UHC Launches Analytics Mobile App to Help Members Improve Supply Chain Return on Investment

CHICAGO, Sept. 26, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- UHC, an alliance of the nation's leading nonprofit academic medical centers, announces the launch of a mobile analytics application for SpendLINK®, UHC's proprietary suite of tools. The mobile app provides a subset of SpendLINK® reports that can be accessed via an Apple iPad.

The application, developed by Novation, UHC's supply contracting company, allows users to quickly access information to support strategic purchasing decisions and provides on-demand visibility into price benchmarking. The app is available only to UHC supply chain members, all of whom are using SpendLINK®, a Web-based tool that integrates clinical and supply data for a comprehensive view of a hospital's supply expenses across the continuum of care.

"In the current climate of health care reform, it's critical to be able to access accurate and complete data in order to make strategic purchasing decisions," said Jake Groenewold, UHC's senior vice president, Supply Chain. "SpendLINK® has been instrumental in helping hospital executives and supply chain administrators do that. These 'on-the-go' reports make it even easier for hospital personnel to manage their supply chain and improve performance."

The reports available on the mobile application are:

Price Benchmarking: Allows members to view their pricing and expenditures against those of 1,400 other hospitals. Intuitive dashboards allow users to view price performance, cost-saving opportunities, and price trends.

Price Leveling: Highlights products that are purchased by more than 1 hospital across a system (or integrated delivery network) where prices are not standardized, to show opportunities for savings.

Budget Impact Report: Illustrates pricing trends for the upcoming year by contract and spend category. The report offers projections on the cost of the raw materials needed to manufacture a given product and how those costs might affect budgets.

Supplier Diversity Report: Helps monitor a hospital's spend with diverse suppliers. Users can view a breakout of their diversity spend by type (minority-, veteran- or women-owned businesses), by vendor, or by product spend categories.

NOVAPLUS®: Matches a broad range of products to their equivalents in the NOVAPLUS® line, Novation's private-label brand and Identifies potential savings from converting to NOVAPLUS® products.

"We are excited to provide solutions that allow UHC members to instantly track supply prices, make quicker decisions, and lower their overall supply costs," said Dan Sweeney, Novation's senior vice president, Information and Data Services. "Mobile capabilities have grown exponentially and are revolutionizing the way hospitals can conduct business. These applications help speed up processes that used to take days, weeks, even months. This means UHC hospitals can improve their bottom line, increase operational efficiencies, and invest in other resources and activities that improve patient care and safety."

The SpendLINK® mobile application, which is free to UHC supply chain participants, can be found in the Apple App Store by searching for UHC.

About UHC

UHC is an alliance of the nation's leading nonprofit academic medical centers, which are focused on delivering world-class patient care. Based in Chicago, Ill, UHC fosters collaboration with and among its 114 academic medical center and 255 affiliated hospital members through its renowned programs and services in the areas of comparative data and analytics, performance improvement, supply chain management, strategic research, and public policy. UHC helps its members achieve excellence in quality, safety, and cost-effectiveness. Formed in 1984, UHC's membership includes more than 90% of the nonprofit academic medical centers in the United States. For more information, visit uhc.edu.

About Novation

Founded in 1998, Novation is the leading health care supply contracting company for more than 25,000 members of VHA Inc. and UHC, 2 national health care alliances, and 5,500 members of Provista, LLC, representing more than 30,000 sites. Novation provides alliance members with sourcing and information and data services. Based in Irving, Tex, Novation develops and manages competitive contracts with more than 600 suppliers. VHA, UHC, and Provista members used Novation contracts to purchase approximately $40 billion in 2010.

SOURCE UHC