CHSS, a shared services organization (SSO) serving 12 hospitals in the Ottawa, Ontario area of Canada, was established in 2008 to increase supply chain efficiencies and cost savings but it faced a number of challenges. Its member hospitals used seven different information technology (IT) systems for procurement, only two hospitals used electronic data interchange (EDI) for significant transaction volume with suppliers and many supply contracts were managed outside of IT systems, resulting in rampant off-contract spend.
"As hospitals and healthcare systems form new organizational structures to deliver high-quality care in a more cost-effective manner, they are confronted with disparities in data, processes and systems that prevent them from deriving the value that they were formed to achieve,” said Bruce Johnson, president and CEO, GHX. “With our cloud-based trading solutions and collaborative business environment, GHX is in an ideal position to integrate and help automate the supply chains of these newly formed organizations to help them meet their performance goals."
In 2010, CHSS partnered with the GHX Business Solutions consulting group on a supply chain transformation initiative to increase operational efficiency and improve financial performance. Leveraging the GHX electronic trading exchange, CHSS hospitals use existing IT infrastructure to transact electronically with 90 percent of its medical-surgical suppliers, negating the need for a multi-year ERP consolidation. CHSS has also integrated and automated its hospitals’ procurement processes using content, contract and order management software from GHX, enabling the organization to gain visibility into and control over its off-contract spend, increase contract compliance and improve pricing accuracy.
"Working with GHX, we have taken a group of hospitals and put into place the framework and building blocks to help enable them to fully control and drive spend,” said John Martin, director, Hospital Services, Queensway Carleton Hospital, and Regional Lead, Champlain Health Supply Services. “We had set a goal of $32 million in supply chain cost savings over a 10-year period, but through the use of GHX Business Solutions, we now expect to realize that goal in just six years."
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About GHX
Global Healthcare Exchange, LLC (GHX), a healthcare technology and services company, helps reduce the cost of doing business in healthcare by enabling better supply chain management. GHX makes it easier for hospitals, other healthcare providers and the suppliers that do business with them to drive cost and inefficiency out of their processes. Working with GHX, the healthcare organizations that make up the GHX Global Network are on track to save $5 billion by 2014—savings that can be invested in such things as hiring more nurses, providing care to uninsured children or developing new medical products. GHX is owned by organizations on both the buy and sell side of the healthcare supply chain, including some of the largest companies in the world. Find GHX on the Web, on Twitter @GHX_LLC and on Facebook @GHX.
About CHSS
About Champlain Health Supply Services (CHSS)
Hospitals in the Champlain LHIN have a history of collaboration, working together to improve the delivery of patient care and services to the clients in the region. To this end, Champlain Health Supply Services (CHSS) was incorporated in the spring of 2008. The long-term vision of CHSS is to implement a shared service organization to integrate sourcing, procurement and logistics for Hospitals and ultimately other health care providers in the Champlain region. The integrated Supply Chain system will improve client performance and generate savings for use in direct patient care.