ECRI Institute's Value Analysis Service Addresses Need for Informed Healthcare Decision Making

Custom service helps hospitals reduce spending by streamlining product selection process

PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa., Sept. 19, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Rising medical supply costs, lower reimbursements, and a brutally competitive market are placing a financial stranglehold on hospitals. Managing these challenges requires healthcare purchasing decisions that are driven by evidence, physician engagement, clinical efficacy, and reliable financial data.

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ECRI Institute, an independent nonprofit that researches the best approaches to improving patient care, announces a custom consultation service designed to help healthcare leaders enhance or create value analysis processes that lock these critical elements into their product evaluation process.

Using a systematic, multi-disciplinary, evidence-based evaluation of physician preference items and other products— from bandages to defibrillators—ECRI Institute helps hospital value analysis committees select products that optimize patient care and reduce costs.

"Hospitals must evaluate technology based on the best available evidence, rather than rely on product buzz," states Thomas E. Skorup, MBA, FACHE, vice president of ECRI Institute's Applied Solutions Group. "The only way to keep supply costs under control and bring transparency to product selection is by establishing a credible value analysis process."

In its comprehensive approach to helping facilities establish sound value analysis processes, ECRI Institute attends value analysis committee meetings and interviews committee chairs, clinicians, senior administrators, and supply chain leaders. Once it understands the hospital's existing processes and goals, the Institute makes recommendations and provides on- and off-site support to roll out process enhancements.

"A systematic process eliminates structural differences that lead to missed opportunities to save," continues Skorup. "What we're really doing is having a results-driven discussion about how the various teams in a hospital—surgery, cardiology, imaging, and nursing, to name a few—can reduce spending in the areas where they get the most bang for their buck."

For nearly 45 years, ECRI Institute has led hospitals and health systems on the path to better purchasing decisions by benchmarking capital medical equipment and supply costs; performing cost-effectiveness analyses; assessing new and emerging technologies; and conducting safety reviews.

The Institute's comprehensive medical technology databases contain thousands of objective reports—many of them custom-requested—on more than 2,500 topics.

For information about ECRI Institute's Value Analysis Consulting Services, contact Thomas Skorup by telephone at (610) 825-6000, ext. 5160; by e-mail at [email protected]; by fax at (610) 834-1275, or by mail at 5200 Butler Pike, Plymouth Meeting, PA 19462-1298, USA.

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About ECRI Institute
ECRI Institute (www.ecri.org), 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 nearly 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).

SOURCE ECRI Institute