Thomas Health Launches Innovative Equipment Sharing Initiative
BOSTON – As part of its efforts to lower costs and enhance patient access to care, Thomas Health announced its partnership with Cohealo, a platform for health systems to track and share medical equipment. The initiative will enable Thomas Health to make expensive medical equipment available to any of their physicians, on-demand, regardless of location.
“Medical and surgical equipment is an immense expense for any health system and sharing these resources will decrease the overall amount of equipment needed at each of our facilities,” said Timothy Skeldon, CFO at Thomas Health. “Savings from this initiative will allow us to offer superior technology to our world-class providers and expand services to patients at each of our three hospitals with no additional capital costs.”
“Today, hospitals face a dilemma – buy equipment for every site where care is being delivered or simply not offer the services,” said Todd Rothenhaus, Cohealo’s chief executive officer. “With the astronomical cost of medical equipment, ongoing maintenance, and replacement expenses, purchasing on this scale is no longer sustainable. We are thrilled to be partnering with Thomas Health to dynamically reallocate their assets based on demand from across their entire system.”
Cohealo’s award-winning technology platform utilizes a simple data export from the electronic medical record to automate the scheduling, communication, and movement of equipment between facilities. The software, combined with logistics services and a dedicated Cohealo customer success team, make sharing equipment seamless for hospital staff with no additional data entry or management required.
“Sharing our equipment will allow Thomas Health to make purchases as a single system, capturing economies of scale that can’t be achieved by our individual facilities alone. That means we can offer the highest quality of care at the best possible price point,” said Brian Ulery, Thomas Health’s chief operating officer.
About Cohealo
Based in Boston, Cohealo finds savings for health systems by increasing the utilization of their medical equipment through proactive data analytics and equipment sharing. With deeper insights into equipment usage, hospitals can pinpoint redundant equipment, opportunities for rental avoidance, and ways to share equipment between facilities. As the program scales within a health system, the network effect drives increasing levels of savings by reducing redundant purchases and decreasing rental expense. Cohealo has been named to Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies List and CNBC’s Disruptor 50 and is recognized as the first solution of its type to bring the sharing economy to healthcare.
About Thomas Health
Thomas Health System was formed to forge a partnership based on the strength of two established hospitals—Thomas Memorial and Saint Francis. Bringing the two hospitals under the umbrella of the Thomas Health System allows us to bring innovative and cost-effective health care to the Kanawha Valley. The partnership between Thomas Memorial Hospital and Saint Francis Hospital means providing advanced technology to a larger community, with access to the highest quality of physicians, nurses and support staff in the Kanawha Valley. Each hospital in the Thomas Health System, Saint Francis and Thomas Memorial, bring a rich history of serving our community.