“With My Exchange, buyers only have to go to one site to find out which orders have discrepancies, rather than having to sift through all of their purchase orders and gather information from multiple sources to determine if there are problems,” says Todd Hamilton, Materials Management Analyst, Ardent Health Services. GHX is currently developing similar one-stop information access to meet the needs of hospital materials managers and accounts payable staff, as well as their counterparts at supplier organizations.

When buyers are alerted to a discrepancy, they can also use My Exchange to quickly determine the type of problem and, in many cases, resolve the issue before it results in a time-consuming and more costly invoice exception. The home page for the buyer version of My Exchange provides information on all of the purchase orders processed by either a single buyer or an entire organization that day, the previous day, and in the past seven days. With just one click of the mouse, buyers can get more detail on specific line items that have price or product data discrepancies, or that are on backorder. They can even access detailed information from purchase order acknowledgements and advance ship notices, if provided by the supplier. “Managing discrepancies has never been easier for our staff.. With one click they can zero in on the problem and quickly resolve it,” says Carl Gomberg, Supervisor, Analysis, Training & Quality Control, Central Materiel Management, SHARP HealthCare.

In order to resolve discrepancies, buyers have access to both the GHX Content and Contract Centers directly from the My Exchange home page. The Content Center enables healthcare providers to synchronize their product data with information verified and maintained by suppliers, while the Contract Center enables providers to electronically upload their latest purchasing contracts into their materials systems. From the Contract Center, buyers can view all of their current contracts and accurate pricing for contracted items.

“The Contract Center enables us to upload our contracts, and with My Exchange we can track whether we are being charged the current contract price,” says Tom Stenger, Manager, MMIS and Analysis, for BJC HealthCare. Hamilton adds that buyers can use the Contract Center when ordering specialty items that might not be loaded in the hospital’s item master: “We can determine if they are on contract and make sure we are including the correct price in the purchase order.” My Exchange can also be easily customized to meet a particular user’s needs. Gomberg says, “Allowing staff to filter POs to view only those assigned to them increases productivity,” while Stenger adds that “Managers can monitor on and off contract purchasing and Accounts Payable is better prepared to resolve invoice exceptions.” Increased productivity gives buyers more time to focus on strategic activities such as monitoring contract compliance, addressing critical clinical supply requests, and assisting in the selection of products that meet both clinical and financial objectives.

Because My Exchange enables discrepancies to be handled in a more proactive manner, Accounts Payable can process payments faster, which reduces days sales outstanding (DSO) for suppliers. Suppliers report that price discrepancies that lead to invoice exceptions are the primary cause of delayed payments from customers. By reducing errors and addressing discrepancies earlier in the purchasing process, BJC HealthCare has been able to shorten the time and effort it takes to pay suppliers. Another healthcare system using GHX says it has reduced invoice discrepancies by 50 percent by correcting errors between purchase orders and purchase order acknowledgements up front, while an additional integrated delivery network has reduced the amount of time spent researching invoice discrepancies by 66 percent.

About Global Healthcare Exchange
Global Healthcare Exchange, LLC (GHX) provides an open and neutral electronic trading exchange, along with complementary products and services, through which buyers and sellers can collaborate to improve efficiencies in the healthcare supply chain. GHX’s catalog and content services improve the accuracy of purchasing transactions, reducing many of the most common and costly problems in healthcare procurement, while the privately held company’s revenue neutral business model is designed to lower costs for all involved. GHX’s owners, strategic partners, and trading exchange participants are representative of the entire healthcare supply chain, including manufacturer 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. Equity owners of GHX include Johnson & Johnson Health Care Systems Inc.; GE Healthcare; Baxter Healthcare Corp.; Medtronic USA, Inc.; Abbott Exchange, Inc.; Siemens; Becton, Dickinson & Co.; Boston Scientific Corp.; Tyco Healthcare Group, LP; Guidant Corp.; C.R. Bard, Inc.; AmerisourceBergen Corp.; Cardinal Health, Inc.; Fisher Scientific International, Inc.; McKesson Corp.; B Braun Medical Inc.; Premier, Inc. and HCA. For more information visit www.ghx.com.