5 Steps for Digital Transformation in Healthcare Sourcing

What’s changed in healthcare procurement and sourcing?

Healthcare sourcing has changed dramatically in the last ten years or so. A digital transformation has been underway, led by solutions like data enrichment, sourcing analytics and benchmarking. Other changes include:

Collaborative relationships

Collaborative purchasing models have been adopted that grow membership by driving value in exclusive ways. These purchasing networks are committed to volume aggregation and collective best practices for contract savings. 

Data-driven healthcare supply chain strategy

The healthcare supply chain has been transformed by data-driven practices that make sense of complex, disjointed clinical data sources. 

Medical devices procurement transformation

Big ticket contracts for items like medical devices have benefited from the digital transformation. Today, supply chain teams use data enrichment and sourcing to identify significant savings opportunities and win the support of surgeons and clinicians for product decisions. 

Yet, although the market has made great strides, data and operational challenges still impact healthcare sourcing effectiveness and scale.

Challenge: Large-Scale Data Management for Network Purchasing Decisions

The story of one large purchasing collaborative exemplifies what many go through. This organization supports an extensive network of 100+ hospitals, 5,000+ clinics, 300+ ambulatory surgery centers, plus dozens of LTC and retirement communities.

To fulfill their mission, the team needed to streamline data management for both their sourcing analysts and individual hospitals. The difficulty lies in normalizing, visualizing and customizing this data to spot savings opportunities and strengthen contracts.  

It was an ongoing challenge to manage vast amounts of data from so many facilities. They also needed members to support and take action on their contracts. Each member brings unique ERPs and technical resources, so finding common ground to dealing with members’ diverse abilities and needs was critical. 

This article looks at the five key steps used by this and other systems to launch and maintain transformative sourcing and procurement.

5 Requirements for Healthcare Supply Chain Transformation

1 - Central Hub for Analytics, Reports and Workflow 

The foundation of enterprise transformation starts with a cloud-based framework for scale, efficiency, automation and communication. Cloud-based ecosystems have been increasingly adopted as the standard for SaaS and DaaS delivery across many industries, including healthcare. 

For growing health system purchasing networks, sourcing events can be relentlessly complex and hopeless to visualize without the assistance of technology. But once digital transformation is underway, results can come quickly. Following transformation and adopting a cloud-based spend management platform, one large network completed over 35 sourcing events in two years, resulting in substantial savings. 

Scalable cloud automation has set the standard for a seamless digital sourcing experience. The efficiency of this process allows the purchasing network to diligently and quickly onboard new members, sometimes completing the enrichment of new member data in just a few days. 

For the healthcare system previously referenced, the accelerated prospect assessment contributed to 13 new customers joining the collaborative. The network’s sourcing team is strategically partnered around a spend platform designed for data management workflow. Information is efficiently aggregated from multiple hospital members and distributor spend reports and normalized. 

Integrated Digitization Improves Supply Chain Operations

The centralized solution delivers enhanced decision support and streamlined data insights. One outcome is a better framework for end-to-end automation and data integration. Unified data platforms integrate data from various sources (e.g., suppliers, doctors’ orders, and inventory systems), breaking down silos and providing a comprehensive view of the supply chain.

Integrated digitization in healthcare supply chains represents a pivotal shift toward enhanced efficiency and effectiveness in the management of resources.

Successful users integrate all the tools to help them communicate to their members and because it's going to influence them to take action on the things so they prove that they have value. 

2 - Single Source of Truth about Clinical Spend

A key step in bringing digital transformation into healthcare supply chain strategy is maintaining a single source of truth for all stakeholders. That’s already best practice in most data-driven organizations, not just healthcare. Highly digitized teams leverage technology to gather necessary data into one place, eliminating the need to continuously cross-check multiple systems. Data is centrally normalized for cross-referencing and benchmarking.

This integrated sourcing strategy involves: 

• Identifying spending pattern shifts over specific periods 
• Categorizing items, analyzing facility-wise expenditures
• Determining market share
• Benchmarking against aggregated pricing data from 900+ hospitals within Curvo database 

Benefits of Centralized Sourcing Data Strategy

This practice gives hospital networks more reach in how data can be used. Data flexibility empowered one system to explore a broad range of price opportunities, while maintaining confidentiality across facilities. With the aggregated data, members could see how their pricing compared to others without risk of price-fixing issues. This network also benefits from a valuable "price score," enabling them to evaluate member prices against industry benchmarks. Cross-referenced insights about contracts add substantial value to their procurement processes.

3 - Tailored Insights for Clinical Data Strategies

Why struggle with reports and analytics that really don’t line up to what you need? And what if those needs change in the future or even next quarter? The new standard is customizable, easy-to-use dashboards that reflect the unique business logic and needs behind every purchasing network. 

In digital organizations, customizable dashboards and analytics bring out the unique value of the data at any point. AI-enabled analytics are part of the digital transformation underway in the healthcare supply chain. Advanced analytics can process large amounts of data to generate insights on usage patterns, inventory needs, and supplier performance, driving informed decision-making. Curvo Sourcing Analytics simplifies complex calculations and presents actionable insights through customized dashboards.

4 - Centralized Reporting for Transparency and Speed

Just as one source of truth benefits data strategies, one source of truth for reporting also creates transparency and transformation. For example, a central sourcing team can track and monitor member participation in contracts to make sure each member is utilizing it to the fullest potential. Automated reports can be built and generated with just a few clicks - no more juggling disparate systems or messy Excel files.

5 - Sourcing Efficiency Redefined by Digital Ecosystem

One significant outcome of transformation in medical devices procurement has been the impact on team efficiency. Organizations can decrease analyst time spent manipulating data and instead, accelerate strategic sourcing and decision-making with less effort.

Unlock Member Value: Strategic Data from a Strategic Partner

The results of committing to digital transformation? Quality data, streamlined processes and membership growth. With transformation tools like data normalization, dashboard customization and sourcing expertise, health systems can maintain volume commitments and contract compliance, while finding new opportunities for growth and savings.

The adoption of Curvo solutions has achieved transformative results for a number of purchasing networks. Data normalization and report customization tools significantly reduce manual work by data analysts. Automated processes eliminate repetitive spreadsheet tasks, giving teams time to focus on adding member value, rather than compiling data.

• By significantly reducing turnaround for data analysis and presentations, Curvo plays a crucial role in expediting the purchasing collaborative sales cycle.
• The Curvo Analytics Suite and Strategic Sourcing Suite facilitate ongoing sourcing events, providing tools for collaboration with sourcing managers and members. 
• The Curvo Customer Experience team enhances and tailors data to meet a network’s specific requirements, ensuring seamless integration with their operations and avoiding resource drain.

According to the vice president of one purchasing collaborative, “The Curvo platform streamlines and digitizes our operations, which allows us to provide maximum speed-to-value to our members. Tasks that used to take months when done manually are now completed in days on the Curvo platform.” 

By embracing transformation, healthcare systems can strengthen their supply chains, ultimately leading to improved care delivery, operational success and business resilience. Reach out to plan the next step in your digital transformation journey.