Health Industry Group Purchasing Association head discusses GPOs

[audio http://website.guild.im/williams/wp-content/uploads/sites/17/2010/12/gpo3.mp3]
Group Purchasing Organizations (GPOs) help hospitals save money on materials purchasing by aggregating demand from member hospitals. They have expanded their activities over time and along the way have been scrutinized by Congress and regulators.In this podcast interview, Curtis Rooney, president of the Health Industry Group Purchasing Association (HIGPA) makes the case for GPOs. We discuss:

• The size, structure and value added of the GPO industry
• Impact of health care reform and whether consolidation is likely to result in direct contracting, eroding GPOs' business
• Progress GPOs have made in expanding from commodity supplies to physician preference items such as medical devices, where gain sharing pilots have been conducted
• Expansion of GPO services into revenue enhancement, such as revenue cycle management, and whether this distracts GPOs from their core cost saving mission