OREANDA-NEWS. August 08, 2013. As healthcare organizations look for ways to reduce costs under health reform, the hospital supply chain has emerged as the leading area of opportunity for new capital and savings. To help providers better take advantage of these potential new efficiencies, McKesson recently announced enhancements to its fully integrated, cloud-based sourcing solution. The solution provides organizations with real-time actionable supply chain data, and mobile access to help drive workflow efficiencies and reduce expenses across their supply chain network.

Insight is a new analytics feature within McKesson Strategic Supply Sourcing™ that brings its guided formulary procurement to the highest level of efficiency by providing supply formulary analytics information comparing vendors, product families or cost centers, all in real-time. An industry first, the solution uses artificial intelligence to present comparison data in an actionable format without the need for additional lengthy analysis. These predictive analytics identify opportunities for savings by providing spend leakage visibility throughout their supply chain. Healthcare providers can more easily determine where product standardization and spend consolidation opportunities exist.

"Insight will enable us to act on the data and save money. All healthcare systems are struggling to reduce cost and Insight is the tool that can make savings happen," said Joe Volpe, vice president of supply chain at Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare, in Glendale, Wis. Wheaton Franciscan has already identified millions in annualized savings from using McKesson's eProcurement suite to address price variance, fee reductions and product standardization needs.

New mobile access also greatly enhances workflow efficiency by enabling users to make anytime-anywhere purchases and receive critical alerts via their mobile device. With the solution's smartphone voice detection capabilities, supply chain staff can perform consumer-like searches from the marketplace's millions of catalog items, including full product descriptions and pictures as well as hundreds of trading partners. McKesson Strategic Supply Sourcing then helps identify savings opportunities by automatically searching for lower cost or substitute products, validating contract prices, reconciling back orders and identifying volume and tier-level discounts.

"Our broad portfolio of supply chain solutions provides the tools needed to better manage one of the most significant costs facing healthcare organizations today," said Todd Tabel, vice president, McKesson Supply Chain Solutions. "By providing a 360o-view of their supply chain, we can help our customers drive meaningful improvements in their operations and bottom line."
Tabel added that increasing efficiency and improving financial resources are important components of McKesson's Better Health 2020™ strategy, a comprehensive initiative designed to provide healthcare organizations with the capabilities needed to improve operational performance and quality as reform continues to unfold.

Part of McKesson Strategic Supply Sourcing, the new analytics and mobility functionality is being featured at the AHRMM conference, July 28-31, in San Diego. To learn more about Insight, the solution's mobile capabilities and formulary-guided purchasing, stop by booth #605 at AHRMM or visit www.mckesson.com/supplychain.