Hospital groups on both coasts make historic deals in aptitude™ online market

IRVING, Texas, July 28, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Hospitals coast to coast continue to realize speedy savings from the industry's first direct contracting market.

Earlier this month, the Northeast Purchasing Coalition (NPC), owned by 22 health care systems comprising more than 100 hospitals throughout New England, recently saw double-digit savings after executing its first contract through the aptitude online market.

A week later, the West Coast Purchasing Coalition (WCPC), an aggregation group owned by 22 not-for-profit healthcare providers in Arizona, California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington – had the same success in a similar agreement.

As a component of the initial aptitude onboarding process, both groups reviewed savings opportunities generated through the online market and elected to submit a pricing request to sellers.  That process was accelerated because aptitude automatically analyzes the purchasing activity of each individual health system and collates spend into a group view.  The contracting teams can then see the collective opportunity while reviewing specific savings for each participating organization.   

"The visibility into potential savings opportunities and subsequent contract performance were certainly attributes that factored into the decision to pursue contracting through aptitude," said Leanne Todisco, Vice President of Supply Chain Operations for the NPC.

Both agreements were executed with Georgia-based textile company, Encompass LLC, which will be supplying the providers in both coalitions with the contracted products. The responding offers were received within 21 days. Typically, a deal between a hospital and a supply company can take longer than six months. This speed to value is one of the aspects buyers and sellers find most attractive about the aptitude online market.

"We were thrilled to be able to respond to requests from both the NPC and the WCPC and are looking forward to expanding our relationship with each coalition through the aptitude market," said Tom Sweatt, Executive Vice President of Health Systems for Encompass.   

"After talking through the numbers with our committee, we realized this was a good deal for our health systems," said Cindy Dranttel, Vice President of Market Management for the WCPC.  "We are exploring additional opportunities and looking forward to accelerating the contracting process for the group."

"It's clear the vision we had a few years ago, which led to the creation of the aptitude online market, is taking off," said Troy Kirchenbauer, General Manager of aptitude. "We're proud to be able to help both buyers and sellers in the healthcare industry achieve their goals."

About aptitude:
As healthcare's direct contracting market, aptitude LLC is meeting the evolving demands of today's healthcare organizations. Hospitals and suppliers are intrigued by how aptitude re-imagines the contracting model and provides the driving force for a more logical market in which both parties can achieve mutually beneficial, committed purchasing relationships for a better value proposition for both.  For more information, visit aptitude.com and follow us on Twitter @aptitudellc and LinkedIn.

Contact: Elizabeth Jones, [email protected], +1-972-581-5795

SOURCE aptitude LLC