How eProcurement Boosts Efficiency and Reduces Off-Contract Spend for Hospitals
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Tristan Nunn, Senior Manager Product Management Procurement
As someone who regularly discusses procurement processes with people across hospitals, I've seen how frequently purchase orders still bypass procurement departments, often unintentionally. Every time this happens, healthcare providers lose out. Negotiated prices, carefully arranged contract terms, and important volume discounts are missed. Beyond financial implications, your procurement teams lose valuable visibility and control over spend.
But there is a better way, one with a clear, intuitive process that frontline staff actually prefer to use. This is exactly where eProcurement comes into play.
The Hidden Costs of Off-Contract Ordering
When I speak with healthcare procurement professionals, the story is often the same: tackling off-contract ordering feels like an uphill battle. Even when you clearly communicate procurement guidelines, frontline staff frequently bypass the procurement system, not out of ill will, but simply because they believe direct contact via phone, email, or online portals with suppliers is quicker. Yet these well-intentioned shortcuts have significant downsides:
- Loss of negotiated discounts and savings
Hospitals end up paying higher prices when approved contracts aren't used.
- Lack of spend visibility
Procurement and finance departments lose critical insights into spending patterns.
- Reduced compliance and control
Off-contract ordering weakens your ability to manage and optimise procurement strategies, potentially affecting patient care indirectly through budget pressures.
What is eProcurement?
eProcurement helps frontline staff across the hospital quickly find and order the right items from approved catalogues, supporting automatic adherence to your procurement guidelines. Through a digital, user-friendly procurement system, ordering is simplified, intuitive, and compliant, without needing to continually involve the procurement department at every step.
In essence, the main objective is clarity and simplicity. Frontline staff should find what they need quickly, see clearly defined and agreed pricing, and be able to place purchase orders swiftly without the need for time-consuming procurement interactions.
10 Essential Features for eProcurement
For healthcare providers to successfully implement eProcurement, the procurement platform needs to be intuitive, accessible, and designed for the specific requirements of healthcare. From my experience, here are the key features every Procurement system should include:
- Centralised Supplier Catalogues
Frontline staff must have easy, single-point access to all required consumable and medical device items, and services from approved catalogues.
- Clear Item Data for Easy Comparison
Item data should include clearly comparable consumable and medical device item attributes such as purchase price, unit of measure details, validated supplier item codes, clinical specifications, and any special conditions.
- Seamless ERP Integration
The system integrates smoothly with your existing ERP and procurement systems, allowing staff to effortlessly search and order directly from approved NHS catalogues without leaving familiar workflows.
- Intelligent Search and Suggestions
Smart technology should actively suggest the most relevant items based on previous selections, making ordering quicker and more accurate with each use.
- Wish Lists for Regularly Ordered Items
Staff in clinical or administrative departments often reorder the same items. Personal or departmental favourites lists save valuable time.
- Role-Based Catalogue and Access Control
Access to item data and services should be curated based on departmental roles or cost centres, allowing staff to only see the items relevant to their roles, streamlining their purchasing experience.
- Budget Limits per User or Department
Budgets or spend limits should be clearly set by user or cost centre, helping frontline staff manage expenditure responsibly and remain compliant.
- Flexible Approval Workflows
Clear, flexible, and user-friendly approval workflows position procurement teams effectively as control authorities, helping high-value or sensitive purchases to get proper oversight.
- Real Time Purchase Order Status Tracking
Transparency is key. Frontline staff should be able to track purchase orders at every stage from approval, ordering to delivery, eliminating guesswork and unnecessary communication.
- Mobile Accessibility
Allowing clinical and non-clinical staff to raise or approve purchase orders anywhere and anytime via mobile apps greatly enhances efficiency and responsiveness.
Real Benefits of eProcurement for Hospitals and Integrated Care Systems (ICS)
From experience, healthcare providers that implement an eProcurement system quickly see measurable benefits:
- Significant Time Savings
Clear, intuitive ordering reduces administrative time, freeing frontline staff for patient-facing duties.
- Improved Contract Compliance
With clear guidelines embedded in ordering processes, adherence naturally increases, and off-contract spend drops substantially.
- Better Collaboration Across Departments
Transparency and simplicity of the ordering system improve inter-departmental relationships and communication.
- Enhanced Financial Control and Insight
Procurement teams gain essential data that informs future negotiations and purchasing decisions, maximising savings and efficiency.
- Increased Operational Efficiency
Clear processes reduce operational issues downstream, from receiving goods to invoice matching and payments.
I’ve witnessed healthcare providers significantly reduce off-contract spend, generating savings that can directly benefit frontline patient care.
How to Support a Successful Roll-out across your organisation
Implementing an eProcurement system requires thoughtful consideration of healthcare specific challenges, including:
- Integration
It should seamlessly integrate with your existing systems like inventory management solutions and ERP systems.
- Compliance
The solution should fully align with NHS procurement standards, ensuring regulatory and operational compliance at every step.
- Change Management
Effective training and communication helps clinical and administrative staff to feel supported and confident using the new system.
- Local NHS Case Studies
Sharing successful examples from similar NHS Trusts can build confidence and demonstrate real-world impact.
Ready to Explore eProcurement for your Hospital or Integrated Care Systems (ICS)?
If you're looking to enhance procurement efficiency and compliance, and significantly reduce off-contract spend across your organisation, GHX has the solution. We can share practical insights from NHS Trusts already benefiting from eProcurement solutions and work with your team to create integration and training plans.
Tristan Nunn
Senior Manager Product Management Procurement
Tristan Nunn is the Senior Manager of Product Management at GHX Europe, responsible for Procurement and Inventory Management. He leads the vision, strategy, design, and roadmap of procurement and inventory solutions, bringing together industry standard functionality while introducing new features tailored to the evolving needs of the healthcare sector.