Horizon Health saves $600K without cutting beds or staff
Eileen MacGibbon says they have achieved big savings by changing the way they buy supplies
Horizon Health Network expects to save taxpayers $600,000 this year by changing the way supplies for operating rooms in its four largest hospitals are purchased, according to an official.
Eileen MacGibbon, the program director for surgery, anaesthetics and ICU, says in the past the hospitals in Moncton, Miramichi, Fredericton and Saint John were each buying their supplies separately.
"We reviewed absolutely everything associated with our spend in the operating rooms to ensure that all of the big cost areas are reviewed to look for opportunities," she said.
In many cases, a committee set up to look at costs, found each hospital was paying a different price for the same item.
MacGibbon says some of the biggest savings have come from sending items such as disposable surgical blades to be reprocessed so they can then be used again.
"Hospitals are able to buy back these products because they will reprocess them and you can buy them back at 30 to 50 per cent of the purchase price, so it's a huge opportunity for hospitals to save money," she says.
MacGibbon says physicians have been involved and have been supportive of the purchasing changes undertaken by the health authority.
She says there are plans to continue looking into other departments of the hospitals to find further savings.
"A lot of the processes we've designed and now implemented ... can be used across the system," she says.
According to Horizon Health, New Brunswick currently spends $4,093 per person on health care, which is approximately $223 more than the national average.
In a news release, Horizon says it expects to see savings in Fredericton of $131,427 this year, $67,406 in Miramichi, $145,374 in Moncton and $256,804 in Saint John.