Suppliers, distributors, and healthcare providers each operate their own IT systems to manage supply chain processes. These separate systems hinder data sharing and reduce the likelihood of true interoperability. However, interoperability — where data flows seamlessly across systems, allowing all stakeholders to be ‘on the same page’ to make data-driven procurement decisions — is critical to preventing supply chain delays that could undermine patient outcomes.

“Procurement is necessary to get the right supplies to the right people at the right time to provide extraordinary care,” said Dr. Michael Ash, president and chief operating officer at Nebraska Medicine, a comprehensive health network with two major hospitals, more than 1,000 doctors, and 40 clinics in the Omaha area. “Anyone who lived through COVID and was in healthcare at that time realized how mission-critical supplies were.”

Today, health systems have the opportunity to streamline the procurement process and help their teams work efficiently throughout the procurement-to-pay journey. Here, we’ll delve into how three top healthcare organizations achieved procurement interoperability and share actionable takeaways to help you build those connections within your health system.

Build internal alignment to accelerate transformation

Ultimately, the success of any transformation project relies on buy-in from the end users, both clinical and nonclinical staff. Nebraska Medicine set its initiative up for success by focusing on operational readiness. 

Initially, the sourcing process for non-contracted, high-volume, low-dollar items was fragmented and costly, involving manual purchase orders, rogue spending on p-cards, and extensive backend administrative work. “In procurement, we're a non-revenue department, so we run pretty lean, and we have a pretty lean team. Ultimately, our ability to provide increased value to the organization is our time,” says Rick Daubenmeier, strategic partnerships and value analysis at Nebraska Medicine. Recognizing that this manual approach was consuming valuable time and resources, the Nebraska Medicine leadership team sought a solution to streamline operations. 

Crucially, the team secured early buy-in from financial and marketing leadership to access the necessary internal resources for the project. “The process was seamless and very well thought out,” says Daubenmeier. The resulting Punchout integration with their existing Workday ERP system transformed a previously manual, 35-minute-per-order process into a streamlined, digital workflow. This new system, enhanced by features like Guided Buying, gave Nebraska Medicine critical control over purchases, ensuring that only compliant products were procured through the platform. This was a non-negotiable for patient safety, as it prevented unvetted products from entering the clinical environment. “My team always keeps in mind that behind every purchase order is a patient depending on us. Amazon Business was key to moving this standard forward,” stated Daubenmeier.

Replicate their success:

Begin transformation initiatives by aligning stakeholders and securing leadership support. Early buy-in can reduce resistance, facilitate adoption, and speed up implementation.

Identify the right partners with supplier performance data

Healthcare organizations rightfully demand excellence from their suppliers. Delays aren’t just operational challenges; they impact patient care. Finding reliable suppliers is crucial to delivering high-quality care.

“When we’re looking for strategic alliances, we have to look at whether it’s a cultural fit, and do they provide us with service that’s a higher quality, that’s more efficient and provides a better experience for our care teams,” explained Dr. Ash. “Then we hold them accountable, making sure they’re doing what they said they would in a way that’s cost-effective.”

Procurement interoperability, however, was key to tracking and measuring supplier performance. As a baseline, interconnected systems enabled Nebraska Medicine to gain real-time visibility into procurement activities and inventory. The implementation of Amazon Business Analytics provided deeper visibility into historical spending patterns, offering insights into supplier performance and allowing the team to identify their most trusted suppliers — and strengthen supplier relationships to support reliable care delivery. Finally, by reducing the number of vendors and streamlining transactions, the team freed up valuable time to focus on more strategic, high-value negotiations for critical medical supplies. 

Replicate their success:

Set tracking supplier performance as a key objective for procurement interoperability. Consider creating performance evaluation matrices for both current and prospective vendors, focusing on which attributes are most important to your health system. Then choose solutions that let you spot top performers and address underperforming suppliers, so you can refine your procurement strategy accordingly.  

Centralize purchasing to improve visibility and oversight

Achieving procurement interoperability requires breaking down data siloes that impede visibility. This can significantly improve efficiency and, ultimately, enhance the quality of care.

Heartland Dental, a world-class dental support organization with more than 1,900 supported offices, experienced such benefits when it streamlined its procurement processes with Amazon Business. 

After record growth in 2023, Heartland Dental realized that rogue Amazon and Amazon Business accounts were accumulating across its support network. In the absence of a central procurement management system, procurement teams found it difficult to streamline processes, achieve visibility into tail spend purchasing, and pursue volume discounts when possible. “Fragmented spend led to inefficiencies in purchasing and accounting and resulted in limited visibility into overall expenditures,” summarized Angelina Davito, senior director of strategic sourcing at Heartland Dental.

With Amazon Business, Heartland Dental centralized its procurement process for approximately 20,000 employees. “By transitioning to Amazon Business and integrating this purchasing environment into our existing systems and processes, we have begun to add more categories of spend and are now well-positioned to scale efficiently for the benefit of our growing supported practices,” said Davito. 

Replicate their success:

Greater visibility brings many advantages, including the ability to design more user-friendly workflows along the procure-to-pay journey. Use insights from increased visibility to understand non-compliant spend and create workflows that guide employees toward compliant purchasing.

Lead change with structured onboarding and rollout

Ultimately, the success of procurement interoperability initiatives depends on the end users. Solutions should be easy to use and readily adopted by the team to be most effective. User onboarding was a key priority for Sinceri Senior Living, which operates more than 130 communities across 27 states.

Sinceri worked closely with Amazon Business representatives to implement a phased onboarding approach. Executive directors from each community handled approvals, while business office managers focused on placing orders. The team trained both groups first to facilitate adoption. 

From there, they focused on training managers and staff to use the solutions effectively — empowering their teams to discuss procurement opportunities and overcome challenges together. “The rollout and whole implementation have been very smooth,” said Jaimie Steensen, Sinceri’s national director of procurement and purchasing. “This has been the best rollout with a vendor that I have had in my over 10 years of working with vendors – it [was] so straightforward.” And the results are difficult to ignore: “Everyone is less siloed, and we’re working as a team,” concluded Steensen.

Replicate their success:

Lay the foundation for a smooth rollout with a phased approach to training and onboarding. This helps leaders set the tone, guide their teams through change, and support efficient onboarding.

Procurement interoperability: A strategic imperative

As health systems seek to optimize operations while maintaining exceptional standards of care, procurement interoperability is becoming a strategic necessity. 

“We constantly need to be looking for innovative ways to do things with strategic partners that allow us to focus on our core business,” said Dr. Ash. “You not only need a partner that’s meeting the needs of today, but is constantly innovating and working with you to understand what they can do to make you better.”

As these organizations demonstrate, interoperability is now a competitive and operational necessity. 

Amazon Business supports healthcare leaders with broad supply access, simplified purchasing, and more efficient procurement. To learn more, visit us online.