Collaborating for improved patient outcomes at AHSPO conference

Representatives from HSV’s Procurement and Logistics business areas were pleased to attend the recent Association of Healthcare Supply and Procurement Officers (AHSPO) conference at Lorne.

AHSPO enables procurement, supply chain, and clinical product professionals from across the sector to come together to learn about innovations, products and practices, which can all lead to improved outcomes for patients.

Strengthening relationships with our stakeholders is an important area of focus for HSV, and the conference provided a valuable opportunity for the group to meet with some of our customers face to face to receive feedback and answer questions.

Craig Fraser, Chief Executive Officer of South West Healthcare, opened the conference and reiterated the importance of forming connections to foster collaboration.

“For health services, having members of the HealthShare Victoria (HSV) team attend events like AHSPO is important for collaboration and growing their knowledge about what works well for health services.,” says Craig.

“It establishes HSV as a partner Victorian health services can work with to discuss and resolve challenges and share ideas. We see HSV as a growing and integral part of the health sector that is connected to the new era of local health service networks,” he says.

This year, HSV’s Clinical Product Advisors (CPAs) again joined CPAs from Victorian health services for the opening event – the Clinical Product Advisor group (CPAG) roundtable and workshop.

The roundtable gives CPAs the opportunity to come together to hear about initiatives from health services across the state as well as share ideas and learnings. An update from the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) on the mandatory reporting of medical device adverse events was included in the agenda, with the CPAs able to ask questions and provide feedback. A highlight was a supplier tradeshow – which gave the CPAs an exclusive opportunity to talk to suppliers and look at new products before the conference’s main trade show.

This year AHSPO acknowledged the importance of the CPA role with presentations from Victorian Department of Health Clinical Product Evaluator Sue MacCallum and Gold Coast University Hospital CPA Kate Hahn.

The HSV group was particularly keen to meet Sue, who was the first CPA in Victoria and one of the foundation team members of Health Purchasing Victoria (now HSV).

“Sue talked about how far the CPA role has come since its inception in 1990, when there was no internet and calculators were used for data analysis. CPAs were at the forefront of responding to new challenges including the discovery of latex sensitivity and the release of the Australian and New Zealand standard for reprocessing reusable medical devices in healthcare settings,” says Clinical Product Manager Diana Skratulja.

“Kate spoke about the importance of clinician engagement in procurement decisions – something we value highly at HSV.

CPAs are evaluating products and making decisions daily that help to improve patient outcomes and deliver best value,” she says.

CPAs from Victorian health services will meet again to share ideas at the HSV-hosted CPA Symposium, to be held on 27 November 2025. Invitations will be sent in the coming months.

Top image: Attendees at the opening event at AHSPO, the Clinical Product Advisor group (CPAG) roundtable and workshop.