Several academic medical centers across the US are able to eliminate unnecessary costs through supply chain purchasing process, according to a mid-year supply chain report from UHC.
UHC, an alliance of nonprofit academic medical centers, fosters collaboration with and among its 114 academic medical center and 255 affiliated hospital members through its programs and services in the areas of comparative data and analytics, performance improvement, supply chain management, strategic research and public policy.
UHC members achieved $260m in annualized contract savings due to partnership with supply contracting company Novation.
Savings ranged from $43m for medical equipments like syringes, exam gloves and intravenous catheters, to medical devices, such as medical imaging, and radiology equipment, computed tomography machines and ultrasound equipment, which had a 20-40 % savings off of typical list prices.
The remeining amount is used in improving clinical resource management for academic medical centers through SpendLINK, a tool that incorporates UHC’s clinical data and spend data, allowing members to identify opportunities in resource management.
Supply Chain senior vice president Jake Groenewold said this process allows hospitals to save amounts of money to help keep health care costs lower and to re-invest in infrastructure, training and staffing, all with improving the patient care experience.