For over a decade, Curvo has been trusted for its AI-powered data enrichment, particularly in sourcing high-ticket orthopedic and physician preference items (PPI). By normalizing complex datasets into actionable insights, Curvo has empowered health systems and purchasing collaboratives to benchmark costs, negotiate contracts, and optimize supply chain strategies.
Now, with the expansion from 40 to 90 clinical product categories, Curvo is taking its proven capabilities even further—offering healthcare supply chains broader visibility and deeper benchmarking opportunities across med-surg and ancillary spend areas. This evolution not only enhances the value of Curvo's dataset but also provides the comprehensive insights needed to drive cost savings and strategic decision-making.
2025 Update: Expanded Categories Bring More Coverage to Data-Driven Healthcare Sourcing
Curvo Data Enrichment Capabilities Include:
- Mapping to product master sources
- Healthcare master data management (MDM)
- Market data enrichments and GICtm system (for PPI)
- Constructs logic and surgical procedure enrichments
- Part-level attributes with GTIN, GUDID, GMDN product enrichments
- Utilization benchmarking and cost-per-case analysis
In January 2025, the Curvo dataset will more than double from 40 to 90 clinical product categories. This makes Curvo’s enriched, standardized clinical spend data available for a wider range of purchase history stakeholders. The original blog has been updated with an interview with Greg Prince, Curvo Director of Data Operations about the expanded categories. He explains what the broader coverage means for health systems and suppliers alike.
Expanded Categories for Data-Driven Benchmarking and Sourcing
Health systems need product and spend records for benchmarking and sourcing negotiations to reduce the cost of healthcare. Analysts and suppliers in healthcare also need reliable information to feel confident in their decision-making, but the problem has been normalizing data. Without clean and complete data, it can be hard to feel confident that any dataset tells the full story of the associated spend. With Curvo’s expanded categories, customers can feel confident that they can now get the same excellent standard of categorization with med-surg products and ancillary supply chain spend areas as they have for orthopedic and PPI products.
Q: How did these new categories come about?
Greg Prince: Since I started at Curvo in 2020, we’ve had 40 product categories that defined what we call the Curvo Categories. These have largely influenced how we basket and present data back to customers.
We also ingest so much more customer data that falls outside of those original 40 Curvo Categories, but most of our customers’ interest has historically been focused on that original set, as those typically covered the areas with the highest spend and, subsequently, the highest savings opportunities. Our platform was also built around those 40 groupings to help streamline the information presented back to our customers.
And we are proud to say that we have a long history of achieving great success with our customers to both standardize and achieve cost savings in these areas!
However, as customers gain more traction in keeping these areas under control, we have heard more and more from them that they want similar categorization insight for other areas of spend. The expanded categories have been developed in response to this need and already tested with real customer data. As our customers become more successful in “picking the low hanging fruit,” they will need additional support to tackle the other areas of spend that may not be as readily available. That’s where Curvo’s expanded categorization comes in.
Q: How are the expanded categories organized?
GP: Curvo data enrichment now applies across many more clinical product categories, but to set the stage, let’s first explain the hierarchy of the different categories and classifications.
The Curvo Category is the top level. This level is meant to provide a simple understanding of spend that any of our customer stakeholders can generally understand and use as a starting point for their analysis.
From here, some Curvo Categories will have our proprietary Generic Implant Classification (GIC) enrichment, including sub-classifications of Type1 and Type2. These enrichments get specific to the point of being near clinical equivalent products. When paired with our additional Material and Size1, Size2, and Size3 enrichments, we give our customers insight into what products are clinically equivalent across all manufacturers. Not everything warrants that level of detail, but these classifications are important for physician preference items like medical screws or pacemakers where differences can have a significant impact on the clinical performance and cost of the item.
From Curvo Categories down to the GIC classifications, we want to empower our users to be able to navigate their spend as broadly or granularly as they need to in order to achieve their goals, whether it is cost savings, product standardization, or simply visibility into where money is going!
See the Full List of New & Updated Curvo Categories
These new categories are designed to align with the evolving needs of large hospitals and health systems, helping you gain more clarity and precision in your clinical and supply chain data.
Q: How do expanded categories give more visibility into supply chain spend?
GP: Say I’m a director setting the 2025 budget. My CFO has tasked me and my team to find $5MM in real savings over the next calendar year - no small task!
