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ASCEND® savings are substantial
for Ingalls Health System in Illinois

Challenge:

At Ingalls Health System, in Harvey, IL, the material management team works hand-in-hand with employees throughout the organization to lower costs without decreasing patient care. Ingalls as an organization is also “highly engaged” with Premier, its GPO, in the search for savings, an imperative now more than ever with healthcare reform.

Solution:

Ingalls joined Premier’s ASCEND (Accelerated Supply Chain Endeavor) program designed to help participants achieve and sustain rapid supply chain performance improvement, shortly after it was announced, realizing the program was another strong vehicle for cost reduction without reducing quality.
The materials management team and employees throughout Ingalls have evaluated or are in the process of evaluating some 81 new ASCEND contract tiers that have been rolled out in the past year. Most will be accepted.
ASCEND contract review discovered Ingalls inadvertently not linked to Premier in Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics Inc. contract.

Result:

ASCEND savings of more than $579,000 have been identified to date, most of which will be implemented.
Implemented contracts to date have resulted in savings of $377,000.
Linking Ingalls to Premier in the Siemens contract made possible additional savings of $76,000.

"We continue to be impressed with the savings we are seeing from the new ASCEND program tiers. In one category the identified savings is nearly 57 percent. We don’t know for sure what healthcare reform will be, but we know for sure that it will not be higher reimbursement rates. We applaud Premier for taking the bull by the horns and developing a program that ensures that independent hospitals like Ingalls can receive pricing that once was the sole province of large integrated delivery systems."

Harold Richard
Director of materials management Ingalls Health System

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ASCEND® savings are substantial for Ingalls Health System in Illinois

Challenge:

Solution:

Result:

ASCEND® savings are substantial
for Ingalls Health System in Illinois