The North West Collaborative Commercial Agency Selects GHX as its Exclusive Provider for e-Commerce and Content Management

THETFORD, England -

- GHX selected by collaborative purchasing agency to help trusts and other member organisations in the North West of England reduce costs and improve efficiencies

The North West Collaborative Commercial Agency (NW CCA), an award-winning collaborative purchasing agency, has selected GHX as its exclusive provider of e-commerce and content management technology and services for its member organisations. NW CCA works with more than 50 National Health Service organisations in North West England. In addition to making it possible for hospitals and other healthcare providers to transact business electronically with multiple suppliers through a single exchange, GHX will provide technology that NW CCA member organisations can use to more easily and accurately manage all of their relevant contracts in a central location.

With GHX Nexus, hospitals can manage information, including pricing, about contracts negotiated nationally, locally or by NW CCA. By managing this information in a central location, hospitals can more easily access key data and validate it against supplier information. Greater accuracy and better visibility can help reduce costs and improve efficiencies, while helping hospitals identify new contracting opportunities.

The GHX Exchange enables buying and selling organisations to connect to a single exchange and electronically send and receive procurement transactions, including purchase orders, goods received notes and invoices. Connecting through a single exchange can help hospitals and suppliers increase the number of electronic trading partners and reduce costs associated with purchasing and fulfillment. GHX has more than 500 connections to buying organisations in the U.K., which are able to transact business with more than 800 selling organisations. GHX also has operations in North America and on the European continent.

“NW CCA is committed to raising the standards in procurement for the NHS in the North West of England,” says Jan Nangle, the head of e-commerce for NW CCA. “After evaluating numerous options, GHX was the successful bidder because it provided a more complete solution that can be shared by all of our member organisations and has already been proven to work elsewhere in the U.K. and abroad. GHX shares our belief that accurate content is the foundation for the successful implementation of e-procurement and enabling supply chain and procurement transformation.”

GHX Nexus will provide users with a way to more effectively manage the dynamic nature of contract information. They can review and accept changes in a staging environment, more easily search data using a variety of classification hierarchies, including NHS eClass, and view more enriched product data, including images and GS1 codes, from suppliers.

“GHX is proud to be working with an organisation of the stature of NW CCA. Recognised for being a world-class procurement organisation, NW CCA recognises the importance of data synchronisation and collaboration among trading partners,” says GHX Europe Vice President David Kerr. “We all have a common goal to improve the efficacy and efficiency of healthcare, and working together - suppliers, hospitals and purchasing agencies - is the best way to achieve that objective.”

About GHX

GHX UK Ltd. (GHX) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Global Healthcare Exchange, LLC, which enables healthcare providers and suppliers in North America and Europe to reduce costs and improve margins by automating processes, reducing operating expenses and increasing knowledge-based decision making. Products and services include trading partner connectivity, order and contract management and validation, data synchronisation, sales force automation and business intelligence. Equity owners of Global Healthcare Exchange, LLC are Abbott Exchange, Inc.; AmerisourceBergen Corp.; Baxter Healthcare Corp.; B. Braun Medical Inc.; BD; Boston Scientific Corp.; Cardinal Health, Inc.; Covidien; C.R. Bard, Inc.; Fisher Scientific International, Inc.; GE Healthcare; HCA; Johnson & Johnson Health Care Systems Inc.; McKesson Corp.; Medtronic USA, Inc.; Owens & Minor; Premier, Inc.; Siemens; University HealthSystem Consortium; and VHA Inc. For more information, visit www.ghx.com.

Source: GHX

Jason Hale, Head of Professional Services (UK) of GHX Europe, +44 (0)1842-760804, Jason.hale at ghxeurope.com, or Karen Conway, Director, Industry Communications of GHX, Cell, +1-303-564-2147, or Voicemail, +1-720-887-7215, kconway at ghx.com; or Jan Nangle, Head of eCommerce of NW CCA, +44-0161-212-3727, Jan.nangle at nwcca.nhs.uk