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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: David McDonough
Phone: 703-243-9262

Two Leading Medical Doctors Discuss Physician Preference Items and the Role of GPOs

WASHINGTON, D.C. (October 24, 2001) - Two respected physicians-Michael Guthrie, M.D., senior vice president for physician relations at Premier and Rodney Hochman, M.D., senior vice president & chief medical officer at Sentara Healthcare-engaged health care executives in a lively discussion of physician preference items at the Health Industry Group Purchasing Association's 2001 International EXPO on October 16.

Guthrie and Hochman asked attendees for their views of the involvement of individual physicians in the health care purchasing process, and then informed the audience of their own experiences as physicians and health care executives. Both Guthrie and Hochman said that not a day goes by that they don't consider how purchasing decisions will be seen by physicians. Indeed, they stressed that clinicians are a crucial link in making decisions on which products to purchase.

Working with physicians is an integral component of the purchasing process, Guthrie said. Providers must "try to use the data you have to rank in order the priority of importance of a particular item. And not just on cost but you have to be able to demonstrate and make a credible case for the physicians about quality and safety" of each product, he said.

Guthrie added that there are many instances "where doctors can come together to say we don't need 13 appliances, we need four. And that can be a significant improvement…in the hospital's purchasing cost."

"A case has to made that it is actually an issue in every [purchasing] situation of both the mission of patient care and a margin we take to invest in patient care," Guthrie said.

"The analysis [of innovative products] is increasingly involving physicians bringing folks in from the field to review what may be a breakthrough technology and may need to be added to the contract base and [the physicians] help us assess if it really makes a clinical difference," Guthrie added.

Hochman said that integrating new innovative products is a critically important mission for providers. He said that "what we're finding from the health system perspective is that we need to stay ahead of the curve so that when a new innovation comes out and a small company has something, that we hear about it…a lot of our doctors bring it to us and we put committees together to help in this manner" and use physician input.

Hochman gave the example of a small company offering ICU care. "The first group of people we brought in to look at this was a group of physicians…Our physicians said: 'This looks good.' So the next group we brought in was our CFO and his representatives, and our clinical nurses as we brought that project through. We were a kind of alpha-beta site for that tiny upstart company."

Hochman said that Sentara Healthcare feels that having physicians be part of the purchasing process "really helps us. What we do is bring them right in from the beginning."

HIGPA's annual International EXPO was held this year in Palm Desert, California. Over 620 executives and senior managers from health care related companies attended this three-day educational and networking event, including leading Silver Sponsors GlaxoSmithKline and Bayer Corporation.

GlaxoSmithKline, EXPO Silver Sponsor. GlaxoSmithKline-one of the world's leading research-based pharmaceutical and healthcare companies-is committed to improving the quality of human life by enabling people to do more, feel better and live longer. For company information, visit the GlaxoSmithKline web site.

Bayer Corporation, EXPO Silver Sponsor. Bayer Corporation is a research-based company with major business in health care and life sciences, and chemicals. Headquartered in Pittsburgh, Bayer Corp. had sales of $10.1 billion in 2000 and is one of Fortune magazine's Most Admired Companies. It is a member of the worldwide Bayer Group, based in Leverkusen, Germany. For more information, visit Bayer Corporation.

HIGPA is a chartered trade association of approximately 175 health care purchasing and supply chain organizations that serve approximately three out of every four U.S. acute care hospitals, as well as most of the long term care, home care and medical group practice markets.

HIGPA's trading partner members include many of the world's leading health care product and medical supply manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers and related suppliers. HIGPA's industry members include for-profit and not-for-profit corporations, purchasing groups, associations, multi-hospital systems, and health care provider alliances. According to a recent study conducted by a former principal analyst at the Congressional Budget Office, hospitals save patients approximately $20 billion each year by purchasing products through group contracts.

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