily driven by the factors we've discussed around inflation, freight and supply chain constraints. Adjusted SG&A of $821 million represented 21.8 as a percentage of sales, an increase of 200 basis points versus prior year driven by the addition of Hillrom as well as higher freight expenses. As mentioned earlier, we continue to tightly manage SG&A base.

遍歷損益表的其餘部分。我們調整後的毛利率為 42.9%，比上年下降 110 個基點，反映出銷售成本增加的主要原因是我們討論的通脹、運費和供應鏈限制因素。調整後的 SG&A 為 8.21 億美元，佔銷售額的 21.8 個百分點，由於 Hillrom 的增加以及更高的運費費用，比上年增加了 200 個基點。如前所述，我們繼續嚴格管理 SG&A 基礎。

Adjusted R&D spend in the quarter of $148 million represented 3.9 as a percentage of sales, a decrease of 10 basis points versus prior year. Both adjusted SG&A and adjusted R&D reflect a little benefit from lower bonus accruals under our annual employee incentive compensation plans, which is directly tied to Baxter's performance. These factors resulted in an adjusted operating margin in the quarter of 17.2%, a decrease of 300 basis points versus the prior year.

本季度調整後的研發支出為 1.48 億美元，佔銷售額的 3.9%，比上年下降 10 個基點。調整後的 SG&A 和調整後的研發都反映了我們年度員工激勵薪酬計劃下較低的應計獎金帶來的一點好處，這與百特的業績直接相關。這些因素導致本季度調整後的營業利潤率為 17.2%，比上年下降 300 個基點。

Adjusted net interest expense totaled $104 million in the quarter, an increase of $72 million versus the prior year driven by higher outstanding debt balances related to the acquisition of Hillrom. Adjusted other nonoperating income totaled $2 million in the quarter compared to a $12 million loss in the prior year period driven by -- primarily by amortization of pension benefits.

本季度調整後的淨利息支出總計 1.04 億美元，比上年增加 7,200 萬美元，原因是與收購 Hillrom 相關的未償債務餘額增加。本季度調整後的其他非營業收入總計 200 萬美元，而去年同期虧損 1200 萬美元，主要是由於養老金福利的攤銷。

The adjusted tax rate in the quarter was 23.8% as it compared to 14.8% in the prior year period. The year-over-year increase was primarily due to the mix of earnings in the quarter, which has changed following the Hillrom acquisition. In addition, during the third quarter of 2021, the company recognized a benefit in its effective tax rate from a discrete item due to a reserve release resulting from a favorable tax ruling. And as previously mentioned, adjusted earnings of $0.82 per diluted share declined 20% versus the prior period.

本季度調整後的稅率為 23.8%，而去年同期為 14.8%。同比增長主要是由於本季度的收入組合，在收購 Hillrom 後發生了變化。此外，在 2021 年第三季度，由於有利的稅收裁決釋放了儲備金，公司從離散項目中確認了其有效稅率的好處。如前所述，調整後每股攤薄收益為 0.82 美元，較上一期下降 20%。

Let me conclude my comments by discussing our outlook for the fourth quarter and full year 2022, including some key assumptions underpinning our updated guidance. We have adjusted our full year earnings per share outlook primarily to account for a strengthening U.S. dollar and the resulting foreign exchange headwind, increased interest expense assumptions given rising interest rates and a higher expected full year tax rate due to earnings mix.

讓我通過討論我們對 2022 年第四季度和全年的展望來結束我的評論，包括支持我們更新指導的一些關鍵假設。我們調整了全年每股收益展望，主要是考慮到美元走強和由此產生的外匯逆風、利率上升導致的利息支出假設增加以及收益組合導致的預期全年稅率上升。

As discussed, we anticipate electromechanical component availability will remain challenged in the fourth quarter and into 2023, which will continue to hamper sales growth for select businesses, including Medication Delivery, Front Line Care and Patient Support Systems.

如前所述，我們預計機電組件的可用性在第四季度和 2023 年仍將面臨挑戰，這將繼續阻礙特定業務的銷售增長，包括藥物輸送、一線護理和患者支持系統。

For the fourth quarter of 2022, we expect global sales growth of mid- to high single digits on a reported basis, mid-teens on a constant currency basis and approximately flat on an operational basis. And we expect adjusted earnings, excluding special items, of $0.92 to $0.99 per diluted share. For full year 2022, we now expect global sales growth of 17% to 18% on a reported basis, approximately 23% on a constant currency basis and low single digits operationally.

對於 2022 年第四季度，我們預計全球銷售額在報告的基礎上將達到中高個位數，按固定匯率計算在十幾歲左右，在運營基礎上大致持平。我們預計調整後的收益（不包括特殊項目）為每股攤薄收益 0.92 美元至 0.99 美元。對於 2022 年全年，我們現在預計全球銷售額在報告的基礎上增長 17% 至 18%，在固定貨幣基礎上增長約 23%，運營上的低個位數。

Moving down to P&L. We expect full year adjusted operating margin to be between 17% and 17.5%, reflecting the impact of all of the various dynamics we've discussed today. For the year, we now expect interest expense to total approximately $400 million, given rate increases and adjusted tax rate of approximately 20% and a diluted share count of 508 million shares. Based on these factors, we now expect 2022 adjusted earnings, excluding special items, of $3.53 to $3.60 per diluted share.

向下移動到損益表。我們預計全年調整後的營業利潤率將在 17% 至 17.5% 之間，這反映了我們今天討論的所有各種動態的影響。鑑於利率上調和調整後的稅率約為 20%，以及稀釋後的股票數量為 5.08 億股，我們現在預計今年的利息支出總額約為 4 億美元。基於這些因素，我們現在預計 2022 年調整後的收益（不包括特殊項目）為每股攤薄收益 3.53 美元至 3.60 美元。

With that, we can now open up the call for Q&A.

有了這個，我們現在可以打開問答電話。

(Operator Instructions) I would like to remind participants that this call is being recorded, and a digital replay will be available on the Baxter International website for 60 days at www.baxter.com. Our first question comes from the line of Travis Steed of Bank of America Securities.

（操作員說明）我想提醒與會者，本次通話正在被錄音，並且將在百特國際網站 www.baxter.com 上提供 60 天的數字回放。我們的第一個問題來自美國銀行證券公司的 Travis Steed。

I guess, Jay, just to start out, bridging the gap and the changes in the 2022 guidance but -- would be helpful. But more importantly, we'd love to see if you would provide some initial thoughts on 2023, if you'd commit to some of earnings growth off the [3 60] for next year and still at 75 basis points of margin expansion as before?

我想，傑伊，只是開始，彌合差距和 2022 年指導方針的變化，但是 - 會有所幫助。但更重要的是，我們很想看看你是否會提供一些關於 2023 年的初步想法，如果你承諾明年在 [3 60] 之外實現一些收益增長，並且仍然像以前一樣保持 75 個基點的利潤率增長?

