SAHA negotiates contracts with vendors on behalf of member hospitals, based on needs identified by the various SAHA teams. This way, member hospitals can enjoy cost savings through volume buying via group purchasing contracts, can save the time it takes to compare and evaluate vendors, and can have access to services they may not otherwise be able to afford.
Recent cost-efficiency initiatives include:
- DJ Sullivan Healthcare Consulting, a well know name in Surgical Process Improvement, shared their expertise in enhancing OR efficiency and its overall impact on an organization’s patient safety, quality and staff & patient satisfaction as well as the bottom line, with the SAHA CNO and Operating Room teams. Following this session which focused on block scheduling, over/under booking, on-time first case starts, OR capacity, benchmarking and operational issues faced in an OR on a daily basis, interested SAHA members were offered a 12% discount on Consulting services with Sullivan Healthcare. The initiative has resulted in over $50,000 savings to the membership.
- SAHA signed an agreement with the Athena Forum, an online education tool for Case Managers. As part of this agreement, Athena Forum will grant all case managers access to all 3,000 pages in their online course curriculum during the enrollment period, as well as full access to all 340 CE certificates for RN, SW, ACM and CCM, and full access to all new courses and CE certificates added during the enrollment period. Athena Forum warrants that all CE certificates are accredited from the ANCC (American Nurses Credentialing Center), the NASW (National Association of Social Work) and the CCMC (Certified Case Managers Commission). Members will have access to the Athena Forum at no charge since SAHA is underwriting the cost for this program resulting in savings of over $ 40, 000 to the members.
- SAHA Partnered with Shift-Wizard to provide electronic staff scheduling services to the membership at a discounted rate. Within the first year, members have saved over $100,000 by taking advantage of the discounted pricing.
- Through collaboration with SAHA's GPO partner VHA, members saved $2.8 million and standardized patient footwear, which not only increased savings, but addressed patient safety issues.