Meaningful metrics are critical to the process of building a successful supply chain.  Traditional metrics used in hospitals, such as “Supply Expense as a Percentage of Revenue or Total Operating Expense” or Supply Expense per Adjusted Patient Day or per Adjusted Discharge” can be flawed and misleading, because they do not allow credible comparison between facilities. The most frequently used approach to normalize data between facilities – the Case Mix Index – was not created as a supply chain metric and does not provide an accurate reflection of supply expense across different patient populations. 

The Supply Intensity Metric provides the ability to compare supply expense against like facilities. This methodology

• Factors in the actual patients (type, volume, acuity) a hospital treats and the supplies used specifically in these cases; 
• Creates an opportunity for meaningful comparisons of overall supply spend for hospitals nationwide with a similar mix of supply intensive patient populations; 
• Produces meaningful measurements as to the gap of supply spend between an individual hospital and better performing hospitals with a similar mix of patients.

SIM supply expense comparative analysis is a free service MedAssets provides, independent of GPO affiliation.  For more information, and for your free SIM analysis, please fill out the form below: