In a significant departure from the traditional methods of purchasing supplies, some doctors and staff at the Medical Center are now ordering goods from Promedix.com, a national medical product exchange that consolidates thousands of specialty vendors into a single online market.
The shift from calling each company separately has several potential benefits; it decreases the amount of time spent ordering goods and cuts costs.
"We are in a pilot program right now to see if it will improve efficiency," said Michael Gentile, associate director of respiratory care services. "If you can match increased efficiency with a decent price, then you've got a winner."
Gentile said the traditional method of ordering specialty medical products-placing separate calls to different companies depending on the item-has several drawbacks that limit the work capacity of the Medical Center's employees.
"Previously, you had to place five to six phone calls to different companies and then wait around for them to call you back," he said. "That meant that a lot of valuable time was spent playing phone tag."
The situation often became even more frustrating if the companies were on the West Coast requiring even more time spent waiting for a response, Gentile said.
Promedix.com, however, streamlines that process, and in the meantime, occupies a fragmented $20 million niche for health care purchasing.
The company was founded in response to the repeated demands of consumers to reduce the costs associated with research and procurement of specialty products, Gentile said, adding that the medical industry is another example of the more general trend toward online purchasing.
"Specialty medical product purchasing [has] largely been controlled by the middlemen.... As a result, pricing for a single product may vary widely and access to competitive products or technologies may be limited," said Patrice Reynolds, an account executive at Schwartz Communications, the public relations firm representing Promedix.com.
Gentile said he is optimistic about the possibilities of the online business.
"The benefits are that we can order things 24 hours a day and all from one source," Gentile explained. "That minimizes the time that we spend on purchasing and allows us to use our time in more efficient ways... so we can potentially save a lot of money also."
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