Best of the Healthcare Supply Chain Honored at 2013 GHXcellence Awards

GHX today announced the winners of its 13th Annual GHXcellence Awards, honoring supply chain leaders that are driving significant savings and efficiency for their organizations, their trading partners and the healthcare industry through automation and best practices. The winners were honored today at the 2013 GHX Healthcare Supply Chain Summit in Las Vegas.

New this year, GHX is honoring an individual supply chain leader for his/her work in improving the business of healthcare with its GHXcellence Leadership Award. In early 2013, GHX called on its community to submit nominations for the award and then invited the entire healthcare industry to vote for the winner. This year’s winner is:

• GHXcellence Leadership Award: Réginé Honoré Villain, corporate director of Supply Chain Management, Medical University Hospital Authority (MUHA), Charleston, S.C. MUHA needed to reduce overall supply chain costs while improving the integrity of its item master data so it could feed product data to multiple clinical and business systems. To achieve both of these goals, Honoré Villain worked with GHX on a strategic initiative that included staff training and certification, master data management, process automation and end department partnerships. As a result, MUHA has achieved more than 90 percent on-formulary spend, $370K in savings related to contract tier and price compliance, and more than $1M in cost avoidance through automation and resolution of supply chain exceptions.

Through its GHXcellence Industry Impact Awards, GHX is once again honoring provider and supplier organizations that have cut healthcare costs by working with GHX to automate purchase orders (POs) and invoices, take control of contract spend and increase electronic connections to trading partners. The GHX community submitted nominations for these awards and the healthcare community cast its votes for the winners. This year’s winners are:

• Industry Impact Award Provider: University of Maryland Medical System, Baltimore, Md.

To overcome challenges it faced around disparate systems, non-consolidated departments, processes and people, the University of Maryland embraced GHX solutions and made a commitment to not only use but also to maximize them. University of Maryland moved up the GHX Best 50 Customer list from #34 in 2011 to #10 in 2012 for its achievements in purchasing and invoice volume, exception rates, exchange utilization and trading partner connections. In 2012, University of Maryland increased its electronic trading partners by 205 percent through GHX, and the suppliers from whom they receive electronic invoices by more than 90 percent.

• Industry Impact Award Supplier: Cook Medical, Bloomington, Ind.

Faced with the excise tax of 2.3 percent on device sales and growing demand from the industry to implement global data standards, Cook needed to find ways to become more efficient in order to reduce costs, and believed passing the tax onto its customers was not an option. Cook experienced significant growth by working with GHX to develop programs to show GHX’s value to vendors and hospitals. Cook engaged hospitals on an individual level and slowly increased use with customers one by one to double its electronic invoicing and increase its electronic PO volume by 24 percent.

The remaining eight GHXcellence Awards were based on quantifiable performance, with organizations judged on metrics around success in automating business processes, using criteria such as increase in electronic POs, purchasing dollar volume, and the number of electronic trading partners. This year’s winners are:

• #1 IDN from GHX Best 50 List1: Virginia Mason Medical Center, Seattle, Wash., a single hospital of fewer than 300 beds, which achieved over $1.5M in supply chain savings through GHX solutions and utilization of best practices.
• U.S. Healthcare Provider of the Year: Small to Mid-sized Organization: Edward Hospital and Health Services, Naperville, Ill., a 345-bed hospital with nearly $1M in supply chain savings directly related to GHX services.
• U.S. Healthcare Provider of the Year: Large Organization: Fairview Health Services, a large healthcare organization based in Minneapolis, Minn., which achieved nearly $4M in supply chain savings in 2012.
• Canadian Healthcare Provider of the Year: Alberta Health Services, Alberta, Canada, a large multi-hospital system that increased the spend it processed electronically by 900 percent in 2012, driving significantly greater automation of purchasing processes and over $1.6M in supply chain savings.
• U.S. Healthcare Supplier of the Year: Small to Mid-sized Organization: CareFusion, San Diego, Calif., achieving nearly 70 percent increase in electronic PO volume and 80 percent increase in electronic invoice volume.
• U.S. Healthcare Supplier of the Year: Large Organization: Owens &Minor, Richmond, Va., achieving double-digit increases in electronic volume of POs, invoices, advance ship notices, and trading partner growth, as well as the fastest average PO acknowledgement response time, which helps Owens &Minor customers work even more efficiently.
• Canadian Healthcare Supplier of the Year: Bard Canada, Ontario, Canada, which grew its electronic PO volumes by 48 percent, overall volume of electronic transactions through GHX by 91 percent and decreased manual error handling by 60 percent.
• European Union Healthcare Supplier of the Year: Covidien, Dublin, Ireland, which drove 93 percent growth in electronic PO volume processed in 2012, 230 percent growth in G-Fax2 volume, and has become the largest integrated supplier connected to GHX Europe, based on trading partner connections.

“The GHX community is comprised of individuals and organizations actively seeking ways to drive greater operational and financial performance through supply chain improvements. Each year, I am proud of the individuals and organizations we recognize as ‘the best of the best’with our GHXcellence awards,”said GHX President and CEO Bruce Johnson. “Through best practices, processes and technology, those GHXcellence winners honored today are setting the stage for the future economic sustainability of the healthcare industry.”
GHX continues to track supply chain savings driven by its customers as part of the company’s “5 in 5”goal, which aims to take $5 billion out of the cost of healthcare during the five year program, ending December 31, 2014. By running supply chain processes more efficiently and collaboratively, GHX and its customers are helping transform the healthcare industry by reducing costs and helping providers deliver cost-effective, high quality patient care. As of April 2013, GHX customer savings results had climbed above $3 billion (April 2, 2013 news release).

About GHX
Global Healthcare Exchange, LLC (GHX) is driving costs out of healthcare by transforming the healthcare supply chain. Working with providers and suppliers, GHX is accelerating change by providing a faster, more efficient and collaborative supply chain that will take billions of dollars out of the cost of healthcare. For more information, visit www.ghx.com and The Healthcare Hub.

Reference Notes
1 – G-Fax is a GHX solution that converts faxed POs into EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) documents that can be received directly into a manufacturer or distributor’s ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system