A letter I wrote this week, published in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, argued for the continued existence of hospital buying cooperatives, sometimes called group purchasing organizations.
In this troubling economic environment in which we currently find ourselves, I find it abhorrent that a few senators are attacking hospital cooperatives. These senators are buying in to misinformation spread by special interests that will profit if the cooperatives are hobbled.
As Mike Stephens noted in a previous blog entry, these alliances provide not only significant savings in supply costs, but also afford access to beneficial programs outside of basic contracting services.
As CEO of Aurora Health Care, I witnessed tens of millions of dollars in unnecessary costs driven out of our supply system, allowing us to further invest in quality improvement, staff and patient care services. In addition to savings on pharmaceuticals, medical devices and supplies, hospital cooperatives collect and share knowledge from top performing hospitals for the benefit of healthcare across the country. By exchanging information on focus areas such as improved surgical care, infection prevention, and reduction of chronic disease, we create a nationwide repository of best practices and proven care models. These collaborative efforts rapidly improve hospital quality across health systems and within hospitals in an unparalleled pace compared to what a hospital can do on its own.
One example is the Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration, a value-based purchasing project managed by the federal government in partnership with the Premier healthcare alliance. This quality project is saving lives, speeding patient recoveries, improving safety and controlling costs. The proof is in the results ("Aurora recognized in quality report," The Business Journal of Milwaukee, August 17).
Instead of attacking collaborative alliances which bring together clinical excellence for the benefit of all their members and patients nationwide as they unite our fragmented healthcare system, why don’t these senators empower them? Let’s stop creating imaginary arguments against one of the very few organizations doing their part to efficiently heal our ailing healthcare system.
Ed Howe blogs regularly at Action for Better Healthcare.