Health GPOs continue to change, attract federal scrutiny

Description

Abstract: Nearly every hospital uses a group purchasing organization (GPO) for at least some of its purchasing needs. In the 1980s and 1990s, the industry consolidated into seven large GPOs to provide national group purchasing services. Now it looks like the industry is changing again as interest in regional and local GPOs grows. This brief article discusses hospitals’ increasingly assertive relationships with GPOs, and federal scrutiny among concerns about whether GPOs produce genuine purchasing savings for their members.