A Medical Device Daily

Ascent Healthcare Solutions (Phoenix) reported that ProvSource (Seattle) renewed with it an exclusive contract projecting member savings of about $6.5 million in supply costs and diverting roughly 87 tons of waste from landfills by using Ascent’s single-use medical device (SUD) reprocessing services over the next two years.

From 2001 to 2007, ProvSource said that reprocessing saved its members $11.7 million and eliminated 136 tons of medical waste and $76,400 in disposal costs.

Ascent will reprocess and recycle SUDs covering seven product categories to members of ProvSource, a contracting program that VHA and Novation (both Irving, Texas) created in 2004 to handle the purchasing needs of Providence Health & Services (Seattle), a health network that includes 27 hospitals and more than 35 non-acute facilities in Alaska, Washington, Montana, Oregon and California.

Ascent reprocesses compression sleeves, EP catheters and cables, diagnostic ultrasound catheters, orthopedic/arthroscopic, external fixation, laparoscopic and general surgery devices for ProvSource members.

Michael Oswald, director of capital equipment and purchased services contracting at Providence, said, “The savings and waste elimination generated by reprocessing has helped us redirect significant resources toward improving quality of care and doing our part to protect the environment.”

ProvSource said that with a three-pronged approach it has helped Providence save more than $47 million in overall supply costs, including $10 million in the first year of the contract.

Ascent says that since its inception it has reprocessed more than 50 million SUDs, saving its customers more than $500 million in supply expenses and eliminating over 10,000 tons from local landfills.