dark haired woman looking at graph on computer screen

Behind the Innovation: Valify Insights

With thousands of categories and vendors, hospital spending on purchased services can be significant. Yet, the data needed to manage these costs is often opaque and fragmented, making it difficult for organizations to spot trends and identify savings opportunities.

Valify’s advanced technology platform directly addresses this challenge with the introduction of Valify Insights.

“Valify Insights was born out of a need to look deeper at what triggers and constitutes a savings opportunity in purchased services,” said Les Popiolek, Chief Executive Officer of Valify. “Our goal is to cut through the complexity and make data analysis both simple and sophisticated for hospitals and health systems.”

hands working at table with tablet displaying graphs

By applying a quantitative approach, Valify Insights enables healthcare organizations to quickly pinpoint where savings in purchased services exist, prioritize which areas to address, and estimate the potential value of these opportunities. Whether it’s confirming that current cost-saving efforts are on track or revealing unexpected opportunities to reduce spending with specific vendors or categories, Valify Insights brings simplicity, clarity and actionable insights to the decision-making process.

 

The Power Behind Valify Insights

Valify Insights is powered by two core technologies.

The first being Valify’s proprietary technology and data intelligence platform focused exclusively on purchased services, which the company has been operating for more than a decade. Today, Valify has amassed and processed billions of rows of data from more than 1,400 hospitals across the nation, representing over $1.3 trillion in categorized purchased services spend.

As Popiolek put it, “I can say with great confidence that no one else has the sheer volume of data we do and can analyze it in such meaningful ways like our technology can.”

Purchased services data is complex. There are dozens of details – like contracts, invoices, vendors, hospitals, and time periods – that can be used to examine how, where and when money is spent. This creates a daunting number of ways that hospitals and health systems can analyze the past and present of their purchased services spend.

people pointing at sheet of paper displaying data

This is where AI comes in as the second technology core to Valify Insights. While adhering to strict data security and compliance standards, Valify Insights leverages AI to rapidly automate, interpret and digest all the data into something actionable.

For instance, the Valify Score – a pivotal feature within Valify Insights – evaluates data across numerous attributes (not just cost) to assign a score to each service category a hospital outsources, showing which categories require urgent action and which can be addressed later. Moreover, AI continually updates Valify Scores as new spending data becomes available, offering real-time guidance to support cost-saving initiatives.

 

A GPS to Value

Purchased services are usually managed at the hospital or even department level – rarely are they managed across a system. This can lead to missed opportunities if not using technology and data to connect the dots.

If a health network looks at its holistic purchased services spend, it could appear that the organization reduced total spend in a certain category. Valify Insights can peel back the layers and see that at certain hospitals within the system, spend has actually increased – prompting the question about why this is happening, which could be because each hospital is using a different vendor or there aren’t consistent contracts in place.

“Valify Insights provides clarity as to what is happening with a health system’s purchased services spend, so more can be uncovered as to why it is happening,” said Popiolek.

However, the real value hospitals and health systems gain from Valify Insights is what they choose to do with the data.

“Valify Insights is like a GPS system for driving value in purchased services management,” Popiolek explained. “The route you take to get to your destination is up to you. In other words, it’s what you do with the data that truly makes a difference.”

Clients should know that with its end-to-end suite of services, Valify is fully equipped to help them transition their insights into an action plan. This includes benchmarking services, expert advisory consultants, and access to a preferred supplier network portfolio with pre-negotiated supplier terms and vendors that have already passed a rigorous RFP process. In fact, Valify can manage purchased services initiatives and programs from start to finish.

 

Unmatched in the Industry

Valify Insights can be the driving force behind how health systems set their purchased services priorities. With data from hospitals across the nation and of all GPO affiliations, subscribers have an unfound gateway to create greater value and procure quality outsourced services for their organizations.

“The speed and depth of insights we provide is unequivocally unmatched in the industry,” Popiolek emphasized. “I’m confident that no other company in the market can provide the insights we do, and I challenge anyone to try.”


