PITTSBURGH, Jan. 23 - In a bold effort to reduce supply chain costs while challenging conventional health care practices, UPMC has successfully moved all of its electronic transactions with suppliers to an electronic data interchange (EDI) solution from Toreion Corp. of Ontario, Canada.
"Toreion's innovative platform makes it easy and cost-effective for suppliers to do business with us electronically, and it allows our vendors to avoid the high costs of using the standard health care-only exchange," said James Szilagy, chief supply chain officer at UPMC. "With Toreion, we are proving that electronic data exchange in health care should be viewed and priced as a commodity, as it is in other established industries, allowing us to focus even more of our resources on world-class patient care."
With Toreion's flexible solution, UPMC and its suppliers can exchange data through a variety of methods instead of being forced through a health care-only hub. Particularly for suppliers that primarily serve non-health care customers, this approach can avoid the duplication and additional costs of processing transactions through the kind of health care-only EDI platform that is typical in the industry.
Toreion's technology improves efficiency at UPMC by providing automated email reminders that help track supplier acknowledgments of dispatched purchase orders. Customized reports are sent daily to UPMC's buyers, including information on back-orders, price changes and out-of-stock situations, enabling supply chain staff to focus real-time on critical activities without having to use multiple websites and passwords. Additionally, Toreion's technology allows suppliers to electronically submit invoices according to customer-specific standards, eliminating paper documents and processing costs.
Based on the savings and improved functionality achieved at UPMC, privately held Toreion and Prodigo Solutions LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of UPMC, have entered into a co-development and marketing relationship to provide similar benefits to others in the health care industry.
"We are excited to count UPMC, with its global reputation for innovation and supply chain expertise, among our customers. Together, we will ensure that Toreion's technology continues to meet the rapidly changing needs of health care providers so that they can better serve their patients," said Marlin Doner, vice president of corporate development at Toreion.
# # #
About Toreion
Toreion software solutions help companies drive performance through improved information exchange. Toreion overcomes the biggest technical barrier to enterprise performance - the integration and transmission of data across disparate business information systems and networks. Toreion's Application Framework exposes functional building blocks to external applications and data services using standard networking protocols that are independent from host operating environments or back-office systems. Toreion technology can extend application functionality or wrap around existing legacy systems to provide flexible messaging capability. Coupled with an extensive e-commerce value-added network for trading partners and mobile application network for remote users, Toreion gets your data working for you - wherever you are! For more information, visit www.toreion.com.
About UPMC
UPMC is a $9 billion global health enterprise with more than 54,000 employees headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pa., and is transforming health care by integrating more than 20 hospitals, 400 doctors' offices and outpatient sites, a health insurance services division, and international and commercial services. Affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences, UPMC is redefining health care by using innovative science, technology, and medicine to invent new models of accountable, cost-efficient, and patient-centered care. For more information on how UPMC is taking medicine from where it is to where it needs to be, go to www.UPMC.com.