As a clinician, how often have you had a question about patient care and wished you could tap into a network of specialists beyond your hospital/health system to get their insight?
Many times, caregivers lack a formal support structure where they can learn from specialists involved in the same scope of care. That’s where membership in a broad alliance of leading healthcare providers can be a huge benefit. Group Purchasing Organizations (GPOs) and Integrated Delivery Networks (IDNs) help drive down operating costs for their members by aggregating scale and sharing knowledge. Clinician involvement in vetting products and participating in the contracting process are proven ways to improve care delivery and financial performance while boosting clinician engagement.
An example of a clinically-integrated collaborative at work was the Wound Care Summit hosted by HealthTrust in September. The meeting brought together 45 members representing nine health systems to discuss challenges in advanced wound care. Cross-functional teams shared best practices, reviewed current literature and discussed the future of the specialty. Most importantly, the event created a space for clinicians and supply chain professionals to share challenges and solutions.
Summit attendee Nate Verelli, a wound care specialist at WellSpan Health, shared his perspective on the value of this approach no matter your role in the care delivery system.
In wound care, those on the purchasing side know the importance of supply chain optimization. The goal is to source products that meet member needs across a number of dimensions including clinical, operational, technical, environmental, financial, etc.
When resources are pooled at summits like these, clinicians help drive collaborative solutions throughout the healthcare system. Wound care carries an annual spend of $42 billion. HealthTrust delivers aligned decision making at scale and increasingly affords clinicians the opportunity to collaborate more effectively.
“We’re particularly impressed with the collaborative approach to identifying new opportunities for price and quality improvements, and the support they have provided to our efforts to increase standardization,” said Richard Yonker, VP Corporate Sourcing at Tenet Healthcare.
As clinicians step out of their own silos of knowledge and leverage information across the membership, they are contributing solutions to the challenges facing healthcare professionals today. Why reinvent the wheel? Tap into the collective knowledge of HealthTrust to find answers.
Share Email Collaborative Summit, Wound Care
