Membership has grown tremendously, with 84 hospitals and nine corporate suppliers now connected and conducting transactions through the two companies’ integrated exchanges. Transaction volume has doubled every month since the first trading partner connections were established in December 2001.

A number of hospital systems, including several Mayo Health System healthcare organizations, Sutter Health, and Sentara Healthcare, have joined the strategic alliance, connecting through the Marketplace@Novation™, Novation’s e-commerce solution powered by Neoforma for its VHA, Inc. and University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC) member hospitals. In addition, several of GHX’s equity supplier members, including Johnson & Johnson, AmerisourceBergen, G.E. Medical, Tyco, and C.R. Bard, have expanded the amount of business they conduct through e-commerce by participating in the partnership through their existing connection to GHX.

GHX and Neoforma entered into this collaboration in August 2001, recognizing that providing a more robust end-to-end solution would help attract the critical mass of participants necessary to maximize value and facilitate the adoption of industry standards in the healthcare supply chain.

“Our customers have benefited tremendously from this partnership,” says Bob Zollars, chairman and chief executive officer of Neoforma. “Neoforma entered into this alliance to accelerate the benefits and adoption of e-commerce in healthcare by minimizing the costs associated with connectivity and information exchange. Neoforma and GHX are creating a platform that the industry can look to as a model for reducing costs across the supply chain.”

“The GHX-Neoforma alliance has created opportunities for suppliers and providers to conduct business with a wide array of their individual trading partners through a single Internet connection,” adds Mike Mahoney, GHX chief executive officer. “Our participating members benefit from the combined capabilities of our two exchanges. In particular, GHX’s supplier members have told us they value the ability to conduct e-commerce with more of their VHA and UHC hospital customers, while enjoying the increased accuracy afforded by the GHX AllSource™ catalog.”

Built by GHX, AllSource is the only product catalog in healthcare to contain normalized data owned, verified and maintained by suppliers. VHA and UHC members who conduct business with GHX suppliers through the integrated exchanges have access to the same accurate and timely data from the AllSource Catalog through Marketplace@Novation’s Sourcing Catalog. The availability of this information reduces the time required for reconciling discrepancies caused by outdated information and helps both hospitals and suppliers maintain updated versions of their item files. Additionally, this information is used to enhance Marketplace@Novation reports for buyers, enabling them to improve their analyses of spend, order fill rates and price discrepancies.

With both buyers and sellers sharing consistent and accurate data, suppliers benefit from cleaner orders and faster payments, while hospitals can avoid the reconciliation costs that result when there are discrepancies between purchase orders and invoices.

VHA and UHC members connected to Marketplace@Novation leverage NeoConnect™, Neoforma's proprietary rapid connectivity solution, to accelerate transactions and share information electronically with GHX member suppliers, reducing costly and often inaccurate manual processes for both.

“This strategic alliance has been instrumental in making it possible for Bard to respond to our customers’ requests for a quick and easy mechanism for automated order processing,” says Carol Stone, Bard vice president, Corporate Marketing. “We can bring customers live in a matter of days. To date, we have already successfully connected to 56 of the 84 total hospitals transacting through the alliance.”

"By being part of the GHX-Neoforma alliance, Providence Health has enjoyed access to many of the nation’s leading healthcare supply companies that are part of GHX,” says Dave Hunter, director of supply chain management, Providence Washington Regional Services. “The conversion from manual to e-commerce processes will allow us to have better access to suppliers and their products and to have more accurate reporting, leading to savings in both time and precious financial resources."

In December 2001, Willis-Knighton, a four-hospital system in Louisiana, became the first healthcare provider to conduct transactions through the GHX-Neoforma alliance. Since first purchasing products from Aircast, Inc., a specialty supplier of functional pneumatic support products for orthopedic injuries, the hospital is now conducting transactions with eight of the nine connected corporate suppliers.

About Global Healthcare Exchange
Global Healthcare Exchange, LLC (GHX) has created an open and neutral Internet-based trading exchange, along with additional value-added products and services, to reduce costs and improve efficiencies for all participants in the healthcare supply chain. GHX’s members and strategic partners include suppliers and distributors; integrated delivery networks (IDNs), hospitals and ancillary healthcare facilities; group purchasing organizations and their proprietary healthcare trading exchanges; and supply chain technology companies. GHX has built the AllSourceÔ product catalog, based on industry standards and containing normalized data owned and verified by suppliers. The accuracy of the AllSource catalog enables GHX to successfully address many of the most common and costly problems inherent in healthcare procurement. Equity owners of GHX include Johnson & Johnson; GE Medical Systems; Baxter International, Inc.; Abbott Laboratories; Medtronic, Inc.; AmerisourceBergen Corporation; B. Braun Medical Inc., Becton, Dickinson & Co.; Boston Scientific Corporation; Cardinal Health, Inc.; C.R. Bard, Inc.; Fisher Scientific International Inc.; Guidant Corporation; McKesson Corporation; Siemens Medical Solutions and Tyco International, Ltd. For more information visit www.ghx.com.

About Neoforma
Neoforma was recently named as one of Healthcare Informatics’ top 100 healthcare information technology companies of 2001. Neoforma builds and operates Internet marketplaces that empower healthcare trading partners to optimize supply chain performance. Neoforma uses proven, scalable technologies to provide customized marketplace solutions and services that enable customers to maximize their existing technology and supply chain relationships. Healthcare providers, leading group purchasing organizations, manufacturers and distributors choose Neoforma as their e-commerce partner. For more information, visit the company’s Web site at www.neoforma.com

About Marketplace@Novation
Marketplace@Novation, built and operated by Neoforma, is Novation’s essential information solution for members and suppliers, containing all publications, communications and updates as well as e-commerce services. Novation is the supply chain management company of VHA, Inc. and the University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC). Marketplace@Novation facilitates the efficient exchange of information with VHA and UHC members and their suppliers for the procurement of goods and services, resulting in streamlined processes, reductions in administrative costs and more efficient healthcare purchasing across the supply chain