Sure. Travis, I missed the first part of the question.

當然。特拉維斯，我錯過了問題的第一部分。

2022 bridge for the EPS guidance.

2022 年 EPS 指南的橋樑。

Okay. Great. So yes, let's walk through the different pieces. I think all of these are starting to set up well for 2023, but it starts with the third quarter. Overall, Q3 came in largely in line with our expectations. We were pleased to put $0.82 in the books. And really, the commercial operations were off $0.02, in large part related to shortfalls in sales driven by supply constraints in certain areas. The tax rate and FX came in a little bit worse than our expectations. But offsetting this, and I think this is important to note, was better-than-anticipated performance in our supply chain. As you know, this has been an area of extreme volatility for us as we've navigated the complicated macro environment. So it was really nice to see our supply chain team deliver in the quarter and set the stage for the fourth quarter and beyond.

好的。偉大的。所以是的，讓我們來看看不同的部分。我認為所有這些都開始為 2023 年做好準備，但從第三季度開始。總體而言，第三季度基本符合我們的預期。我們很高興將 0.82 美元記入賬簿。實際上，商業運營減少了 0.02 美元，這在很大程度上與某些地區供應限制導致的銷售短缺有關。稅率和外匯比我們的預期差一點。但要抵消這一點，我認為值得注意的是，我們供應鏈的表現好於預期。如您所知，當我們在復雜的宏觀環境中航行時，這對我們來說是一個極端波動的領域。因此，很高興看到我們的供應鏈團隊在本季度交付並為第四季度及以後做好準備。

Now as we go to Q4, with respect to EPS, we now expect roughly a $0.05 headwind from foreign exchange, tax and interest relative to our previously issued guidance. On a year-over-year basis, these items impact us roughly $0.15. And so we expect a continued supply constrained environment on the sales line. This is an area that we're navigating very carefully. But overall, the real driver in the fourth quarter relates to this headwind from these nonoperational items.

現在進入第四季度，就每股收益而言，我們現在預計相對於我們之前發布的指引，外匯、稅收和利息帶來的阻力約為 0.05 美元。與去年同期相比，這些項目對我們的影響約為 0.15 美元。因此，我們預計銷售線上的供應受限環境將持續存在。這是一個我們正在非常仔細地導航的領域。但總體而言，第四季度的真正驅動因素與這些非運營項目的逆風有關。

So now as we transition to next year, what I've previously shared with you all is a template which says 4% to 5% compounded sales growth, minimum 75 basis points of operating margin expansion in a given year. As we thought about 2023, the sales growth will come in on the lower end of the range, closer to 4%, in large part because of lower levels of COVID vaccines emanating from our BPS business.

所以現在當我們過渡到明年時，我之前與大家分享的是一個模板，上面寫著 4% 到 5% 的複合銷售增長，在給定的一年中，營業利潤率至少增長 75 個基點。正如我們對 2023 年的考慮，銷售增長將出現在該範圍的低端，接近 4%，這在很大程度上是因為我們的 BPS 業務產生的 COVID 疫苗水平較低。

But as it relates to margin, through continued focus on costs, through execution of our Hillrom synergies, along with a real and significant impact of value improvement programs in our plans, what we can confirm at this point the 75 basis points of margin expansion. Now of course, we're going through our plan as we speak. And I will tell you that the world has been extremely volatile, but it was -- it's very nice to be able to share that with you at this point in time. And a lot of this comes down to stability coming out of our supply chain organization.

但由於它與利潤率有關，通過繼續關注成本，通過執行我們的 Hillrom 協同效應，以及我們計劃中價值改進計劃的實際和重大影響，我們現在可以確認利潤率擴大了 75 個基點。當然，現在我們正在討論我們的計劃。我會告訴你，世界一直非常動盪，但確實如此 - 很高興能夠在這個時間點與你分享這一點。這在很大程度上歸結於我們供應鏈組織的穩定性。

Now the one thing I will say is, part of the reason we're not seeing accelerated sales growth is, as we look at 2023, there are continued headwinds from a supply constraint standpoint. So we're going to expect to see component challenges through parts of 2023 in other areas. And so that's from a supply -- and semiconductors will continue to be challenging as we move through next year. So that's going to be something that we have to live with for a while. We're hoping that rehabilitates over the course of next year and certainly provides a tailwind as we move to 2024.

現在我要說的一件事是，我們沒有看到銷售增長加速的部分原因是，在我們展望 2023 年時，從供應限制的角度來看，仍然存在持續的逆風。因此，我們預計在 2023 年的部分時間裡會在其他領域看到組件挑戰。所以這是來自供應——隨著我們明年的發展，半導體將繼續面臨挑戰。所以這將是我們必須忍受一段時間的事情。我們希望在明年恢復，並且在我們進入 2024 年時肯定會提供順風。

Now moving to some other items. As we look at foreign exchange, that's going to be fairly neutral to operating margin, but it will be a roughly $0.15 headwind year-over-year, and a lot of that will be concentrated in the first half of the year because we've seen rates really deteriorate in Q3 and Q4. And then from an interest expense standpoint, we're looking at approximately a $0.15 headwind. So this is a -- before that, and the interest rate will start to become a tailwind later on in this long-range plan.

現在轉到其他一些項目。當我們看外匯時，這對營業利潤率將是相當中性的，但與去年同期相比將是大約 0.15 美元的逆風，其中大部分將集中在上半年，因為我們已經可見利率在第三季度和第四季度確實惡化。然後從利息支出的角度來看，我們正在考慮大約 0.15 美元的逆風。所以這是 - 在此之前，利率將在這個長期計劃的後期開始成為順風。

And so I think for us, as we sit here today, we feel really good about the prospects going into 2023. And so we've been dealing with a lot of volatility and I think really putting controls in place to navigate some of that, I mean I think, our ability to confirm that 2023 is an important step as we move forward. Joe, I don't know if you'd want to add anything to that.

所以我認為，對於我們來說，當我們今天坐在這裡時，我們對進入 2023 年的前景感覺非常好。所以我們一直在應對很多波動，我認為確實實施了控制來應對其中的一些，我的意思是，我認為，我們能夠確認 2023 年是我們前進的重要一步。喬，我不知道你是否想添加任何東西。

No. You covered it all.

不，你涵蓋了這一切。

A quick follow-up, just to make sure. I think putting that all together, it still sounds like earnings can be up next year versus 2022. And on the 75 basis points, what does that assume on the [$1 billion] inflation? Does it assume that's stable? And does it assume no Novum IQ?

快速跟進，只是為了確保。我認為將所有這些放在一起，聽起來與 2022 年相比，明年的收益仍然可以上升。在 75 個基點上，這對 [10 億美元] 通脹有何假設？它是否認為這是穩定的？它是否假設沒有 Novum IQ？

So as it relates to EPS, I think there's a little bit of EPS growth as we look at it based on some of the nonoperational items impacting us, but we do expect some level as we look at it. And then I'm sorry, I missed the second part of your question, I couldn't quite hear that.

