Virtua placed its first order with a GHX supplier in October 2001, after integrating its enterprise resource planning (ERP) system with GHX’s Internet-based trading exchange. One year later, Virtua now transacts business with 52 different supplier divisions through GHX and continues to add more trading partners.

“In a relatively short period of time, Virtua has been able to maximize the amount of business we transact through our single Internet connection to GHX,” says Nicholas Toscano, vice president of Strategic Support Services at Virtua Health. “Virtua’s efficiency continues to improve as more of our strategic support services participate in GHX, propelled by the accuracy of GHX’s AllSource™ catalog.”

Virtua currently purchases approximately one-quarter of the health organization’s supplies in its internal product database, representing more than 90 percent of Virtua’s total product purchases, through GHX. GHX functionality will also help Virtua continuously update its internal database by identifying inaccuracies in product numbers and units of measure as purchase orders are placed. Previously, files were not cleansed until contracts had been signed and/or renewed.

Virtua’s purchasing department uses the GHX Report Viewer feature to check on the status of individual purchase orders, identify backordered items, determine actions that need to be taken to expedite purchase orders, and discover discrepancies between the anticipated price and that proposed by the supplier. In the future, Virtua plans to train departments throughout the organization to use Report Viewer, enabling each department to track its own orders. “With access to the real-time status of their individual orders, departments can find out if a product has arrived without waiting for notification from purchasing,” adds Toscano.

Although Virtua was already placing most of its orders electronically, either via electronic data interchange (EDI) or fax, prior to joining GHX, Toscano says participating in GHX has made a big difference. “We are now able to conduct business via EDI with suppliers that had not previously been able to accept such transactions, while eliminating the manual errors common with fax orders,” he explains.

Tri-anim, a Virtua Supplier through GHX
Tri-anim, a nationwide distributor of specialty products for respiratory, anesthesia, and emergency medical services, is one of the suppliers that joined GHX to better support the needs of Virtua and other customers. “Our relationship with GHX is vitally important in ensuring that customers like Virtua can order products from Tri-anim efficiently, in whatever manner they choose,” said Dan Pearson, vice president of Sales & Marketing at Tri-anim

“Virtua’s commitment to supply chain improvement demonstrates the real value that e-commerce conducted through an open and neutral trading exchange like GHX can provide,” says Mike Mahoney, chief executive officer of GHX. “Our goal has always been to maximize the amount of business that both providers and suppliers can conduct through a single Internet connection, while improving the accuracy of ordering through the AllSource catalog and related products and services. Virtua’s experience is further proof, the concept works.”

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 AllSource™ product catalog, the first in healthcare to be based on industry standards and contain 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 Virtua Health
Virtua Health, with more than 7,500 employees and 1,700 physicians, is the largest healthcare provider in southern New Jersey. It comprises four hospitals including Virtua Memorial Hospital Burlington County Mount Holly, and Virtua West Jersey Hospitals in Berlin, Marlton and Voorhees. More than 7,000 babies are born annually at the hospitals in Mount Holly and Voorhees, where comprehensive neonatal intensive care for premature newborns is available. Pediatric primary and specialty care services are offered as part of the Virtua duPont Children's Health Program, an affiliation with the Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children. With five strategically located emergency centers, it handles more emergencies and pediatric emergencies than any other hospital in South Jersey. Virtua Health also serves the community with comprehensive primary care and emergency services at its outpatient center in Camden; two long-term comprehensive care centers located in Berlin and Mount Holly; two outpatient surgery centers located in Mount Holly and Voorhees; and a home-health care agency. For more information visit: www.virtua.com

About Tri-anim
Tri-anim is a nationwide specialty products supplier for respiratory, anesthesia, and EMS. For more than 27 years, Tri-anim has met the needs and exceeded the expectations of providers throughout the healthcare continuum, including hospitals, long-term care facilities, surgery centers, nursing homes and emergency medical services (EMS). Tri-anim is an industry leader in providing and connecting with e-commerce solutions that make it faster and more efficient for customers to procure medical products. For more information, contact www.Tri-anim.com.