University of Twente Student Theses

Login

Stronger together? A study on the ways to quantify savings achieved by collective procurement in organizations for nursing, care, and homecare.

Koers, Martijn (2021) Stronger together? A study on the ways to quantify savings achieved by collective procurement in organizations for nursing, care, and homecare.

[img] PDF
754kB
Abstract:Introduction: Many healthcare organizations in the Dutch sector for nursing, care, and homecare (VVT: Verpleging, Verzorging en Thuiszorg) engage in collective procurement: Bundling their purchasing volumes to get better prices and reach other beneficial effects. Most of the smaller VVT-organizations have but small purchasing departments, if any. This makes it a challenge to spend time to invest in stronger relationships with fellow VVT-organizations and makes it even harder to have an objective way of quantifying savings that might occur. The aim of this study is to find objective ways of quantifying savings that are achieved by collective procurement. Methods: A literature study has been conducted that found no clear-cut method. However, many organizations might keep track of their savings in some way, which is why interviews with purchasers and experts in the field were conducted to gather information from practice. These interviews were semi-structured to allow elaboration. 5 purchasers and 2 experts were asked about their experiences and procedures. Results: Results showed that respondents are indeed interested in more insight in savings due to collective purchasing. Most purchasers have their own way of keeping track of discounts and savings. However, they are lacking in time to be able to effectively do this and there is no clear-cut method to do such an analysis. A solution to this was offered, in the shape of categorizing spend and expressing it as spend per Euro of revenue. This is the most promising method of quantifying savings. Conclusion: Concluding, there are but few ways in which savings achieved by collective procurement can be effectively measured and quantified. The most promising one is categorizing spend and expressing it as spend per Euro of revenue or per patient or per employee. This makes comparing organizations of different sizes possible. Further research: Further research should focus on gaining more insights in the proposed method and put it into practice to investigate whether it is indeed a reliable way of quantifying savings. Having a validated and clear method to apply to most situations can help organizations stimulate their engaging in collective procurement and in the end be able to have better insight in their savings. Never focusing on cost minimization, but always on value maximization for patients.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Faculty:TNW: Science and Technology
Subject:44 medicine, 70 social sciences in general, 85 business administration, organizational science
Programme:Health Sciences MSc (66851)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/86321
Export this item as:BibTeX
EndNote
HTML Citation
Reference Manager

 

Repository Staff Only: item control page