因此，由於它與每股收益有關，我認為每股收益有一點增長，因為我們根據一些影響我們的非運營項目來看待它，但我們確實預計會達到一定水平。然後我很抱歉，我錯過了你問題的第二部分，我聽不太清楚。

Well, the 75 basis points, what's assumed and or not on inflation in Novum IQ?

嗯，75 個基點，Novum IQ 的通脹假設和或不假設是什麼？

Okay. So from an inflationary standpoint, I think we're looking at kind of consistent levels to today. So we're not anticipating significant price up in any commodities. We're anticipating some slight improvement in certain areas but also some negatives related to utilities, for example, in Europe. Joe, you want to address the Novum question?

好的。因此，從通貨膨脹的角度來看，我認為我們正在尋找到今天的一致水平。因此，我們預計任何商品的價格都不會大幅上漲。我們預計某些領域會略有改善，但也有一些與公用事業相關的負面影響，例如歐洲。喬，你想解決 Novum 的問題嗎？

I will. So we always preface any conversation on products which are not approved that we do not speak on behalf of the FDA. We believe that we have successfully resolved the issue that was the primary subject of the FDA's last additional information request. We referenced this issue on the Q2 call. We will submit data that we believe demonstrates successful resolution of the insurance part of our response.

我會。因此，我們總是以我們不代表 FDA 發言的未經批准的產品進行任何對話。我們相信我們已經成功地解決了作為 FDA 上次附加信息請求的主要主題的問題。我們在 Q2 電話會議上提到了這個問題。我們將提交我們認為能夠成功解決我們回復中保險部分的數據。

Since that time, we have identified additional software changes we're planning to implement proactively in consultation with the FDA. We're in the process of updating our response. And because of that, we're doing everything we can to submit our response as quickly as possible while we hope that to be in a position to submit those responses by late Q4, it may spill over into a couple of weeks of January, maybe half January.

從那時起，我們已經確定了我們計劃在與 FDA 協商後主動實施的其他軟件更改。我們正在更新我們的回复。正因為如此，我們正在盡一切努力盡快提交我們的回复，同時我們希望能夠在第四季度末之前提交這些回复，它可能會延續到 1 月份的幾週，也許一月半。

So we're doing the best we can to pull this together. We are very comprehensive in how we answer the FDA. We work very collaboratively with them, and we want to make sure that the product has all the information before we send to them. So there's no further request for information. That's our objective.

因此，我們正在盡最大努力將其整合在一起。我們在如何回答 FDA 方面非常全面。我們與他們非常合作，我們希望確保產品在發送給他們之前擁有所有信息。所以沒有進一步的信息請求。這就是我們的目標。

Robbie Marcus of JPMorgan is on the line with a question.

摩根大通的羅比·馬庫斯 (Robbie Marcus) 提出了一個問題。

Great. Maybe I could start off on capital allocation, how you're thinking about the business mix. We saw some reports in the news about potential sales or divestitures of some of the assets within renal that were low to no growth and low to negative margin. Maybe just give us a sense of how you're thinking about your portfolio here in the environment to get deals done, whether it's additive or a subtraction.

偉大的。也許我可以從資本配置開始，你是如何考慮業務組合的。我們在新聞中看到了一些關於腎臟內一些資產的潛在銷售或剝離的報導，這些資產的增長低至無增長，利潤率低至負。也許只是讓我們了解您如何在環境中考慮您的投資組合以完成交易，無論是加法還是減法。

Robbie, good morning. We are actively looking -- first of all, I'm not going to comment on the rumors from the market, but I'm going to tell you what we are doing. We are actively looking at portfolio of the company. We will be ready to speak about that by early January, not at the moment. But I can tell you some bits of information what is going on. We are looking at every opportunity in the company to focus on the vision that we have set forth during our Investor Day back in May, which is connected care, the areas that will drive higher gross margin, areas of higher top line growth, software and the ability to be ahead of connecting the dots for clinicians and institutions.

羅比，早上好。我們正在積極尋找——首先，我不打算評論來自市場的謠言，但我會告訴你我們正在做什麼。我們正在積極研究公司的投資組合。我們將準備在 1 月初之前討論這個問題，而不是現在。但我可以告訴你一些信息是怎麼回事。我們正在尋找公司的每一個機會，專注於我們在 5 月的投資者日期間提出的願景，即互聯醫療、將推動更高毛利率的領域、更高收入增長的領域、軟件和能夠領先於臨床醫生和機構之間的聯繫。

So when we look at that, we look at our portfolio. Some products will make sense for us to retain. Some products will not. So we are looking to optimize our portfolio. We are about 3/4 of, of the way there in terms of understanding. And we will make a decision with our Board of Directors and then come forward with what we think is going to be the new portfolio of Baxter going forward, as I said early January.

因此，當我們看到這一點時，我們會看到我們的投資組合。有些產品對我們來說是有意義的保留。有些產品不會。因此，我們正在尋求優化我們的投資組合。就理解而言，我們大約是那裡的 3/4。正如我在一月初所說的，我們將與我們的董事會做出決定，然後提出我們認為百特未來的新產品組合。

So I want to just also underscore that any portfolio movement which implies sale of assets or any kind of transaction, always, always takes into account, #1, creation of shareholder value. It's never secondary. Never secondary. It's always primary and that is creation of improved return on invested capital with accretion of value through discount cash flows. So we're going through this process. It's been very, very intense. And we hope to have the new set of businesses going forward and what we're going to deal within and how we're going to suffice our mission and vision by, as I said, early January.

因此，我還想強調的是，任何意味著出售資產或任何類型交易的投資組合變動，總是，總是考慮到，#1，創造股東價值。它永遠不是次要的。從不次要。它始終是首要的，那就是通過貼現現金流增加價值，從而提高投資資本回報率。所以我們正在經歷這個過程。這是非常非常激烈的。正如我所說，我們希望在 1 月初之前推出一系列新業務，以及我們將在其中處理什麼以及我們將如何滿足我們的使命和願景。

Great. Maybe just as a follow-up, Jay, you talked about something like $100 million in, I guess, theoretical lost sales in the quarter from supply chain issues but also about how the supply chain was a positive in the quarter and helped the margins. How should we think about those 2 reconciling next year? And in that 4% growth and the 75 bps of margin, how should we think about what's being resolved in the backlog? And how much improvement we'll be seeing in the supply chain?

偉大的。也許只是作為後續行動，傑伊，你談到了大約 1 億美元的東西，我猜，由於供應鏈問題，本季度理論上的銷售額損失，而且還談到了供應鏈在本季度是如何積極並幫助提高利潤率的。我們應該如何看待這兩個明年和解？在這 4% 的增長和 75 個基點的利潤率中，我們應該如何考慮積壓中正在解決的問題？我們將在供應鏈中看到多少改進？

Robbie, I'll let Jay really comment on the numbers. So I will tell you about a couple of aspects. What we are seeing, supply chain is performing well against a very set -- difficult sets of circumstances as we said, labor inflation and material inflation have been significant to Baxter, and they're doing a great job navigating through that. Our procurement group is doing a heroic job getting the products to us.

