LOUISVILLE, Colo.—GHX and the Premier healthcare alliance have partnered to deliver new functionality to Premier members using the price activation portal. This agreement will connect Premier members to a collaborative environment that includes distributors and enables all four parties to a contract to collaborate in a real-time environment, allowing them to reduce costs and improve efficiencies.

Premier, the nation’s largest performance improvement alliance of more than 2,800 U.S. hospitals and 95,000 other sites, selected the GHX Collaboration Portal solution to enable its members to synchronize contracts with their trading partners faster and more cost effectively. Over the past year, eliminating contract pricing errors has been shown to reduce more than $62 million in extraneous costs for buyers and sellers connected to the GHX Global Network(1).

GHX Collaboration Portal brings manufacturers, distributors, providers, and group purchasing organizations together through a single solution to collaboratively synchronize contract pricing. With this agreement, Premier members can now more quickly and reliably access contract savings, and four-way collaboration will help align contract participants to reduce errors, drive greater transparency and enhance price accuracy.

“Our partnership with GHX directly supports our vision to provide innovative solutions that lead the transformation to high-quality, cost-effective healthcare,” said Durral R. Gilbert, president of supply chain services for Premier. “We are enhancing the price activation experience we deliver to our members today. Ultimately, this will further reduce costs not only for providers, but also suppliers and distributors leveraging our contract portfolio. This expanded relationship with GHX is a win-win for everyone involved in the supply chain.”

“Integrating this solution in more organizations creates efficiency for the healthcare industry – there are significant savings for everyone,” said Mark Rosenbaum, chief customer officer, Cardinal Health. “Cardinal Health has been using Collaboration Portal for many years. The inclusion of the Premier solution is exactly what the industry needs for real-time contract synchronization.”

Historically across the healthcare industry, agreed-upon contract prices have taken 45–60 days to be loaded into the respective systems of all parties to a contract. With Collaboration Portal, GHX states that a contract can be integrated with a distributor the same day it is executed and new prices loaded by all stakeholders in less than a week. This helps eliminate inaccurate purchase orders, disputed invoices and rebate/chargeback discrepancies.

“Taking costs out of healthcare is a common goal that GHX and Premier share,” said Bruce Johnson, CEO and president, GHX. “We believe that GHX is uniquely positioned to connect organizations – including suppliers, providers, GPOs and distributors – that make up the healthcare supply chain so they can work toward reducing costs through efficiency, accuracy and automation. By streamlining the contract synchronization process, Collaboration Portal will enable Premier members to drive more inefficiency and cost out of their supply chains. That is really the healthcare theme for 2013.”

(1) As measured by the GHX “5 in 5” savings model, created and validated by PRTM (see recent news release on “5 in 5”)

About the Premier healthcare alliance

Premier is the nation’s largest performance improvement alliance of more than 2,800 U.S. hospitals and 95,000 other sites using the power of collaboration and technology to lead the transformation to coordinated, high-quality, cost-effective care. Owned by healthcare providers, Premier operates a leading purchasing network with more than $5 billion in annual savings. Premier also maintains clinical, financial and outcomes databases based on 1 in every 4 patient discharges. A world leader in measurably improving patient care, Premier has the largest performance improvement collaboratives in America, including one in partnership with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., Premier also has an office in Washington. https://www.premierinc.com.

About GHX

Global Healthcare Exchange, LLC (GHX) is driving costs out of healthcare by transforming the healthcare supply chain. Working with providers and suppliers, GHX is accelerating change by providing a faster, more efficient and collaborative supply chain that will take billions of dollars out of the cost of healthcare. For more information, visit www.ghx.com and The Healthcare Hub.