I immediately start looking at the big-ticket items - total joints, spine, trauma, etc. Perhaps there are some contracts coming up for renewal, so I can utilize Curvo’s Categories, GIC Classifications, and benchmark enrichments to drive serious value without compromising patient care or surgeon satisfaction.
While I feel pretty good about getting those projects to close, they can be time-consuming and rightfully demand a lot of resources from my team. How do I close the gap on the rest of my savings goal for the year?
Using Curvo’s expanded categorization, I can now gain insight into a number of different areas the same way I did for those big-ticket PPI projects. I can quickly see:
- Who my key vendors and manufacturers are for these areas
- Where the market share is shifting over time
- Identify on-contract vs. off-contract spend using Curvo contract and rebate functionality
All of this gives me more control in knowing where to dedicate the limited time and personnel resources on my team. That way, if most of my team is consumed in a large PPI sourcing event or an ERP conversion, I can still feel confident that the rest of my team can focus on value-driven work. I can start to proactively find savings vs. reactively trying to avoid cost increases.
Q: What’s involved in getting access to the new categories?
GP: Once we publish the expanded categories, they will be available to all customers at no additional cost — think of it as a free upgrade! This is true for the Curvo Category enrichments both in our platform and in the Lookup tool. No additional effort or cost is required on your end! Our Customer Experience Team will be working with new and current customers who want to tap into the broad, new Curvo Category experience.
More Clinical Spend Data Coverage - More Savings Opportunities
Curvo has leveraged data for 40 PPI categories for years. Now with available data-rich categories more than doubled, Curvo has opened big doors for healthcare supply chains in search of fresh savings. Connect with us to learn how to gain more visibility into spend management for greater efficiency, understanding and savings.
Continue reading for more expert insights for a data-driven supply chain strategy.
The best way to lower hospital spending is to leverage data to refine processes, cut costs and improve results. But where to start? It can seem overwhelming at first. However, taking these actions is crucial to optimizing supply chain strategy.
There are many different ways to use benchmark data, including medical equipment, commodities, pharmacy and even the resource of blood. However, medical devices and specifically physician preference items (PPI) are among the areas most ripe for cost savings.
With PPI Costs Surging, Managing Business Information is More Crucial Than Ever
The increase in supply expenses are outpacing all other costs in the healthcare field, including wages and benefits. The proliferation of very expensive medical devices is driving this surge in costs. With over half of both cardiac and orthopedic procedures using implantable devices, PPI account for as much as 60% of medical and surgical spending as compared with around 40% just a decade ago.
There are efforts being made to contain this surge in PPI costs, but with limited success. Siloed pricing and utilization data are to blame, as well as generally poor pricing transparency. It’s challenging for supply chain managers to drill down to reliable and actionable data.
Cataloging Key Data is the First Step to Leveraging It
A robust business intelligence system and workforce productivity index can offer key dashboard metrics. This allows staff and management to make good decisions each day related to staff performance, scheduling, and other insights. Trends, problems, and opportunities can all be identified and acted upon. Identifying process changes and training needs and taking appropriate action can result in significant cost savings over time.
Supply expense per patient per day or supply expense per adjusted admission are other key examples. The ability to drill down into the expense drivers in these areas can be extremely valuable to a hospital’s bottom line. Insights into operational measurements can also allow the supply chain to be streamlined and optimized. However, this requires a standardization of data coding including unique SKUs and storage across all departments. An intelligent data analysis system is the first step.
Next, big data should be leveraged to analyze large amounts of data and facilitate predictive analytics. Both clinical and financial processes should be regularly evaluated to help improve outcomes. A measured and strategic approach can help make this endeavor less daunting. Assessing each area one by one and determining what supplies are involved in the most successful results can help with weeding out less successful products and vendors.
Is Your Organization Tapped Into the Power of Price and Market Data?
It will take time for large organizations to make these assessments across all categories, but the applications are well worth the effort. When an organization’s data is accounted for and leveraged, improved performance and reduced costs are possible across all aspects. An intelligent system acts as a neural network that learns and relearns as the data, parameters and performance statistics change and evolve.
Business intelligence tools that assist with aggregating and analyzing supply cost data, as well as market intelligence from a range of sources, can pinpoint opportunities that are ripe for cost saving actions.
Streamlined Solutions Are Available
If you’re ready to harness price and market data to move your sourcing strategy to new levels of efficiency and cost savings, schedule a demo to take advantage of the full suite of Curvo products. With data from over $14BIL in annual purchases from over 450 US hospitals – you’ll have the insights you need and benchmarking you can trust.