2. CONSOLIDATE SUPPLIERS AND PRODUCTS
A common problem that healthcare organizations, especially those with multiple locations, make is buying similar products from multiple suppliers. This results in more contracts, more accounting and more time and resources dedicated to procurement. It also makes tracking inventory more complicated.
By contrast, consolidating purchasing can enable new benefits. Spending more money with fewer suppliers can allow organizations to earn bigger rebates and move into better pricing tiers. Streamlining vendors and products also simplifies inventory and reduces deliveries, freeing up staff time for other tasks.
“We help streamline and consolidate by reviewing items in inventory on an ongoing basis. We establish one inventory number for multiple items to help withstandardization, price parity and contract compliance,” Nelsen says. “Provista also aligns system-wide purchases through the enforcement of an approved product formulary to help ensure healthcare members are buying pre-approved products.”
3. COST SAVINGS ACROSS ALL ORGANIZATIONAL PURCHASING
Most companies don’t have the time or resources to identify savings on their own. And even if they did, they still wouldn’t have the economies of scale and purchasing power leverage of a GPO to drive down pricing.
GPOs can help reduce waste, improve inventory control, negotiate new contracts at industry-best pricing and reward members with rebates. A platform like Envi can add additional value by optimizing data and cost analytics to identify and then validate savings. Those savings can be invested in other areas of the business, such as new technology, office improvements, or staff hiring or training.
“A GPO like Provista is able to access improved prices through aggregation. By aggregation, I’m referring to the pre-negotiated contracts, tiers and pricing that are above and beyond the base contract by leveraging the volume of all members,” Nelsen points out. “We can decrease costs associated with the staff time dedicated to contract administration tasks and identify new savingsopportunities through ongoing cross-reference of reports, analyzing items on and off GPO contracts.”
TECHNOLOGY WRAPPED IN SERVICES
With the significant and unprecedented changes organizations experienced in 2020 as a result of COVID-19, having more control, consolidation and cost savings is more important—and more needed—than ever before. Implementing technology geared toward procurement can offer further benefits, such as automating processes. It’s another area where Provista has a solution.
“Provista Procurement Solutions are technology wrapped in services,” Nelsen said. “With innovative in-house materials management software and a dedicated purchasing team, members see savings across their entire system.”