羅比，我會讓傑真正評論這些數字。所以我會告訴你幾個方面。我們所看到的，供應鏈在一系列非常困難的情況下表現良好，正如我們所說的那樣，勞動力通脹和材料通脹對百特來說非常重要，他們在這方面做得很好。我們的採購團隊正在為我們提供產品，這是一項英勇的工作。

What is happening is there is a significant amount of backlog and back order for the company on products depending on semiconductors. And it's not 1 company or 2. It's several. It's a plethora of companies that produce products for us, and we source semiconductors from them.

正在發生的事情是，該公司依賴於半導體的產品有大量積壓和延期交貨。它不是 1 家公司或 2 家公司。它是幾個。為我們生產產品的公司太多了，我們從他們那裡採購半導體。

What, a couple of things that we are doing that I feel more confident that throughout 2023, the situation will be more -- will be better, is that we are developing long-term relationships directly with the manufacturers of the chips instead of going to distributors or going directly to board assemblers. The second thing is, the amount of decommit the companies are coming forward during the quarter makes sometimes very difficult for us to predict what we can assemble and ship at the end of the quarter. It's getting better into 2023 as our supply chain now has a full view of commitments into 2023 what we need to make our growth.

什麼，我們正在做的幾件事讓我更有信心，在整個 2023 年，情況會更多——會更好，是我們正在直接與芯片製造商發展長期關係，而不是去分銷商或直接去板組裝商。第二件事是，公司在本季度提出的退役數量有時使我們很難預測我們在本季度末可以組裝和運送什麼。到 2023 年情況會變得更好，因為我們的供應鏈現在全面了解到 2023 年我們實現增長所需的承諾。

Business that had been very affected by this are Front Line Care, which is our business under our acquisition of Hillrom; our PSS, Patient Support Systems, the ability to make more pumps. We have very good demand for our current pump, our SIGMA SPECTRUM pump. We can make more because we're missing 2 or 3 key components that are in shortage in the marketplace due to high demand from other sources in the automotive and other areas.

受此影響很大的業務是 Front Line Care，這是我們收購 Hillrom 後的業務；我們的 PSS（患者支持系統）能夠製造更多泵。我們對我們目前的泵，我們的 SIGMA SPECTRUM 泵有非常好的需求。我們可以製造更多，因為我們缺少 2 或 3 個由於汽車和其他領域其他來源的高需求而在市場上短缺的關鍵部件。

So what I can tell you is we are doing everything we can and the supply -- the supply constraint is really what has impacted Baxter's performance on the top line. Now VIPs, our value improvement programs, have been a significant driver of cost reduction for us in our operations.

所以我可以告訴你的是，我們正在盡我們所能和供應——供應限制確實影響了百特在頂線上的表現。現在，我們的價值提升計劃 VIP 已成為我們降低運營成本的重要推動力。

I'll pass on to Jay to give you more clarity on numbers that you asked.

我會轉給傑伊，讓你更清楚地了解你問的數字。

Sure. Robbie, as we move to next year, we continue to assume a constrained top line due to semiconductors and availability of other components. So that does not fully resolve next year. We do expect to see some improvement and no deterioration relative to today's level, but we will live with this throughout most of next year.

當然。 Robbie，隨著我們進入明年，由於半導體和其他組件的可用性，我們繼續假設收入受限。所以明年還不能完全解決。相對於今天的水平，我們確實希望看到一些改善並且不會惡化，但我們將在明年的大部分時間裡忍受這種情況。

As we think about the margin improvement really, that's emanating from a significant improvement in value improvement programs, things like automation initiatives that we have going on in the plant, and that really helps support the 75-basis points improvement that we've discussed. We'll see lower-than-expected freight, and we're only targeting roughly 75 basis points or in excess of 75 basis points because we don't have a big commodity easing assumption in the numbers that we're sharing.

當我們真正考慮利潤率改善時，這源於價值改善計劃的顯著改善，例如我們在工廠進行的自動化計劃，這確實有助於支持我們討論過的 75 個基點的改善。我們將看到低於預期的運費，我們的目標只是大約 75 個基點或超過 75 個基點，因為在我們分享的數字中，我們沒有大宗商品寬鬆的假設。

To the extent that materializes, certainly, that could be an upside, but we're not banking on that at this point. We're banking on living in a challenging commodity world for 2023, for the most part, along with a supply-constrained world. Those 2 items are very big uncertainties. I'm hopeful that we take a conservative position and those break way over the course of the year, but we'll have to watch that very carefully.

當然，在實現的程度上，這可能是一個好處，但我們目前並不指望這一點。我們寄希望於 2023 年大部分時間都生活在一個充滿挑戰的大宗商品世界，以及一個供應受限的世界。這兩項是非常大的不確定性。我希望我們採取保守的立場，並在這一年中有所突破，但我們必須非常仔細地觀察。

Rick Wise of Stifel is on the line with a question.

Stifel 的 Rick Wise 提出了一個問題。

I thought I'd focus on Hillrom, which you described as down mid-single digits. First, I wanted to understand -- is the decline -- if I think of Hillrom maybe as a mid-single-digit-ish kind of grower, was the decline -- to what degree was it integration bumps with Baxter? To what extent was it components? Was it all supplying components? Just -- I'd just like to frame that. And Joe, when do you think -- based on what you know today, Hillrom could return to being Hillrom for you? Is it going to take into '24? Do you think it's second half of next year? And then I have a follow-up question also related to Hillrom.

我以為我會專注於 Hillrom，您將其描述為中個位數。首先，我想了解 - 是下降 - 如果我認為 Hillrom 可能是一個中等個位數的種植者，是下降 - 與 Baxter 的整合在多大程度上受到影響？它在多大程度上是組成部分？都是供應組件嗎？只是——我只是想把它框起來。喬，您認為什麼時候 - 根據您今天所知道的，Hillrom 可以重新成為您的 Hillrom？它會進入'24嗎？你覺得是明年下半年嗎？然後我有一個與 Hillrom 相關的後續問題。

Rick, I'm going to have Jay answer that. I'll close answering the question, but Jay should start.

瑞克，我會讓傑回答這個問題。我將結束回答這個問題，但傑應該開始。

Yes, sure. Overall, Rick, Hillrom did decline in the quarter roughly 5% and is down roughly 1% year-to-date. And what's interesting is that demand for Hillrom products remains incredibly strong. We've seen historic levels of backlog in our Front Line Care business. We've seen backlog in our PSS business as well.

