My interest in this arena stems from having been involved for many years in the business of healthcare, in an effort to drive fundamental improvements in the way healthcare works. As a physician, I have had first-hand experience with the inefficiencies, frustrations and high cost of care, and how they affect patient care. For more than a decade, I have devoted myself to working to create system-wide improvements. From my early days in health systems operations research, to roles in organizing and delivering healthcare services, to work on a national and international scale with EDS as the president of Healthcare Global Industry Solutions, to helping develop the concepts of e-health, as the chief medical officer of Healtheon and WebMD.

In all these cases I have been struck by the inefficiencies of our healthcare system, the poor levels of service, lack of information and high cost, compared with other industries. The impact is felt most severely at the level of the individual patient and family, and as a physician, I am deeply concerned with that.

Through these experiences, I have developed some perspectives on the use of technology and innovative approaches to business that can be transformational, similar to what we have seen in other industries and other countries. To be adopted, however, these innovations have to be embraced by healthcare at an operational level and from within. We all know that healthcare is conservative and does not easily adopt ideas from outside industries. We also know that healthcare is a partnership between the business and the clinical sides of the industry. Approaches must have a beneficial impact on patient care and be embraced by clinicians to gain adoption. I believe that as a clinician who has had significant experience in the business and operations side of the industry, I can bridge that gap and create a meaningful value proposition that works.

Broadlane has created a new model, which breaks this mold. Broadlane takes accountability for producing supply chain savings and is reimbursed for its efforts and results. In this model, administrative fees are rebated back to providers and Broadlane earns its fees based on services provided and impact produced.

In addition, Broadlane has deep expertise in all aspects of supply chain operations and understands where the true levers of cost are. More commonly, unit price is only a small part of the potential savings. A larger opportunity lies in processes, decisions, strategies, compliance and utilization. Many, if not most healthcare providers have neither the expertise, nor the systems, nor the capital to address these in a comprehensive manner. Broadlane brings the expertise and technology to address these aspects of cost, which together with a strong contract portfolio, allow us to multiply the potential savings and, more importantly, help ensure they are achieved.

In addition, Broadlane is broadening its vision and value. Our model, which combines advanced technology with innovative business services and accountability for results has powerful applicability to areas related not only to the supply chain, but to the back office, including contract services and labor – areas of increasing pain for providers. In fact, Broadlane is now the nation’s leader in providing services to source and manage temporary labor staffing and temp agencies, with more than $400 million in spend under management.

Broadlane recognizes the opportunity to build upon our innovative business services model that grew out of our roots as a GPO. Our goal is to provide sustained benefits that help them address fundamental pressure points that affect their financial health and business performance on a sustainable basis. The sustainability of our services will draw increasingly upon a business process management, which has the added benefit of providing Broadlane with long term customer relationships.

In fact, two GPOs can have very similar prices, and in some cases, perhaps not that much lower than what a large IDN could achieve in certain categories where they might have special clinical relationships, yet the savings that can be produced can be dramatically lower if a strong contracting methodology is complemented by more disciplined purchasing, aided by powerful technologies which create process efficiencies and allow real-time management of utilization and performance. This is the Broadlane approach. In addition to having what we feel is the best contract portfolio in the business, we provide the technologies and methodologies for total cost management, and take accountability for results.

Of the traditional supplies categories, capital items surface as a high cost area where significant savings can be achieved. Broadlane’s capital asset management program, for example, produces the industry’s deepest savings by combining capital planning with clinical consensus and rationalization, aggressive competition with suppliers using pre-committed large group buys. We have many other integrated programs, which produce similar impact.

One new area of interest among our clients, and one in which Broadlane has been a true innovator is in the area of purchased (contract) services, which collectively represent about 17 percent of a typical hospital’s expenses. Broadlane has developed a systematic approach to analyzing and capturing savings non-traditional spend categories, and to date has developed approximately 180 initiatives, with savings percentages ranging from 5-60 percent.

GPOs, which traditionally focus on aggregating spend to create negotiating power, can instead focus their attention on aggregating information, helping educated clinicians and drive consensus and track utilization. At Kaiser, for example, Broadlane manages more than 60 clinical committees that make determinations on preference items, which drive purchase decisions, and tracks utilization in real time through its on line transaction processing.