Historically, healthcare providers have invested less on back-office automation, including supply chain systems, than other industries. By contrast, in manufacturing environments, 60 percent of the IT budget often is devoted to operations and supply chain.

The information technology payback
A study of more than 270 hospitals over a four-year period recently highlighted “the negative impact of long-term underinvestment in back-office infrastructure and processes.” The study, conducted by Oracle Healthcare Insight, provides a strong business case for reversing that trend, noting that “healthcare providers that make greater investments in back-office automation and process improvement enjoy operating cost ratios that are 2 to 4 percent better than those of their peers.” Specifically, the study called on providers to increase investments in tools to enable electronic order exchange with suppliers (including the use of order acknowledgements and advanced ship notices), and automate processes around procurement, invoicing and catalog price updates.

Industries that invest in technology are better able to integrate various functions and organizations, which in turn can increase appreciation for the interdependent nature of the supply chain. An e-commerce infrastructure, for example, creates connectivity and linkages that enable supply chain partners to share data with one another and collaborate to improve business processes.

The cloud and the supply chain
The increased use of cloud technologies in the healthcare supply chain can help mitigate many of the financial challenges. Rather than having to invest in expensive hardware, the cloud provides opportunities for trading partners to store, access and analyze data in a virtual environment and take advantage of upgrades more quickly and at lower cost.

Let GHX focus on the technology while you focus on running your business
Hospitals and healthcare systems working with GHX have access to the world’s largest single community of healthcare suppliers, with which they can conduct a wide variety of electronic data interchange (EDI) transactions. Working closely with a Product Council comprising both healthcare providers and suppliers, GHX continues to deliver software-as-a-service (SaaS) to automate purchasing, contracting, content management and payment processes.