The Power of Collaboration: Incorporating Voices in Canadian Healthcare into Integrated, Responsive Purchasing Networks

Abstract

As Canada's healthcare group purchasing organization, Health PRO Procurement Services Inc. is continually exploring opportunities to build more integrated, collaborative, and responsive purchasing networks within Canadian healthcare. To this end, what follows is (1) an examination of key challenges to and opportunities for collaboration in the healthcare sector based on interviews with senior healthcare executives, and (2) a case study on Health PRO's Advisory Committees, with a focus on outcomes and opportunities for collaborative procurement in the future. Creating more deeply integrated purchasing networks could help to support a Canadian procurement strategy that is more innovative, value creating, and responsive to patients and the market. Consistently achieving these outcomes requires a culture of knowledge sharing and cooperation in Canada, which Health PRO is committed to fostering.