GHX Nexus

1. Our solution provides auto validation of client specific content against supplier catalogue information held in our data pool. 

A key component in the design of our content solution is the maintenance workflow.  In our experience, if a hospital is presented with content, of which a large percentage is not relevant to their operation, the updates are ignored.  We have developed our solution so that the hospital is only notified of changes that are relevant.  This has been achieved by linking their customer catalogues to shared data sources (this includes the data pool).  This technique provides the hospital with the visibility they need to conduct effective order management.  They can focus on the delivery of accurate product; contract and price information to demand management systems that are at the start of the supply chain.

The system uses lots of alerts and filters to support this process, typically they include: expired contract items, items with alerts, shared catalogue items, unknown supplier items, unknown QOM, unknown contract items, contract item discrepancies, items with no category.......

The system provides an environment in which both catalogue and contract information can be maintained online or by using the import/export wizard when working with products like Excel.  All changes are made within a staging environment with the confidence of knowing that they will not impact the published items being used by requisitioners.  Only after passing through an approvals process do items become published.

In a customer’s catalogue list, catalogues associated with an engaged supplier are marked by an indicator.  The indicator will turn green if the supplier updates the datapool and one of the changed items exists in a customer catalogue.  The indicator will also turn green if a third party updates a data source and one of the changed items has been shared with the customer catalogue.  Having been notified that updates are pending, the user can pull the changed items into the unpublished section of their customer catalogue within the staging environment.  It is then possible to review the differences between the changed items that reside within the unpublished area with the published items down to a field level.  The changes can then be submitted for approval before being synchronised with the integrated systems.  This change control mechanism is an import quality control step in the maintenance process.

2. The system gives a trust focused visibility of changes being made to content that is shared from various data sources across each of the national, regional and local tiers.

The system uses various methods of contract monitoring.  Filters and informational highlight icons are used on lists to show contracts and items that have alerts and if they are expiring or have expired.

In the design, we have recognized that the order management process needs to be independent from the contract management process as the item needs to be available for selection/scanning whether on contract or not and once the order management process is in play, contract management needs to passively see if it can address any price concerns to provide error free orders. 

The system has a number of lists that are searchable; the keywords searched have been selected based on customer feedback.  An item is returned in the results if the search string is found in any part of the available keywords.

A hospital typically receives content from multiple data sources and a single product may exist in the content supplied by more than one source.  The hospitals virtual item master file is linked to products in other data sources by using the supplier, product code and quantity of measure as the key.  Within a catalogue it’s possible to filter and review products that are being managed by more than one data source.  The data sources that exist can span multiple tiers, including local, regional and national contracts.  Having this visibility will enable the hospital to select the correct data source ensuring the correct contract is being referenced.

It’s also possible to search over all of the published content that exists within the virtual item master from within the shop.  The shop has the standard quick search capable of searching the defined keyword or using an advanced search that enables the user to search for specific information in a specific field.  It is also possible to search for products by moving through the NHS eClass hierarchy.

The system has a number of lists that can be filtered using criteria that is based on customer feedback.  This includes: unknown products, unknown contract, unlinked contract, items with alerts, system specific items...

3. Using the import wizard, a hospital can import supplier contract information combined with the sales order history as a contract view.  This represents the supplier’s interpretation of the contract prices for procured goods. 

The contract view, overlays the hospitals catalogues.  By comparing the catalogue with the supplier’s contract view it’s possible to identify products that should potentially be available for selection when searching the published catalogue and products that have contract/price discrepancies.

Our content management solution actively encourages collaborative partnerships that include an element of content sharing with known partners such as suppliers.  Using the contract views, the supplier is able to work with the hospital to resolve contract/price discrepancies. The supplier can use this common platform to view the hospital content from their perspective by using supplier references to filter and search product information. 

In addition, a hospital can use the import wizard to load supplier information into a catalogue being managed within in the staging environment.  The system will automatically highlight ordered products that are not found in the published catalogue.  If the new products exist on a hospital contract, the system will also show that the new product is associated with a hospital contract. 

4. The GHX products and services are quite unique in our marketplace. 

Both the content and exchange services have been developed specifically to meet the requirements of the NHS.  Key features have been added to address common problems encountered when using standard off the shelf systems.

5.         Our content solution has been designed to facilitate collaborative and shared effort.  The system supports a focused and therefore efficient maintenance process.

Supply chain partners can share a common platform for content validation/cleansing/enrichment.  Each party also has access to a common set of data being maintained in our content repository.

6.         In the design, we have recognized that the order management process needs to be independent from the contract management process as the item needs to be available for selection/scanning whether on contract or not and once the order management process is in play, contract management needs to passively see if it can address any price concerns to provide error free orders. 

 

7.         The continued growth of what we consider to be a content distribution network is a key deliverable in our strategy that is complimented by our exchange services solutions.  We continue to develop a broad range of interfaces to support as many systems and models. 

We now have an extensive list of working models that demonstrate our capabilities.

An organisations trading account can be configured to support the integration/synchronisation with multiple demand management systems.   Each of the products residing in a customer catalogue can be associated with one or more systems by selecting or deselecting a check box.  It is possible to define default settings, so that the correct systems are automatically selected as the catalogue is populated.  It is also possible to export existing content into an application such as Microsoft Excel and manipulate the data for a range of products.  The modified content can then simply be imported back in.  When working within a customer catalogue it’s also possible to use a filter that groups system specific products.   When the content is published the products are automatically grouped using the maintained flags into system specific files that are synchronised with the system via the agreed integration methodology.

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