ECRI Institute has released TruVu for Supplies, the newest addition to its broad suite of technology decision-making solutions for healthcare providers. TruVu, already proven to accelerate and improve complex decision making for the purchase of high cost capital equipment, now has expanded its functionality to include supplies, instruments, and implantable products.
“TruVu now enables hospital value analysis committees to reach consensus far more quickly and easily on their supply-side purchases, actually visualizing the value analysis process together in one common, interactive platform,” says Tim Browne, director of ECRI Institute’s PriceGuide service.
The TruVu tool weighs the decision criteria of all key stakeholders involved in the value analysis process in real time, in one simple, shared application that shows current data specifications, financial considerations, physician preferences, and product recalls or safety issues related to a product under consideration.
Users can quickly compare accurate, up-to-date price benchmarks and functional equivalency on supplies and physician preference items, and play out “if, then” scenarios to see the immediate impact of a change to a product feature on a purchasing decision.
For example, a hospital faced with deciding among 15 different human mesh products for breast reconstruction procedures used TruVu for Supplies to help identify the two best products for their needs, with the greatest benefit and least risk. By standardizing on two products, the hospital simplified the selection process and took advantage of greater volume discounts.
“TruVu arms our members with the information they need to reach critical decisions together, and become more informed when entering into vendor negotiations,” says Browne. Recent projects analyzed commodities, such as examination gowns, as well as physician preference items like shoulder replacements and mesh products.
