HCPro.com: Hospital Materials Management

Hospital Materials Management provides timely market news and detailed reports on hospital and group purchasing trends and practices across the country.

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December 2008 (Volume 33, Issue 12)	view entire issue

GPOs say higher prices on the way in 2009
Even in the best of economic times, forecasting prices for specific products and product segments can be a fool’s errand, destined to err, primed for blame, hidden from credit. Meaningful political change further underscores the overall volatility. But as this year draws to a close, hospitals are setting budgets and making plans amid extreme fiscal uncertainty, and they plainly need help. GPOs have come to their aid in the past and, despite the upheaval in recent months, are again courageously ignoring the sharks below while walking the plank of price forecasts.

Manage your contracts before they manage you
To best evaluate your current contract status, conduct a thorough damage assessment. That means making every effort to physically locate existing contracts in your facility. Someone has to carefully read which agreements have already been executed and determine which are worth retaining. Contracts should be listed in a database along with brief descriptions, costs, and expiration dates. It is a good idea to assign purchase orders and send out notifications of nonrenewals to most vendors.

GPOs turning brighter shade of green
Most of the brick smokestacks that were for decades associated with the on-site burning of hospital waste have long since been torpedoed to rubble or left standing as silent hollow billboard testaments to hospital name brands or other marketing campaigns. Since those days, and particularly since the early 1970s, when the first Earth Days thrust a new environmental spin onto healthcare, hospitals have found that seeking new ways to raise public awareness while keeping the environment safe and healthy wasn’t just good healthcare, but smart marketing as well.

Other recently-published articles from Hospital Materials Management:

Healthcare reform looms on the horizon

HMM 2008 index

GPOs turning brighter shade of green

Manage your contracts before they manage you

GPOs say higher prices on the way in 2009

Slaying the budget-killers

HFMA survey touts progress in supply chain savings

E-commerce then and now

Sterile processing comes out clean as complement to successful materials management

Big orthopedic settlement could swing pricing pendulum toward hospitals

Supply chain salaries rise with responsibilities

Hard data drives pursuit of value analysis savings

Five ways your distributor can work for you

Oil, food prices threaten hospital supply budgets

Oil costs can cause your expenses to slip out of control

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