是的，當然。總體而言，Rick, Hillrom 在本季度確實下跌了約 5%，今年迄今下跌了約 1%。有趣的是，對 Hillrom 產品的需求仍然非常強勁。我們已經看到前線護理業務的積壓水平達到歷史最高水平。我們也看到了 PSS 業務的積壓。

So as we look at the portfolio of products, the innovation, the complementarity with the Baxter portfolio, we're incredibly excited. And the environment for their orders has been fairly strong throughout the year. It's been fairly consistent. But we've had severe supply constraints. And so without supply constraints, Hillrom would have been probably flat in the third quarter and, on a year-to-date basis, would be growing close to mid-single digits, which I would characterize as kind of where we would have hoped it would have been. But with these supply constraints that have been extremely challenging, in particular, in the case of Front Line Care, it's been hard to get to the sales level that we hoped for. So Joe, maybe you might want to add to that.

因此，當我們看到產品組合、創新以及與百特產品組合的互補性時，我們感到非常興奮。他們的訂單環境全年都相當強勁。這是相當一致的。但我們有嚴重的供應限制。因此，如果沒有供應限制，Hillrom 在第三季度可能會持平，並且在今年迄今為止的基礎上，將增長接近中個位數，我將其描述為我們希望的那種地方本來可以。但由於這些供應限制極具挑戰性，特別是在 Front Line Care 的情況下，很難達到我們希望的銷售水平。所以喬，也許你可能想補充一下。

Yes. Rick, we have done, as a company, a very thorough integration job here. Our synergies are coming higher, much higher than we had estimated in the first year of the integration. Our supply chain people had to come in into Hillrom and do a lot of work to reestablish lines of supply into the business. When the semiconductor prices hit, Baxter was better prepared to handle that than Hillrom was. And what we did is we put our best to handle issues primarily Front Line Care. The supply chain really came through for us and today is doing a much better job. As a matter of fact, we have better performance than we planned in Front Line Care in the third quarter because we were able to get that product -- the products out of the door.

是的。 Rick，作為一家公司，我們在這裡完成了非常徹底的整合工作。我們的協同效應越來越高，遠高於我們在整合第一年的估計。我們的供應鏈人員必須進入 Hillrom 並做大量工作來重新建立業務供應線。當半導體價格下跌時，Baxter 比 Hillrom 做好了應對的準備。我們所做的是我們盡最大努力處理主要是前線護理的問題。供應鏈對我們來說真的很順利，今天做得更好。事實上，我們在第三季度的前線護理中的表現比我們計劃的要好，因為我們能夠得到那個產品——這些產品走出了大門。

We also have extremely confident management in our both business. We have Reaz Rasul. Rasul, the head of Front Line Care. We have Andy Frye, the Head of GSS and PSS. So we are very confident in the business we purchased. The business has the ability to perform. We will fix the supply chain issues. That's what we're currently doing, and we'll be able to get back to Hillrom that we made assumptions to buy.

我們對這兩項業務的管理層也非常有信心。我們有瑞茲·拉蘇爾。前線護理負責人拉蘇爾。我們有 GSS 和 PSS 的負責人 Andy Frye。所以我們對我們購買的業務非常有信心。企業有執行力。我們將解決供應鏈問題。這就是我們目前正在做的事情，我們將能夠回到我們假設購買的 Hillrom。

As you heard from Jay, our growth would have been ex supply chain, what we had expected to be. So I think Baxter brought to Hillrom a combination of great portfolio. Hillrom brings with great management and discipline that Baxter has to replace the team that was there and we'll say we probably to do in the long term a better job of this combination.

正如您從 Jay 那裡聽到的那樣，我們的增長將來自供應鏈，正如我們所期望的那樣。因此，我認為 Baxter 為 Hillrom 帶來了出色的產品組合。 Hillrom 帶來了出色的管理和紀律，Baxter 必須取代那裡的團隊，我們會說，從長遠來看，我們可能會在這個組合中做得更好。

Got you. Maybe I'll change the topic a little bit for my follow-up. You talked about passing along the cost pressures, and you're in the process or you're well long signing new price agreements. Can you help us think through -- I mean, are you -- is this 100% of your business? How do we think about the impact? And just even touchy-feely, Jay, how do we sort of factor that into our thinking as we look ahead to '23 that you could have another 50 basis points of price on half the portfolio? Any extra depth or color perspective would be great.

得到你。也許我會稍微改變一下我的後續話題。你談到了傳遞成本壓力，你正在處理或者你很早就簽署了新的價格協議。你能幫助我們思考一下——我的意思是，你是——這是你100%的業務嗎？我們如何看待影響？甚至有點敏感，傑伊，在我們展望 23 年的時候，我們如何將這一點納入我們的思考中，你可以在一半的投資組合中再獲得 50 個基點的價格？任何額外的深度或顏色透視都會很棒。

Rick, you have great questions. So we're going to split, Jay and me here. But let me start by saying that we do not comment in pricing on general course of business. But as Baxter has taken so much into input costs that went up significantly in the last 2 years, we are very focused in recouping a portion of that, if at all possible. So we already had, as I mentioned, price actions throughout the year. But I would say that beyond what I have said, I'm not going to comment on any specifics about pricing discussions or agreements with our customers. But I can say to you, in my opening remarks, as I said, we strongly prefer to build on our long-term relationships with our customers to reach agreements on how best to share an increased cost of delivering products to them, which cost us a significant amount of more money because the cost of oil, the cost of logistics, cost of raw materials, cost of delivery and everything that goes in.

瑞克，你有很好的問題。所以我們要分開了，傑伊和我在這裡。但首先讓我說，我們不對一般業務過程的定價發表評論。但由於百特在過去 2 年中大幅上升的投入成本投入瞭如此之多，因此我們非常專注於收回其中的一部分，如果可能的話。因此，正如我所提到的，我們已經有了全年的價格走勢。但我想說的是，除了我所說的之外，我不會評論任何有關定價討論或與客戶達成協議的細節。但我可以告訴你，正如我所說，在我的開場白中，我們強烈希望建立與客戶的長期關係，以就如何最好地分擔向他們提供產品的增加成本達成協議，這使我們付出了代價因為石油成本、物流成本、原材料成本、交付成本以及所有相關的成本，所以要花更多的錢。

We have made significant process -- I'm sorry, I'd rather say, we have made significant progress towards that end. But to the extent that we do not reach agreement with any customer, we will, of course, continue to evaluate the options in front of us to recover the increased cost of our delivering on our mission to serve patients. This is very important to us because Baxter -- if you ask any of our 65,000 employees, it's all about the mission of the company. It's an incredible company. I came here 7 years ago almost to the date. And I continue to be impressed by the dedication of our employees.

