Meperia, within weeks of the pandemic, released a Free Resource Guide: Critical Supplies with Functional Alternatives for our customers as well as the entire healthcare industry. The resource guide is intended to be leveraged for sourcing activities and identification of alternative products and channels so providers can continue to serve patients without interruption.
COVID19 disrupted the market in a way that healthcare had not seen before. Hospitals were left scrambling for products, particularly PPE to protect their staff. The industry was not able to keep up on allocations and some providers were left to Google to source products. The Meperia team saw an opportunity to support and elevate the supply chain process, so we jumped right in.
Our resource guide is a source of rich functional equivalent products, sorted into item families for ease of access. We chose the products we released based on the items necessary for the support and care of a patient with a viral pneumonia-one that is spread with droplet precautions in mind.
The Meperia AI engine produces unlimited product attribution. We are fortunate to have the capabilities to weigh the attribution and create functional item families. This enables a provider to level the playing field and evaluate an item based on the attributes that matter clinically. This minimizes the effort for sourcing, increases the accuracy, and frees up time for more strategic activities.
Another key objective for Meperia during COVID, was to support our customers in stopping the overpayment of products and the variation in product pricing. We could help them source, now we needed to help them control costs on those essential items. Strategic Sourcing provides on-demand access to data-driven immediate decisions. Our Client Services team, all six-sigma certified, supported customers in driving standardized pricing and visibility to spend. Our customer, in turn, created custom COVID contracts, prohibiting contract overpayment and price variance. A true win-win!
Our resource guide is still available, and you can find it on our COVID-19 Alternative Sourcing webpage. Allow it to do the work for you, sorting through the noise, and identifying critical products. It is in an excel format, making it user-friendly. For help in using the guide, feel free to reach out by emailing moreinfo@meperia.com and we will gladly set up a call to review.
About the Author
Kerry Bradford has 30 years of experience in the healthcare space including her current role with Meperia as Vice President of Client Services. Prior to Meperia, Kerry held several significant roles including with Allscripts and McKesson. After leaving the hospital setting Kerry spent time providing supply chain and clinical consulting services which eventually led to her current career path.