Premier says hospitals save $23 million via collaboration

Healthcare Purchasing News, Sept, 2003

A two-year-old effort by Premier Inc. aimed at helping member hospitals share knowledge and best practices has saved the 100 or so hospitals and health systems that have taken part in the program more than $23 million, according to a new white paper, "Lessons Learned From the Premier Supply Chain Collaborative Breakthrough Series." The program, called the Supply Chain Collaborative Breakthrough Series, is an ongoing initiative available to members of Premier. It was created in 2001 by Premier and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), a not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving healthcare supply chain management. According to Premier, collaborative participants share knowledge and best practices while using IHI's methodology to make rapid, highly effective changes. The alliance reported the inaugural Supply Chain Breakthrough program saved participants $8 million. Members of the second Breakthrough Series realized Over $15 million in savings. The third nine-month program in the series, each of which takes about nine months to complete, is scheduled to begin this month.

The "Lessons Learned" white paper offers detailed case studies of seven hospitals that employed the IHI methodology to reduce costs and increase efficiencies in such areas as contract administration, OR materials management, vendor consolidation, supply chain automation, and facilitating collaboration between various regional hospitals. Participants attend three learning sessions, join in an e-mail listserv, take part in monthly team calls and complete monthly reports.