Global Healthcare Exchange (GHX) has announced the acquisition of the Beep N Track solution from Implanet, enhancing its ability to trace implantable devices from purchase to the point of use.
The buy out provides GHX with an implantable device supply chain solution that will help to improve efficiency and provide greater tracking.
The deal comes on the back of recent controversy over the use of industrial-grade silicon in PIP breast implants. The Beep and Track system would help in this sort of case by providing a better inventory of use, even across national borders.
GHX chief executive and president, Bruce Johnson, said: “The healthcare market is losing billions every year due to the inadequacy of current solutions in the implantable device supply chain.
“When we talk with our customers, who span the entire healthcare marketplace from suppliers to providers, the need for an implantable device solution is top of the list. They tell us that an end-to-end solution that automates and links the entire implantable products supply chain will save money and eliminate waste. This is precisely what GHX has been doing for the past 12 years in the medical-surgical market. This is an opportunity to help the industry in a way that is a perfect extension of our current mission.”
He added: “Today, managing implantable devices is a largely manual process laden with lost revenue, inadequate purchasing controls, lack of data for value analysis, and excessive labour and inventory costs. Based on its extensive research GHX believes that better management of physician preference items (PPI) clinical, operational and financial processes can help lower supply chain costs, improve staff productivity, and provide significant customer information and safety benefits.”
Commenting on the impact it will have on the UK NHS, Chris Slater, director of procurement at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, said: ““At Leeds we are now able to trace heart values from the moment they are demanded – through a purchase order sent out by our automated procurement system, linked to the GHX inventory solution – to the moment they are used in theatre, including logging in patient records.
“There are multiple benefits for the trust and the patient. We are able more accurately to capture costs against procedures and patients, and, in the event of product issues or recalls, we have the records to enable accurate communication with the patient and prompt corrective action.”
