Improving product substitution for Victoria’s health services

A new HealthShare Victoria (HSV) initiative will help improve the usefulness and accessibility of existing research on functional product equivalents, while extending the lifecycle of the data for Victoria’s public health services.

HSV regularly initiates or renews contracts to purchase health equipment and consumables, supported by Clinical Product Advisors (CPAs) and a product reference group (PRG) who identify functional product equivalents.

Recently, clinicians and the PRG for HSV’s Skin Integrity Consumables contract confirmed functional equivalent products for that category, identifying 99 product groups containing 373 contracted items as functionally equivalent.

HSV and the PRG have worked together on an innovative approach that has developed a system to make this information available to Victorian public health services using each product group’s Functional Equivalent Identifier (FID).

All Victorian health services can now search for an item’s FID number and equivalent products in the pricing schedules for the Skin Integrity Consumables. Health services with access to HSV’s new Oracle Financial Management Information System (FMIS) can also search for FIDs through FMIS.

The trial’s next stage will see data added to the Victorian Product Catalogue. As more contracts are awarded or more functional equivalents identified, FID data will be added progressively to the system for each category.

“This is a big, exciting step forward,” says Sandra Ireland, Deputy Director of Procurement.

“When HSV takes a category back to market, we won’t have to start from scratch each time. Most importantly, this project will improve efficiency for health services day-to-day.”

The Skin Integrity Consumables contract is the first to have FIDs confirmed and the next step for this project is to extend the function to other upcoming contracts. Plans are underway to expand the offer to the Enteral Feeds and Oral Nutrition contract, with work ongoing to add useful FID data to HSV’s systems for use by health services.

HSV Chief Executive Neil Rodaway says working with health services to trial new ideas is an important part of improving access to products as part of end-to-end supply chain management.

“Not all of the ideas will work the first time but, importantly, some will and may have even more benefit than originally imagined. This particular initiative still has a very long way to go but it’s a very encouraging first step.”

How Clinical Product Advisors improve clinical selections

Predominantly from nursing backgrounds, Clinical Product Advisers (CPAs) work in health services and have first-hand experience using products in a clinical setting. As part of the procurement process, they produce a report identifying functional equivalent products. These products are verified and validated manually by experienced clinicians, providing superior product selections in comparison to recommendations from suppliers or automated IT systems.