ECRI Institute Purchased Services Program™ --Supply Chain is Not Just About Products Anymore

SELECTplus Purchased Services™ helps hospitals save on services from hemodialysis to laundry and landscaping  

PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa., Jan. 13, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- ECRI Institute®, an independent nonprofit that researches the best approaches to improving patient care, announces the launch of SELECTplus Purchased Services™ to help healthcare providers take advantage of the vast, often untapped savings potential in supply chain categories outside of medical supplies and capital. A hospital's spend on purchased services can represent up to a third of its operating budget.

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"We have been helping hospitals negotiate and save on their purchased services for many years," states Jennifer Myers, ECRI Institute's vice president of SELECT Health Technology Services. "We are now pleased to be officially releasing our services as a SELECTplus membership program."

Purchased services, from hemodialysis and durable medical equipment to landscaping and laundry, are usually decentralized across health systems and hospital departments. This can result in less executive ownership, reduced effectiveness in contract negotiations, and ultimately, lost saving opportunities to reduce costs.

"Decision making on purchased services can be challenging without the right tools, information, and expertise, continues Myers. "Our analysts have pioneered some of the best practices in the industry to help hospitals standardize and operationalize a complex process, using the same principles of comparison and analysis that ECRI Institute has practiced for decades. We look forward to continuing to help hospitals find the highest quality purchased services at the lowest price."  

The SELECTplus Purchased Services program offers support for:  

• Establishing need for specific services
• Interviewing key stakeholders
• Developing specifications and requests for proposals (RFPs)
• Benchmarking services and analyzing costs
• Selecting a proposed list of vendors
• Negotiation strategy, mentoring, and guidance
• Personalized consultation and help getting executive buy-in

SELECTplus is a capital technology decision support service used by more than 2,500 hospitals and health systems worldwide.

For more information about ECRI Institute's SELECTplus Purchased Services™, contact Jennifer Myers at (610) 825-6000, ext. 5287, or email [email protected]. To learn more about ECRI Institute, contact us at [email protected], (610) 825-6000, or 5200 Butler Pike, Plymouth Meeting, PA 19462.

​About ECRI Institute
ECRI Institute, a nonprofit organization, dedicates itself to bringing the discipline of applied scientific research to healthcare to discover which medical procedures, devices, drugs, and processes are best to enable improved patient care. As pioneers in this science for 45 years, ECRI Institute marries experience and independence with the objectivity of evidence-based research. Strict conflict-of-interest guidelines ensure objectivity. ECRI Institute is designated an Evidence-based Practice Center by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. ECRI Institute PSO is listed as a federally certified Patient Safety Organization by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Find ECRI Institute on Facebook (www.facebook.com/ECRIInstitute) and on Twitter (www.twitter.com/ECRI_Institute). For more information, visit www.ecri.org.

SOURCE ECRI Institute