San Diego Union-Tribune: Locally Grown Health Purchasing Network has National Impact

The San Diego Union-Tribune today published a piece on locally based group purchasing organization (GPO) Council Connections, which was founded in 1979 as a way to pool the purchasing power of community clinics that provide access to quality health care for low income and uninsured populations. Today Council Connections has more than 1,500 members in 45 states and Puerto Rico. Council Connections executive director Sparkle Barnes and founder Stephen Shubert shared with the San Diego Union-Tribune the core mission of Council Connections and the factors to which they attribute the growing success of this GPO:

Like other group purchasing organizations, what Council Connections does, at its simplest, is aggregate the purchasing power of its members. It’s simple economics of scale: Buy more widgets and you’ll get a lower price.

“Our mission is to save our members money so that they can provide health care at a lower cost,” Barnes said.

Discounts are available for things like office supplies, medicine and medical supplies but also services such as technology consulting, dental services and even background checks.

“There’s almost nothing that a member couldn't buy, from this table, to the carpet, to the walls, that we wouldn't have,” Barnes said, sitting in the conference room at the group’s main office on Metropolitan Drive in Mission Valley.”

Labels: GPO