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The Benefits of E-Commerce Marketplaces for Non-Acute Care Providers

Updated: Oct 10, 2024


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Historically, purchasing mechanisms in non-acute settings like clinics, long-term care facilities, labs, and ambulatory centers have lagged those of large inpatient systems. Highly manual, fragmented processes often yield missed contract savings, supply stock-outs, and clinician dissatisfaction. However, the rise of digital B2B marketplaces now offers an intuitive procurement option set to benefit smaller or specialty healthcare organizations.


The Challenge of Fragmented Buying


Without large on-site storerooms or dedicated procurement teams, most non-acute facilities adopt a just-in-time buying approach. Small-scale requests flow from various departments and individual clinicians leading to frequent one-off purchases direct from Internet searches or local suppliers. Prices vary widely given lack of purchasing controls, contract compliance monitoring, or demand aggregation. The result - inflated supply costs chip away precious clinical dollars.


Since non-acute settings also utilize many of the same commodity products as their acute counterparts (gloves, gauze, syringes, etc.), they forgo substantial cost savings by not leveraging Group Purchasing Organization (GPO) pricing agreements. Without a coordinated purchasing approach, buying less strategically as a lone site or small network carries financial penalties and hidden opportunity costs.


Transitioning to Unified E-Commerce Buying


Luckily, modern B2B e-commerce marketplace Grapevine now allows decentralized non-acute organizations to adopt procurement best practices similar to large consolidated chains, including:


  • Access to GPO contract pricing without volume commitment

  • Intuitive online catalogs aggregating 100K+ SKUs across brands/categories

  • Flexible account structures reflecting each facility's workflow

  • Real-time budget visibility & approval routing functionality

  • Mobile requisitioning, barcode scanning and notifications

  • Quick reorder from prior purchase history

  • Configuration of buying permissions and rules by user role

  • Back-end integration enabling payment automation


Grapevine essentially acts as a virtual storeroom carrying sufficient diversity of supplies used across sister clinics, surgery centers, rehabs, imaging facilities and more. Approved items and pricing are pre-loaded based on GPO affiliations, so clinicians simply shop the online catalog instead of unreliable Internet searches. Through this central e-portal (accessible anytime on any device), all locations/departments gain transparency and control over item spend and access.


Marketplace Benefits for Decentralized Providers


Compared to fragmented email/fax-based procurement, unified digital marketplace adoption delivers significant efficiency, compliance and savings benefits:


Optimized Workflows – Intuitive self-service shopping minimizes need for staff to field ad hoc requests, source item availability/pricing, place orders across multiple vendors, and reconcile invoices. More fulfillment tasks shift directly to end-user clinicians.


Enforced Contract Controls – Catalog prices, products, and suppliers are pre-aligned with parent facility GPO contracts so satellite locations consistently realize pre-negotiated rates.


Increased Visibility – Roll-up reporting shows item usage trends across the network to identify commonalities or variation potentially impacting costs and quality scorecard metrics.


Scalability – Seamless provisioning easily brings more non-acute sites into centralized eCommerce buying without added purchasing staff. Any location can shop via the marketplace with their unique approval flow configuration.


Reduced Off-Contract Spend – Eliminates clinicians sourcing random Internet purchases unaware of negotiated agreements in place. Spend consolidates to visible GPO-contracted items.


While often lacking specialized supply chain resources seen in larger facilities, non-acute sites through unified adoption of a modern B2B digital marketplace can leapfrog to enterprise-level procurement functionality. The marketplace model helps multi-site ambulatory networks overcome the long-time cost and efficiency pitfalls of fragmented purchasing by finally connecting both far-flung buyers and preferred sellers within one streamlined eCommerce portal. Clinicians gain simplicity while administrators gain control over improved spend influence. This digitally-driven strategy brings procurement parity to non-acute providers seeking to stretch clinical investment dollars further.




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