St. Luke's Episcopal Health System Selects Broadlane To Provide Array Of Supply Chain Services

Broadlane announced recently the signing of an exclusive five-year agreement with St. Luke's Episcopal Health System, a church-governed, non-profit health system in Houston, Texas. The agreement will deliver a comprehensive and advanced supply chain management solution, customized specifically for St. Luke's and designed for the system's $200M annual spend. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

St. Luke's will have full access to Broadlane's national contract portfolio, and Broadlane will assume day-to-day responsibility for all St. Luke's supply chain operations and management of Value Analysis Teams (VAT). In addition, St. Luke's will utilize Broadlane's Procurement Services, which includes centralized management of the purchasing functions and Item Master Maintenance. Broadlane's proprietary technology, including OnRamp (Broadlane's client portal) and BroadLink (Broadlane's e-commerce exchange), will be utilized to streamline the purchasing processes.

In addition to Broadlane's national contract portfolio, St. Luke's will also utilize Broadlane for local strategic sourcing for consumable supplies and purchased services. Broadlane will also provide comprehensive Capital Equipment Services, including Live Group Buys and Quote Reviews.

St. Luke's supply spend will grow due to planned system expansion and expects to reap significant process improvement and cost savings from the partnership with Broadlane. The expansion includes the addition of a 170-bed hospital in Clear Lake, a 100-bed hospital in Sugar Land, a 30-bed facility on the St. Luke's Community Medical Center - The Woodlands (WCMC) campus, and 90 additional beds to the existing St. Luke's WCMC. This agreement does not include the Kelsey-Seybold Clinics.

Over the past year, St. Luke's leaders conducted a detailed assessment of the system's current supply chain management operation. While performance was exceeding many industry benchmarks, there were opportunities for improvements from a more integrated, technology-driven approach via centralized procurement, contract and data management, coupled with a robust value analysis process, involving physicians and other clinicians.

"When we began this selection process, our goal was to completely revitalize the supply chain," said Steve Pickett, senior vice president and chief financial officer, St. Luke's Episcopal Health System. "While we invited other GPOs to participate in the due diligence process, Broadlane clearly stood out as the one focused on driving our system costs down and in helping us build a leading-edge supply chain organization, providing long-term support for our growing system. They have demonstrated their ability to drive costs down in their client's supply chains through their unique business model."

"We are pleased to have St. Luke's as a client," said Charles Saunders, M.D., chairman and chief executive officer. "Their reputation as a pioneer in medicine and commitment to being a high-performance health system aligns well with our mission. Our highly-efficient, centralized purchasing, strong national contract portfolio and custom service offerings will provide them with quantifiable savings and improved supply chain performance, while aligning supply chain goals with their clinical programs. Broadlane has developed the technology platform to manage services for multi-location health systems, and St. Luke's will have real-time visibility into system-wide spending and the ability to manage it."

About St. Luke's Episcopal Health System
St. Luke's Episcopal Health System comprises the flagship St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital in the Texas Medical Center, founded in 1954 by the Episcopal Diocese of Texas; St. Luke's Community Medical Center–The Woodlands; St. Luke's Episcopal Health Charities, a charity devoted to assessing and enhancing community health, especially among the underserved; and Kelsey-Seybold Management, LLP, overseeing 18 area clinic locations. St. Luke's Sugar Land Hospital is under construction, scheduled to open in 2008, and St. Luke's Clear Lake will open in 2011. St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital is home to the Texas Heart Institute, founded in 1962 by Denton A. Cooley, MD, and is consistently ranked among the top 10 cardiology and heart surgery centers in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Affiliated with several nursing schools and two medical schools, St. Luke's serves as the primary adult teaching hospital for Baylor College of Medicine. St. Luke's was the first hospital in Texas named a Magnet hospital for nursing excellence, and the Health System has been recognized by FORTUNE as among "100 Best Companies to Work For" and by Houston Business Journal as a top employer in Houston.

About Broadlane
Broadlane is a leading supply chain services company serving thousands of acute care hospitals, ambulatory care facilities, physician practices and other healthcare providers throughout the United States. Broadlane provides comprehensive supply chain services including:

• High-powered national & custom contracting
• Innovative procurement services & technology
• Informatics – benchmarking, analytics and reporting
• Deep clinical & operational expertise
• "High-touch" client service

Broadlane's clients include leading providers such as Advocate Health Care, Ascension Health, CHRISTUS Health, Continuum Health Partners, Kaiser Permanente, Kindred Healthcare, MedCath Corporation, New Hanover Regional Medical Center, Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Health System, St. Luke's Episcopal Health System, Tenet Healthcare, The Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati, Universal Health Services, US Oncology, UMass Memorial Health Care and William Beaumont Hospitals.

The company is headquartered in Dallas with offices in California, New York and Ohio. For more information, visit www.broadlane.com.

SOURCE: Broadlane