我們已經取得了重大進展——對不起，我寧願說，我們在這方面取得了重大進展。但是，如果我們沒有與任何客戶達成協議，我們當然會繼續評估擺在我們面前的選擇，以收回我們為履行為患者服務的使命而增加的成本。這對我們來說非常重要，因為百特——如果你問我們 65,000 名員工中的任何一個，這都是關於公司使命的。這是一家不可思議的公司。我幾乎是 7 年前來到這裡的日期。我繼續對我們員工的奉獻精神印象深刻。

But we took a significant amount of cost increase in the last 2 years. In our input cost and supply chain has done a great job trying to defray that and offset. But as you can see by our margins, it's not possible. We would like that to be a partnership with our suppliers to continue to understand that for us to deliver what we're delivering to them and the innovation in the products, we need that partnership to continue on. So -- and I will end there and pass on to Jay.

但我們在過去兩年中大幅增加了成本。在我們的投入成本和供應鏈中，我們在努力支付和抵消方面做得很好。但正如您從我們的利潤中看到的那樣，這是不可能的。我們希望與我們的供應商建立合作夥伴關係，以繼續了解，為了讓我們向他們提供我們正在提供的產品以及產品的創新，我們需要這種夥伴關係繼續下去。所以——我將在此結束並傳遞給傑伊。

Sure. Rick, I don't want to get into too much detail on specifics around price and what pieces of the portfolio and so on. But it's safe to say price -- we expect price will be a positive contributor to our numbers next year in 2023. The other thing I would say is we -- it is something that we look at in every single market, in every product line. Why? Because in every one of our areas, we have been challenged with very high levels of inflation, very high levels of incremental costs. So from our perspective, we really have to challenge every sale to make sure that we're garnering enough profit from it and offsetting some of the significant costs that we had.

當然。瑞克，我不想詳細介紹價格以及投資組合的哪些部分等細節。但可以肯定地說價格——我們預計價格將成為我們明年 2023 年數據的積極貢獻者。我要說的另一件事是我們——這是我們在每個市場、每個產品線中都會看到的東西.為什麼？因為在我們的每一個領域，我們都面臨著非常高水平的通貨膨脹和非常高的增量成本的挑戰。因此，從我們的角度來看，我們確實必須挑戰每一筆銷售，以確保我們從中獲得足夠的利潤並抵消我們所擁有的一些重大成本。

Pito Chickering of Deutsche Bank is on the line with the question.

德意志銀行的 Pito Chickering 對這個問題持贊同態度。

Look you mentioned that you haven't seen any cancellations due to hospital CapEx pressures and that the backlog remains full here. How do you look at new orders on that backlog versus supply issues sort of keeping the backlog high? And are you seeing any impact to new sales versus historical levels as hospitals struggle with lower margins and lower cash flows?

看你提到你沒有看到由於醫院資本支出壓力而導致的任何取消，而且這裡的積壓工作仍然很滿。您如何看待積壓的新訂單與保持高積壓的供應問題？與歷史水平相比，隨著醫院利潤率下降和現金流下降，您是否看到對新銷售額的影響？

We have seen sporadic cancellations of orders in institutions that are small and have labor issues in implementing CapEx projects that sometimes are large. But for the most part, we haven't seen that wave of retraction of capital programs. As a matter of fact, if we could make 3x, 4x more infusion pumps, we would have sold, I believe, those pumps. If we had made twice as many of the -- our monitors, we would have sold the monitors. So it becomes a little different when it comes to beds. Beds are a larger implementation and software, software like NursePool, a button software like Bolt becomes more elaborate. Those are the ones that sometimes receive postponement, not because of the price, but more because of the labor -- not because of the cost, I mean, I should say but more because of the labor. So at the moment in time, I don't believe we're seeing a retraction in the capital market. We're seeing a high cost of labor for hospitals and a shortage of labor that makes difficult for them to undertake large programs sometimes.

我們已經看到一些小型機構的訂單被零星取消，並且在實施有時很大的資本支出項目時存在勞動力問題。但在大多數情況下，我們還沒有看到資本計劃的撤回浪潮。事實上，如果我們能製造 3 倍、4 倍以上的輸液泵，我相信我們會賣掉這些泵。如果我們的顯示器數量是我們的兩倍，我們就會賣掉這些顯示器。因此，在床方面它變得有點不同。 Beds 是一個更大的實現和軟件，像 NursePool 這樣的軟件，像 Bolt 這樣的按鈕軟件變得更加精細。那些有時會被推遲，不是因為價格，而是因為勞動力——不是因為成本，我的意思是，我應該說，更多是因為勞動力。因此，目前，我認為我們不會看到資本市場出現退縮。我們看到醫院的勞動力成本很高，而且勞動力短缺，有時使他們難以開展大型項目。

Okay. Fair enough. And then a follow-up on the supply chain. Can you break out the $100 million of impact to revenues in 3Q on semiconductors versus the other raw materials? Out of curiosity, what are this other raw material shortages? And then on the semiconductor side, the macro data shows that the pressure peak sort of end of 2Q has been improving sort of during 3Q. So curious if you see any semiconductor shortage improvement from July into versus October.

好的。很公平。然後是對供應鏈的跟進。您能否詳細說明半導體與其他原材料對第三季度收入的 1 億美元影響？出於好奇，其他原材料短缺是什麼？然後在半導體方面，宏觀數據顯示，第二季度末的壓力峰值在第三季度期間有所改善。很好奇你是否看到從 7 月到 10 月的半導體短缺有所改善。

Sure. So a couple of things I would say related to this question. First, the vast majority of the sales impact relates to semiconductors. I would say that over 90% of the challenges that we faced relate to semiconductors. There are other select areas where we have seen a meaningful impact. For example, in our Nutrition business, and there are certain ingredients and vitamins that we're unable to secure due to supplier challenges. And that's had an impact as well, but the majority relates to semiconductors.

當然。所以我想說幾件事與這個問題有關。首先，絕大多數銷售影響與半導體有關。我想說，我們面臨的超過 90% 的挑戰都與半導體有關。還有其他一些我們看到了有意義的影響的特定領域。例如，在我們的營養業務中，由於供應商的挑戰，我們無法確保某些成分和維生素。這也產生了影響，但大部分與半導體有關。

Now as it relates to your semiconductor question, the type of semiconductor used in medical devices is a little bit different than standard semiconductors that are used in the most -- the highest tech products available today. And so while there has certainly been a curtailment of demand for some of these consumer products, the size of the semiconductor that we use does not benefit from this curtailment of demand and normalization of supply. And I would even say for some semiconductor manufacturers, they are seeing inventory levels build of the super thin semiconductor.

現在，與您的半導體問題有關，醫療設備中使用的半導體類型與目前使用最多的標準半導體有所不同 - 當今可用的最高技術產品。因此，雖然對其中一些消費產品的需求肯定有所減少，但我們使用的半導體尺寸並沒有從這種需求減少和供應正常化中受益。我什至會說，對於一些半導體製造商來說，他們看到了超薄半導體的庫存水平。

And so we just have not yet seen this normalize. In our case, we are all-hands-on-deck working to secure the components that we need, and we'll continue to do that. But this is something that, as I said, we don't have a pathway for this getting resolved in the immediate term. Joe, I don't know if you'd like to add anything to that.

