Online transactions are the norm in society today. People can buy nearly anything online these days. However, the provider side of healthcare still largely lags behind this trend, especially in the purchasing sector.
Many hospitals and healthcare organizations have partnerships with group purchasing organizations by which they acquire their products and supplies. Oren Gavriely, founder of online medical supply marketplace BeatMed, thinks the industry is ready for the switch to online purchasing.
"It's been adopted so widely in the retail market that healthcare is ready for it," he says.
Adopting e-commerce for hospital purchasing is a move that Mr. Gavriely says healthcare can't afford to put off, in more ways than one.
"It reduces costs, but what's more important is that it provides more information in real time, which saves a lot of time," he says. "If you can see what other doctors or surgery centers are saying about a product and who's using what, you can make purchasing decisions much faster."
When organizations make quicker purchasing decisions, they receive products faster, can keep their inventories stocked and be more productive overall. As Mr. Gavriely says, "supply managers aren't waiting for stuff."
Additionally, the online marketplace and making purchasing decisions without a GPO can level the playing field and provide all organizations the same amount of leverage in their purchasing decisions.
"When you're looking online, a surgery center in Chicago has the same purchasing power as a big hospital in Chicago because [suppliers] are representing one organization," Mr. Gavriely says. "It provides the surgery center the negotiation power of a big player. That's the thought, because you have a lot of critical mass."
E-commerce also operates in a sphere of transparency, especially on a site like BeatMed where prices are publicly displayed and customer reviews are available to all customers. A visit to BeatMed will show a customer necessary purchasing information as well as how well certain products worked for other providers.
"That's where we all need to move to, where we can all communicate readily and openly, where the consumer can see in real-time live that this scalpel worked wonderfully," Mr. Gavriely says. "This is all information that if we share it in an open platform, everybody will benefit."
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