UHealth Partners with ECRI to Engage Transform Supply Chain Practices

Challenge

A paramount challenge facing Keith Murphy in 2018 when he joined the University of Miami Health System (UHealth) as vice president of supply chain services was creating a new process for medical product procurement that would engage physicians, improve the quality and outcomes of patients, and manage costs. Previously, the South Florida academic medical center had a mixed procurement process, with all purchases for both the university and health system being handled together under one supply chain umbrella. To create a more concentrated approach for both the academy and health system, the decision was made
to split into two distinct teams to create a more focused effort on the proprietary needs of UHealth’s hospitals, ambulatory centers, surgery centers, physician group and over 97 satellite locations.

Solution

UHealth, a three-time ECRI Supply Chain Achievement Award winner, valued ECRI’s partnership and applied their robust database of supply and capital price benchmarking, as well as clinical evidence assessment services, to engage clinical staff in a new Value Analysis program. “We went on a roadshow to introduce our staff to the Value Analysis process,” says Murphy, “quietly convincing them to participate.” In the two and a half years since launching their new Value Analysis committees, “the team has done a great job in following policies and best practices,” says Murphy. Those policies include requiring review of ECRI benchmarks and negotiation prior to purchases to ensure optimal pricing.
As an independent non-profit, ECRI brings objectivity and transparency to the decision-making process. Each of the nine Value Analysis committees uses ECRI intelligence reports, data, and benchmarking prices to understand the market and the safety and effectiveness of products.

UHealth’s supply chain team inverted the cost, quality, outcomes (CQO) concept, explains Nate Yuen, associate vice president of supply chain strategy and value analysis. “We begin all discussions with clinical quality and outcomes,” says Yuen. “We don’t talk about price first.”A recent initiative for the health system was evaluating orthopedic spending to standardize products and manage costs. The Value Analysis committee pulled ECRI’s benchmarking data into a database with other key analytics to get a clearer view of the products they were buying and how they compared. “This enabled us to show physicians what products they were using, respective utilization, and costs for each item,” adds Yuen. “We found that demonstrating the true measure of how surgeons compare to their peers helps center the conversation.”

ECRI identified total savings opportunities. “As a concession to physicians working in an academic teaching environment, we didn’t end up targeting the aggressive savings goal, but skirted close to the 25th percentile price point,” adds Yuen. “We left that meeting with a solid package for Sourcing to take from there to drive down overall expenses.”

The Clinical Sourcing team, under manager Cynthia Bonse-Geuking, worked with individual bidders through the competitive bid process to negotiate the contract. Using ECRI’s data, her team achieved greater than $100,000 in total savings in the orthopedic spend alone. “We had conversations back and forth with vendors and the ECRI comprehensive solution suite significantly helped us with our negotiations,” says Bonse-Geuking. Having ECRI’s objective, unbiased benchmarking service is powerful, she adds, citing ECRI’s fast turnaround in responding to their requests.

Impact

In partnership with ECRI, Keith Murphy and his Supply Chain team were able to launch a Value Analysis process at UHealth that successfully uses evidence-based research to engage physicians, improve patient outcomes, and reduce costs. UHealth’s supply chain goal, says Murphy, is to take care of patients first, then go out and get the products at the best cost.
“It’s not just the technology and tools,” says Murphy, “it’s the teamwork and partnerships—like we have with ECRI—that are critical to our success.”