所以我們還沒有看到這種正常化。在我們的案例中，我們正在全力以赴地保護我們需要的組件，我們將繼續這樣做。但是，正如我所說，我們沒有辦法在短期內解決這個問題。喬，我不知道你是否想對此添加任何內容。

More so, what we're doing is because we're seeing this decision with this the semiconductor manufacturers, not all chips are created the same. So you hear Intel sales are down quite a bit. In PC, this is good news. For our chips, it's not. We don't use the same chips at all. We actually use very little -- very few chips from Intel for instance. We use -- our chips are IoT, Internet of Things. They're thicker. They're much thicker and they are chips that are using better software.

更重要的是，我們正在做的是因為我們看到了半導體製造商的這個決定，並不是所有的芯片都是一樣的。所以你聽說英特爾的銷售額下降了很多。在 PC 中，這是個好消息。對於我們的芯片，它不是。我們根本不使用相同的芯片。我們實際上使用的很少——例如英特爾的芯片很少。我們使用——我們的芯片是物聯網，物聯網。它們更厚。它們要厚得多，而且它們是使用更好軟件的芯片。

So that demand, by the way, some of these chips are about 12% of the semiconductor output -- industry output. So because of that, we work very close now, directly with companies, we're very -- being very successful with the few companies that are working very well with us. But what we also do, instead of redesign program for our boards, we have identified critical components, we have started a process in our Renal business to redesign 30 of our boards with one of our suppliers. And we have in Front Line Care, a program started right now to replace 6 key semiconductors that may be constrained in the next 18 months with redesign of boards.

順便說一下，這樣的需求，其中一些芯片約佔半導體產量的 12%——工業產量。所以正因為如此，我們現在直接與公司合作非常密切，我們非常 - 與與我們合作良好的少數公司非常成功。但我們也做的是，我們沒有為我們的電路板重新設計程序，而是確定了關鍵組件，我們已經在我們的腎臟業務中啟動了一個流程，與我們的供應商之一重新設計我們的 30 個電路板。我們在 Front Line Care 中開展了一項計劃，該計劃現在開始通過重新設計電路板來替換未來 18 個月內可能會受到限制的 6 種關鍵半導體。

So redesign of boards is not as simple as everybody thinks. It's not a plug and play because the form and fit and function of the semiconductors change. We have to redesign the board. We have sometimes to revalidate and clinically revalidate the board. So saying just that we're redesigning boards, the panacea is not. It's all-hands-on-deck. It's finding new ways to deal with our current suppliers. It's buying directly from them, buying through brokers throughout the world, inventory that is available as well as redesigning the boards so we can have alternates that can be put in, in the future.

所以電路板的重新設計並不像大家想像的那麼簡單。它不是即插即用的，因為半導體的形狀、配合和功能會發生變化。我們必須重新設計電路板。我們有時必須重新驗證和臨床上重新驗證董事會。所以說我們正在重新設計電路板，靈丹妙藥不是。它是全能的。它正在尋找與我們現有供應商打交道的新方法。它直接從他們那裡購買，通過世界各地的經紀人購買，可用的庫存以及重新設計電路板，以便我們可以在未來有替代品。

So it is -- we became a much more sharp company when it comes to semiconductors and boards. And this process is -- despite the fact, it's very painful. We had to acquire significant expertise in this area. It's going to pay dividends in the future.

就是這樣——在半導體和電路板方面，我們成為了一家更加敏銳的公司。這個過程是——儘管事實上，它非常痛苦。我們必須在該領域獲得重要的專業知識。它將在未來支付紅利。

Okay. Great. And Joe, just a sort of quick follow-up on the first question, just to make sure I have this right. You're saying that new orders for capital equipment in the last 90 days in 2022 is sort of in line or better than it was at this time in 2021 for new orders.

好的。偉大的。喬，只是對第一個問題的快速跟進，只是為了確保我有這個權利。您是說 2022 年最後 90 天的資本設備新訂單與 2021 年此時的新訂單相比，在某種程度上符合或更好。

No. I'm saying that, in 2021, this time of the year, last year in 2021, we were not -- we did not own Hillrom, but their orders were extremely high. Primarily, the rentals were extremely high because of COVID, okay? What I'm saying to you is we have not seen our book of business be affected by capital constraints. Now and going forward, what we see is delays in some accounts due to labor shortages and primarily large installations, but we have continued dialogue with everyone about our orders. As a matter of fact, I'm planning to see in the first quarter next year, a large installation that we're going to probably be doing in hospitals in the U.S. So I don't see -- we don't see today a significant change in the order pattern in capital. That's what I meant. I'm not comparing to 2021, which had significant high rental revenue into Hillrom because the COVID effect primarily, as you know, coming out of the summer and going into Omicron in October, November of last year.

不。我的意思是，在 2021 年，每年的這個時候，去年在 2021 年，我們沒有——我們沒有擁有 Hillrom，但他們的訂單非常高。主要是因為COVID，租金非常高，好嗎？我要對你說的是，我們還沒有看到我們的業務賬簿受到資本限制的影響。現在和未來，我們看到的是由於勞動力短缺和主要是大型裝置造成的一些賬戶延誤，但我們繼續與每個人就我們的訂單進行對話。事實上，我計劃在明年第一季度看到，我們可能會在美國的醫院進行大型安裝。所以我看不到 - 我們今天看不到資本秩序格局發生重大變化。我正是這個意思。我沒有與 2021 年進行比較，後者在 Hillrom 中獲得了可觀的高租金收入，因為正如您所知，COVID 效應主要是從夏季開始，並在去年 10 月、11 月進入 Omicron。

Joanne Wuensch of Citi is on the line with a question.

花旗的喬安妮·烏恩施（Joanne Wuensch）提出了一個問題。

Briefly, it sounds like you have significant back orders and backlogs. What is happening to those orders? Are they being fulfilled by somebody else? Are they just piling up so that at some stage in the future, they get met? And I'll toss my second question in at the same time. It sounds like you're also working to get better expense synergies out of Hillrom. Is there a way to quantify what you think those may be now versus what you thought they would be before?

簡而言之，聽起來您有大量的延期交貨訂單和積壓訂單。這些訂單發生了什麼？它們是否被其他人實現了？他們只是堆積起來，以便在未來的某個階段相遇嗎？我會同時提出我的第二個問題。聽起來您也在努力從 Hillrom 中獲得更好的費用協同效應。有沒有辦法量化你認為現在的情況與你之前認為的情況？

Sure. So from a backlog standpoint, overall, we are seeing those orders for the most part, stay in place. We're not seeing others take share as a result of this constrained supply environment that we have in place. And frankly, a number of manufacturers have similar challenges.

