Ridgewood, N.J.-based Valley Health System expanded its relationship with Excelerate, a strategic health sourcing company that relies on evidence-based clinical outcomes to select medical products.
Under the expanded five-year partnership, which went into effect Jan. 1, Valley Health System will employ Excelerate's complete clinical portfolio of physician preference items, surgical and specialty products. Prior to the expanded agreement, the health system solely employed Excelerate's heart and vascular clinical portfolio.
The institutions' partnership began in November 2015. Excelerate is a joint venture formed by the Cleveland Clinic, Columbus-based OhioHealth and Irving, Texas-based Vizient, a member-owned healthcare services company.
"Excelerate has added value on a few different levels and we've saved over a million dollars a year on the cardiac portfolio," said Leonard Guglielmo, assistant vice president of facilities and chief supply chain officer at Valley Health System." A key part of this initiative is that Excelerate is based on physician to physician communication. In addition, it's designed so that the physicians are the ones that drive the decisions to use products that are the optimal balance between cost and patient outcomes."