Lab supply chain costs are rising in health systems across the country. They have increased 27% in recent years, vastly outpacing not only inflation but also the average hospital supply cost increase. It’s critical for health systems to optimize lab contracts and maximize cost savings, and considering the laboratory’s impact on clinical care and provider satisfaction, it’s important to do so thoughtfully. However, hospital supply chain teams often have minimal experience with the lab and are limited by rigid GPO agreements and insufficient data insights. This can leave significant savings opportunities on the table.
hc1 Supply Chain Management™ is a powerful, end-to-end solution that supplements your lab and supply chain teams with expert resources and robust data insights to maximize cost savings and eliminate inefficiencies. Combining our industry-leading benchmarking and analytics with unrivaled expertise across all areas of the lab, we deliver guaranteed savings by optimizing your laboratory contracts, driving standardization, and informing key operational decisions.
People Process and Technology
Our team of experts work with you to implement a tailored program infrastructure and strategy. Then, we utilize our real-time analytics platform to uncover problem areas and monitor the progress of interventions.
People: Unrivaled expertise and relationships
Our team understands lab supply chain inside and out and has strong relationships with lab vendors nationwide, enabling us to negotiate the best pricing and service.
Process: Proprietary lab market intelligence
We utilize 10+ years of market data to identify realistic savings opportunities, provide an unbiased strategy, and execute negotiations with internal stakeholders.
Technology: Data-driven technology
Our platform delivers actionable insights into lab testing and cost data across the system, so you can easily uncover savings opportunities and make informed decisions.
Our Approach
Market Intelligence: Unbiased third party that provides industry trends and data to leverage negotiations
Vendor Agnostics: We don’t partner with lab vendors or GPOs, so we have no hidden agendas or conflict of interest
Contracting: All contracts remain on the health system or GPO agreements. hc1 is a silent partner.
Cost Savings: Up to 25% bottom-line lab supply and reference savings, no indirect or cost
Expert Resources: Supplement your existing team with the addition of our subject matter experts.
Skin in the Game: Guaranteed savings! No fees until we drive cost savings for you.
Project Roles
Selecting hc1 as your high-value care platform includes an engagement with the service delivery team. This group is committed to building a customized project plan by understanding your organization’s strategic objectives. You will be partnered with an activation team dedicated to your organization.
A smooth activation is supported by an engaged and active team on both sides. After guiding thousands of clients through the journey toward high-value care, we’ve identified a few key areas where we need members of your team with areas of expertise. By introducing your experts to our experts, we can ensure an activation that will go as smoothly and as quickly as possible.
Please note that while some of your team members may fulfill multiple roles, a successful activation will require each of these roles to be represented.
hc1 Team
Executive Oversight
- Identify project goals
- Ensure business value alignment
- Provide leadership
- Provide timely decisions
- Remove barriers to progress
- Clarify priorities
- Project sign off
Program Oversight
- Engage executive leadership
- Coordinate teams and resources
- Identify key objectives
- Coordinate teams and resources
- Facilitate decision-making
- Mitigate project risks
- Coordinate training
- Communicate with executives
- Confirm project success
Finance Oversight
- Deliver Financial Impact Reports To Executive Leadership Routinely
SMEs & Analysts
- Support objectives definition
- Detail existing processes
- Validate business requirements
- Validate solution workflows
- Validate configurations
- Validate reports and calculations
- Attend user training
Data Integration
- Facilitates data onboarding process
Client Team
Executive Sponsor
- Engage in Leadership Reporting
- Ensure Resource Allocation & Shared Accountability
- Introduce hc1 team to key clinical stakeholders
- Identify project goals
- Provide timely decisions
- Remove barriers to progress
- Project sign off
Project Stakeholders
- Lab Point of Contact
- Supply Chain POC
- Engage executive leadership
- Coordinate teams and resources
- Identify key objectives
- Coordinate teams and resources
- Facilitate decision-making
- Mitigate project risks
- Coordinate training
- Communicate with executives
- Confirm project success
Finance Oversight
- Identify and Secure Financial Resources for Monthly Metrics
- Coordinate with hc1 Leads for Financial Reporting
Data Oversight
- Facilitate Data & System Access
- Enable Financial & Contractual Transparency
- Communicate Key EMR Updates
Understanding the Process
Data Collection & Analysis
- Reference Lab Utilization
- AP/PO spend
- Equipment list, capital plan
- All major lab contracts and contract calendar
Governance
Decision making, KPI report, change & risk management. Governance establishes aligned strategy, communication, and decisions:
- Steering committee with key stakeholders
- Cadence of scheduled steering committee review meetings – biweekly recommended
- Quarterly or Monthly review with Executive sponsor
- Establish key technical stakeholders, ad hoc support
Supplier Outreach
Setup shared ownership & credibility
- Vendor data requests via supplier authorization letter
- Vendor data receipt and validation
- Establish relationships, rapport
Partnership Roadmap
Mutually agreed upon strategic plan. Data validation, analysis and strategic planning develops the roadmap:
- Establish project pipeline as well as priority and timeline
- Preliminary pipeline savings estimate
- Target set for Finance, SCM for year 1
- Flexible; adjust as cycle is repeated
Technology Activation
Real-time visibility into your sendout testing volume, reference lab performance and cost to help optimize your reference lab spending.
See all your sendout testing data in one place to compare your reference labs, analyze cost by department and assess specific sendout tests.
Data Request: For a Lab Strategic Sourcing Assessment, we need pricing & utilization data
- The last 12 months AP Report, or at least a high-level summary of the total spend by major lab vendors (MS Excel format)
- The last 12 months PO History reports (MS Excel)
- If PO History is not available, some type of Utilization Reports that shows usage data by vendor, SKU, and purchase price per SKU (MS Excel)
- Reference Lab Testing Fee Schedules and Utilization Reports. This will not be found in the PO History report since send out testing is not ordered via a Purchase Order.
- All major Lab Vendor Contracts (Chemistry, Hematology, Coagulation, Blood Bank, etc) that Client would like reviewed as part of this project. This includes vendor commitments, pricing, and terms & conditions (PDF)
- If available, Lab Equipment Lists per location (any format)
- If available, a Lab Vendor Contract list that shows current & expiring agreement dates (any format)