當然。因此，從積壓的角度來看，總的來說，我們看到這些訂單大部分都保持不變。由於我們現有的這種有限的供應環境，我們沒有看到其他人分享。坦率地說，許多製造商也面臨著類似的挑戰。

Now the question is how long will those orders remain. In some cases, if there's short-term needs, then those are things that perhaps might be impacted. But as we think about longer term, for the most part, I think that these sales will represent some level of opportunity in the future.

現在的問題是這些訂單將保留多長時間。在某些情況下，如果有短期需求，那麼這些可能會受到影響。但從長遠來看，在大多數情況下，我認為這些銷售將代表未來一定程度的機會。

As it relates to Hillrom, we feel very good about where things are trending with the exception of the constraints that we have in place. And so we highlighted increased incremental cost capture at the May Investor Day, and we're still trending along those lines very much in line with that with increasing confidence. I mean I think it's important because we have some big step-ups as we move to 2023 and 2024 in terms of incremental cost synergies. What's great at this point is, as we sit here today, we feel we have clear line of sight and continue to make progress towards those numbers. So I think as far as that goes, it's a very good story.

由於它與 Hillrom 相關，我們對事物的發展趨勢感到非常滿意，除了我們現有的限制。因此，我們在 5 月的投資者日強調了增加的增量成本捕獲，我們仍然沿著這些方向發展，這與日益增長的信心非常一致。我的意思是，我認為這很重要，因為隨著我們進入 2023 年和 2024 年，我們在增量成本協同效應方面有了一些很大的進步。在這一點上最棒的是，當我們今天坐在這裡時，我們覺得我們有清晰的視線，並繼續朝著這些數字取得進展。所以我認為就這一點而言，這是一個非常好的故事。

We have time for one more question.

我們有時間再問一個問題。

We have Joshua Jennings of Cowen on the line with a question.

我們有 Cowen 的 Joshua Jennings 在線提問。

Joe, maybe I wanted to ask just about connected care initiatives and just how -- anything you can share with us on progress post the Hillrom acquisition on developing these connected care technologies or programs? And how should we be thinking about updates and tracking the progress? And then maybe just a second question for Jay, just thinking about the target of getting down to 2.75x net leverage in 2024. Can you just help us think through some of the puts and takes and your confidence level in terms of -- that you are on pace to hit that target?

喬，也許我想問一下互聯護理計劃以及如何——在收購 Hillrom 後開發這些互聯護理技術或項目的進展情況，您可以與我們分享任何進展嗎？我們應該如何考慮更新和跟踪進度？然後也許只是傑伊的第二個問題，只是考慮到 2024 年將淨槓桿率降至 2.75 倍的目標。你能不能幫助我們考慮一些看跌期權和你的信心水平——你有沒有達到這個目標？

Josh, good morning. So we are seeing several programs where we are working across divisions in the connected care. We established a new group that is actually under Andy Frye, one of our executives who is also the Head of GSS and PSS, Patient Support System. And we are seeing several programs from basic creating unified portals to access EMR systems in hospitals to features that can be enabled by commonality and connecting the devices. So there's a lot going on.

喬希，早上好。因此，我們看到了幾個項目，我們正在這些項目中跨部門開展互聯護理。我們成立了一個新小組，實際上是在 Andy Frye 的領導下，他是我們的一位高管，也是 GSS 和 PSS（患者支持系統）的負責人。我們看到了幾個程序，從創建統一門戶以訪問醫院的 EMR 系統到可以通過通用性和連接設備啟用的功能。所以發生了很多事情。

I think we should give an update to investors, probably in the first quarter of 2023, about where we are with these connected care programs. And so we have a brand-new group that is now across Baxter, that is looking at this and creating opportunities. So we're making good progress in this area. I'll pass on to Jay for answering the other question.

我認為我們應該向投資者提供最新信息，可能在 2023 年第一季度，了解我們在這些互聯護理計劃方面的進展情況。因此，我們現在在百特擁有一個全新的團隊，他們正在關注這一點並創造機會。所以我們在這方面取得了很好的進展。我將轉給傑伊回答另一個問題。

Sure. As you know, we're really focused on maintaining solid investment-grade credit ratings. We define that as BBB. So the rating that we currently have is one that we're targeting maintaining. And in order to do that, we want to make very good progress towards the 2.75 net debt-to-EBITDA, which is our objective.

當然。如您所知，我們真正專注於維持穩健的投資級信用評級。我們將其定義為 BBB。因此，我們目前擁有的評級是我們的目標之一。為了做到這一點，我們希望在 2.75 的淨債務與 EBITDA 方面取得非常好的進展，這是我們的目標。

I would say that from a cash flow standpoint, this year has fallen short of our expectations. And I would say that, of course, we've had some challenges on the income statement. But as we look at inventory, we had a fairly substantial inventory build over the course of the year, which is interesting because what's happening is you have a pump which is lacking one critical component, and so you're unable to sell that pump until you get that critical component, for example. We also saw extended shipping lane times over the course of the year and increases in the cost of our inventory due to our suppliers.

我想說，從現金流的角度來看，今年沒有達到我們的預期。我會說，當然，我們在損益表上遇到了一些挑戰。但是當我們查看庫存時，我們在一年中建立了相當可觀的庫存，這很有趣，因為正在發生的事情是您的泵缺少一個關鍵部件，因此您無法出售該泵，直到例如，你得到了那個關鍵組件。在這一年中，我們還看到航線時間延長，並且由於我們的供應商而增加了我們的庫存成本。

And so for all those reasons, we've had a very challenging year from an inventory standpoint. I would note that in the first -- in the third quarter, we did see a decline in inventory, and we are expecting a fairly substantial improvement in free cash flow in the fourth quarter, as is typically the case.

因此，出於所有這些原因，從庫存的角度來看，我們度過了非常具有挑戰性的一年。我會注意到，在第一季度 - 在第三季度，我們確實看到庫存下降，我們預計第四季度的自由現金流會出現相當大的改善，這通常是這種情況。

But here's the interesting thing. While net income growth next year is low, free cash flow growth, we expect to be substantial. And so we're still finalizing our plans, but you're going to start to see a very significant acceleration of free cash flow growth as the inventory situation normalizes over the next 1 to 2 years. And that will really support some of the work that we're doing to get to 2.75x net debt-to-EBITDA, which again, is a clear focus for our entire management team.

但有趣的是。雖然明年的淨收入增長較低，但我們預計自由現金流增長會很大。因此，我們仍在最終確定我們的計劃，但隨著未來 1 到 2 年庫存情況正常化，您將開始看到自由現金流增長的顯著加速。這將真正支持我們為實現 2.75 倍的淨債務與 EBITDA 所做的一些工作，這再次成為我們整個管理團隊的明確重點。

Thank you very much.

非常感謝。

Ladies and gentlemen, that is all the time we have today for questions. This concludes today's conference call with Baxter International. Thank you for participating.

女士們，先生們，這就是我們今天所有的提問時間。今天與百特國際的電話會議到此結束。感謝您的參與。