Menu planning group buy delivers value for regional health services

A menu planning system group buy coordinated by HealthShare Victoria (HSV) has helped significantly reduce costs and duplication of effort for the 12 regional health services involved. 

Western District Health Service (WDHS) Group Manager Support Services John Hedley says the group buy enabled their service to upgrade an aging and inefficient menu system. 

“A number of services in the Barwon South West Catering working group were interested in procuring menu systems and we approached HSV about leading the process and raising awareness statewide.” 

“As well as securing significant cost savings, HSV also made a complex tender process easier and more efficient, allowing us to redirect valuable time and resources to other priorities”, says John Hedley. 

“Our health service has a strong focus on procurement processes and we value our partnership with HSV,” he says. 

HSV organised a thorough scope that met all the complexities of the different food services, managed the tender process and completed final negotiations with the preferred tenderer. 

HSV Head of Sourcing – IT John McKinlay led the process, which was tailored to the needs of regional services. 

“This type of sourcing activity can be particularly effective for groups of public health services in regional and rural areas as their requirements can be quite different to metropolitan services,” says John McKinlay. 

“By working together, we are able to enhance the sector’s collective buying power, create greater incentives for suppliers and reduce duplication of effort,” he says. 

The group buy achieved substantial savings on the initial system cost for the health services involved, as well as ongoing savings for associated costs including license fees, implementation, training and support.   

A number of the regional services involved in the group buy had previously investigated menu planning systems, however costs to implement them individually were prohibitive. Ranging from 30 to 80 per cent, the savings identified and realised have proven how working together we can at times identify benefits that will cover our costs of change. 

The opportunity HSV provided was open to all health services interested in procuring an automated digital menu planning system.