GPO strives to open its doors
Novation wants manufacturers to know that it’s taking new – make that “better”
-- technology seriously.
The Irving, TX-based purchasing group has taken a
number of steps to make sure that it creates opportunities for manufacturers of
new technologies, including posting a “Technology Forum” on its website and
appointing a senior director of safety, technology assessment and QA/RA.
Though she’s proud of Novation’s record in assessing
new technologies, Cathy Denning, R.N., M.S.N., the newly appointed senior
director, says the program is steadily improving.
Much of that improvement is based on Novation’s new
“operating principles,” formulated in August 2002, in which the GPO pledged to
“ensure that member hospitals have timely access to new and innovative
technologies.” Among the GPO’s pledges were the following:
The operating principles were published in the
wake of last spring’s Senate Subcommittee hearings about the group purchasing
industry, and a rash of New York Times articles critical of GPOs.
A registered nurse, Denning began working for Novation
three years ago as IV systems product manager. For thirteen years prior to
that, she worked in the home infusion and high-tech home care industries,
including a program for pediatric ventilator patients. She is an oncology
nurse by training.
In addition to making sure that Novation gives
innovative technologies a shot, Denning also is charged with ensuring that
Novation considers the safety aspects (to health care workers and patients) of
products under consideration, and the quality of those products and the
companies who make them.
Opening up the bid
process
Novation has incorporated language about innovative
technology into its standard invitation-to-bid, says Denning. If a
manufacturer wants Novation to consider its technology new and innovative, it
must submit FDA and patent information. Novation will sign non-disclosure
agreements, if the manufacturer wishes.
“When we receive information about a particular
product, we will research the literature and access third-party assessment
groups if necessary,” she says. Ultimately, the information will be brought to
one of Novation’s approximately 35 member councils and task forces, who decide
whether or not the technology is indeed innovative and better than the
existing standard, and if so, whether it should be brought on contract. “It
could be innovative but not better, and it could be new but not innovative,”
she says. “So we have to triage and sort through that.”
Novation can call upon its member market research
department for more information, says Denning. The department surveys the
general membership or segments of it to obtain further information about
particular products being considered for contract, or about particular
features of products.
Technology Forum on the
Web
Visitors to the Novation website (www.novationco.com)
will find a new section called Technology Forum. Open to the public and all
suppliers (both off and on contract), the section allows suppliers to
publicize their new technologies.
The Technology Forum links to each supplier’s site, for
visitors interested in additional information. An on-line form is provided
where the GPO’s members can share their comments on the technology, and/or
request that Novation consider bidding or adding the technology to its
portfolio of agreements, with a link to the Novation bid calendar. Other
featured links include those to the FDA and the Advanced Technology Program of
the U.S. Department of Commerce.
“We believe this will offer us an opportunity to look
at companies that may offer technologies we may never have been aware of,”
says Denning.
Education process
A major part of Novation’s emphasis on innovative
technology is education.
“I educate smaller companies, innovative companies, and
others about how to participate in our bidding process and how to work through
our technology assessment group,” says Denning. “We’re hopeful that the
Technology Forum will provide a consistent avenue for us to obtain information
from anybody out there who would like to submit a bid.”
She also says that Novation is educating third-party
technology assessment companies about just what the GPO is looking for. “A lot
of these firms look at technology assessment as space planning, cost per
procedure, cost/benefit,” she says. “But our needs are a little different than
that. Our technology assessment process looks at whether one product offers
benefits over another from a patient-care or safety perspective, and whether
it’s new, innovative and better than what we’ve had.” Such companies have to
be educated as to what Novation is seeking, she adds.
Boils down to contracts
Novation is seeking both consistency and flexibility
when it comes to innovative technologies, says Denning. “Consistency” in the
sense of instituting a standard protocol for assessing all new, innovative
technologies, and “flexibility” in the sense of accommodating technologies
that emerge to contend with those of existing Novation contract vendors. Hence
the GPO’s pledge in its operating principles to re-bid product agreements or
add vendors to existing agreements in the event that a new and better
technology emerges.
As part of the bid extension or re-bid process,
Novation’s contracting staff routinely checks on the existence of new
technologies, and then decides whether an existing agreement should be renewed
or re-bid, or if other products need to be added to the existing agreement,
says Denning.
Clinical preference products
Because innovative technologies tend to be
clinician-sensitive, Novation has taken an especially hard look at how it
contracts for clinical-preference products. In short, the GPO will strive to
sign dual- or multi-source awards for such technologies whenever possible,
except where it’s not in the members’ best interest to do so.
The GPO’s recent contract for needles and syringes
demonstrates its new approach.
While standard needles and syringes may be commodities,
safety products remain clinically sensitive, concluded the member council and
task force that orchestrated the agreement. For that reason, they gave the
contract for standard products to Kendall and BD, but opened up the agreement
for safety products to those two suppliers as well as Abbott Labs and Portex
Inc.
In addition, Novation signed a contract in November
with St. Jude Medical for its atrial fibrillation suppression technology, a
unique offering missing from Novation’s pacemaker vendor contracts. “By
identifying what are clinical-preference items at the front end, we are able
to provide the evidence necessary for our councils and task forces to think
critically down the road,” says Denning.
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