Saving Cents with Good Sense: Wound Care Product Formulary Standardization

Nationally, the cost of chronic wounds supplies in 2010 was projected over $15 billion. Our large health care system had an abundant wound care product arsenal across a multiple hospital and care setting system. The excessive wound care product supply created product and vendor confusion along with financial resource mismanagement. 

Under the leadership of two certified wound care specialists, a collaborative committee was formed including multidisciplinary wound care specialists, purchasing and value analyst members. The entire health system was represented including acute, home, long term and outpatient care providers.   The committee's mission was to reduce product and vendor confusion as well as provide an organizational cost savings. Advanced wound care products were evaluated according to categories based on product performance and flexible applications across the care settings.   Literature reviews and overall evidence based clinical performance of all products were considered. 

 The advanced wound care formulary was consolidated and standardized to meet unique needs across care settings of a large health care system.   This global intervention reduced the number of like products and eliminated those infrequently used products.  By reformulating one wound product category, six like and or rarely used products were eliminated with  a $50,000 plus anticipated annual cost savings .  Stakeholders from home care, outpatient, long term care and four hospitals created a mutually agreeable wound care formulary that reduced product confusion and promoted cost savings across the entire system.

 Through shared knowledge, networking and collaboration, front line wound care practitioners appreciated the marriage of financial responsibility with evidence based practice therefore improving outcomes in terms of product utilization and cost savings.