GHX Launches Provider Intelligence to Enhance Visibility into Supply Chain Performance

LOUISVILLE, Colo., May 21, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- GHX announced the addition of a new business intelligence application to its portfolio of products aimed at cutting healthcare costs by simplifying supply chain operations through automation. Provider Intelligence, a new cloud-based application that measures and tracks supply chain metrics, provides hospitals with greater visibility into operational and financial performance.

Managing the multitude of products, supplies and contracts in the supply chain is complex and time consuming. Provider Intelligence uses interactive graphs and charting tools to visually represent key performance indicators (KPIs), enabling providers to better prioritize supply chain efforts and initiatives for increased utilization and cost savings. Without this data, it's difficult for organizations to set performance goals, benchmark against peers, and assess where efforts are being wasted or money is being lost.

"The pressure to cut costs in healthcare is greater than ever, and for a hospital, knowing where you can improve efficiencies within your existing infrastructure is key," said Derek Smith, executive vice president, Marketing and Product Management, GHX. "In a single tool, Provider Intelligence gives hospitals insight into how they are doing operationally and financially, and it helps them determine which suppliers are more efficient to do business with."

Based on client-configurable KPIs, Provider Intelligence assembles a healthcare organization's data and delivers it via graphs and charts through GHX My Exchange, the common platform where more than 4,000 providers transact and access their data. Providers can view performance over time, making it easier to identify trends and enabling providers to set relevant targets for their organizations, whether a single hospital or a large multi-hospital system.

"We use Provider Intelligence to measure performance across the 12 hospitals we support," said John Martin, director of Hospital Services for Queensway Carleton Hospital and regional lead for Champlain Health Supply Services (CHSS). "By benchmarking against ourselves and peers, we saw that we needed to lower cost per PO and improve contract utilization. Since March 2011, we've increased our contract validation rate by more than 30 percent for improved contract utilization and a reduction in overall spend."

Provider Intelligence allows organizations to measure, track and set goals based on the following:

• e-Commerce growth for the purchase order cycle
• Accounts payable automation through benchmarking and setting targets for electronic invoice trading partners
• Trading partner efficiencies by tracking e-Commerce exceptions (backorders, quantity, rejected, on hold, contract price, unit price, UOM, part number, not on PO and not on POA, recurring exceptions) with benchmarks and peer group experiences
• Contract utilization
• Off-contract spending in product areas with highest impact
• Product standardization opportunities through item classification
• Market pulse to track and be informed regarding the newest products entering the supply chain
• Productivity benchmarking within accounts payable and purchasing regarding lines processed and cost to manage the process

Provider Intelligence will be available to GHX customers in the U.S. and Canada this month. It will be demonstrated in the GHX booth (#200) this week at the VHA Leadership Conference, May 20-23 in Denver, Colo.

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.

SOURCE GHX