Quality and Cost in Dialysis Services
Pathstone formed a system-wide, cross-functional evaluation committee including representation from all executives on the premise.
The Challenge
A large and growing west coast IDN utilizes seven (7) vendors with eleven (11) separate agreements across eleven (11) hospitals.
Vendor relationships vary from small and local players to market giants DaVita and Fresenius and vendor satisfaction from high (joint venture) to low (exploring insourcing). There is a desire to work as one health system and standardize operations but no visibility into service quality and cost competitiveness at the market level.
Solutions
Pathstone formed a system-wide, cross-functional evaluation committee including representation from executives (Nursing, Medicine, Finance, and Operations) and RN leadership on the premise that Pathstone’s clinical supplies consulting team would review market competitiveness and the team would drive all decision-making. The Pathstone team built a business case highlighting significant service-level and pricing discrepancies and the team decided to conduct a competitive Request for Proposal (RFP) process. Incumbent suppliers were evaluated for organizational capability, service quality, staffing model, and financial benefit.
Results
Pathstone was able to secure market-competitive rates, eliminate an outlier contract penalty, and navigate a vendor change to achieve $1.2M in recurring annual cost savings. Hospitals then leveraged the savings to buy capital equipment.
The evaluation committee selected a supplier mix that offered the best combination of service quality and cost. A key outcome included formalizing a detailed set of service level metrics for vendors to track and report on a quarterly basis.
Key Takeaways
Let the data tell the story
Quantifying or qualifying service levels and cost in a factual and comparable manner empower the client to drive the decision-making process
Leverage the power and scale of a large health system
As a final push to achieve targeted $1.2M value, the evaluation committee coordinated with executives across multiple hospitals to show a united front in vendor negotiations. This approach achieved desired results