Take control of your purchased services strategy today. Contact us to learn how Valify Insights can help you uncover new savings opportunities.

Staffing Locum Tenens Webinar

Key Takeaways: Locum Tenens Webinar

Key takeaways from recent webinar on Dialysis coming soon!


A large percentage of a hospitals overall cost structure is comprised of staffing and related payroll. Yet, the outsourced staffing industry does not maintain adequate transparency when it comes to managing costs to the end users, making price assessments difficult for health systems.

Below we’ve compiled the key takeaways from our recent educational webinar in which we provide information for health systems to more easily assess pricing and best practices when evaluating Staffing and Locum Tenens vendors. Read the synopsis below.

Click here to request the full webinar recording.

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Also check out our in-depth articles on Staffing and Locum Tenens for additional background information.

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Market Analysis: Dialysis

Market Analysis: Dialysis

Dialysis is a necessary procedure that allows nearly 500,000 patients in the United States with kidney failure the opportunity to live normal, productive lives. The treatment removes waste, salt, and extra water when the native kidneys are no longer able. Though there are several types of dialysis, the most common is Hemodialysis, in which blood is removed from the body, run through a dialyzer, cleaned, and replaced into the body. Dialysis takes three hours to complete and is offered by health systems as inpatient and outpatient treatments.

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Category Deep Dive Locum Tenens

Category Deep Dive Locum Tenens: Are You Realizing Savings in this Purchased Service?

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To ensure there’s no disruption to patient care or billable services, covering open, or even absent, healthcare positions is critical. According to Select International, a position vacancy for one physician can translate to an annual loss of $250,000 to $1.4 million.[1] Cost efficient staffing strategies must be in place to keep services and revenue flowing. In our previous post, we discussed the opportunities for cost-containment in staffing. This post, however, will focus on a specific part of staffing–locum tenens.

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Category Snapshot Staffing

Category Snapshot Staffing: A Big Opportunity for Cost-Containment

 

A report by Kaufman, Hall & Associates revealed that the number of hospital mergers and acquisitions increased 55%, from 66 announced in 2010, to 102 in 2016.[1] Last year also saw a flurry of mergers nationwide, from Kansas to New Jersey, with healthcare systems around the country consolidating in order to maintain their financial viability in an era of legislative uncertainty  and marketplace volatility. Both independent and newly acquired hospitals are actively seeking areas for cost-containment to strengthen their bottom lines. One way to do this is to closely examine all purchased services expense categories (over 1,200!) for hidden savings opportunities. In this post, we’ll discuss, specifically, the category of staffing and what to look for when researching this category. 

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Power Benchmarking

How to Benchmark Your Capital Equipment Service Contract Spend

capital-equipment

Investment in capital equipment is a decision that shouldnt be made lightly, particularly for health care organizations. There are many factors to consider when selecting equipment that best suits your needs, with the bottom line being the consideration of total lifetime costs associated with its use. Other factors may include: Continue reading

Waste Management

A Closer Look at Savings in Hospital Waste Management

Hospital waste management is a system more complex than it first seems, involving a complicated group of disposal methods that can increase the burden of healthcare logistics on any organization. When it comes to different types of waste, healthcare facilities must use a strict set of guidelines to dictate the appropriate way to dispose of waste safely and effectively.

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Hospital Document Printing

Hospital Document Management Part 5: Document Printing

In previous posts of this series, we learned about why hospital document management matters and talked about three of the four main categories of healthcare document management:

Storage

Scanning

Shredding

Today’s post focuses on the last aspect of healthcare document management: printing.

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Reference Lab

Reference Labs: Choosing a Primary Vendor

reference-lab

Do you know how many reference labs your hospital is using? If its a question you havent considered, youre not alone: most hospital executives arent aware of how many reference labs their hospitals rely on. We pulled the average number of reference labs being used across the 60+ hospitals within Valify, and Im surprised to inform you that its 15 unique vendors.

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