In recent years, a vendor management system has become a linchpin of hospital and health care institutions. Because facilities often work with contracted employees to make up their workforce, and due to compliance regulations that require proper tracking and documentation of these staffers, VMS has emerged as a beneficial way to fulfill these necessities.

VMS adoption on the rise

According to current industry research, VMS usage is increasing overall across the health care industry. Technavio found that the global VMS market is on track to achieve a compound annual growth rate of more than 12 percent through 2021.

This translates to more hospital systems improving the management of their workforce and associated contracts, with rising demands for integrated technology solutions seen throughout North and South America, Europe and Asia.

But enhanced management isn't the only advantage VMS can provide for today's health care institutions. This technology can enable organizations to save considerably, particularly when it comes to their time and financial capital.

VMS technology helps facilities keep record of vendors and their purposes for entering the hospital.

Keeping track of employees and vendors

Although Healthcare Finance contributor Rodney J. Moore noted that the ability to keep record of employees and vendor partners was the initial drive behind VMS technology, many hospital administrators discovered numerous other critical capabilities connected with this main feature.

For instance, health care institutions can also track the level of training each staffer or vendor entering the facility has achieved. In this way, the facility can ensure that those entering specific areas of the hospital or working with certain systems and technology have the right credentials.

What's more, because Joint Commission requirements necessitate that health care organizations record who is entering the facility and for what reason, VMS provides the ideal way to identify those coming and going and their purpose.

Best of all, most advanced VM systems provide pre-packaged credential templates, meaning that the solution can be configured and established quickly and easily. And, as opposed to tracking vendors manually or with a homegrown platform, a professional VMS helps save countless hours while properly accounting for those individuals moving about the facility.

Ensuring a safe environment

VMS technology can also provide time and money savings when it comes to overall safety. Because the system requires vendors to log in using unique credentials and also tracks the purpose for their visit, hospital security can rest easier knowing that vendors' movements are recorded and organized.

Record keeping to support compliance

In addition to the Joint Commission's requirements for tracking vendors' presence, there are other industry compliance needs that VMS helps fulfill. The technology also provides an archive of vendor contracts, including current service agreements and historical data. This ensures that all relevant and important information is easily accessible for a compliance audit, and that managers have the most visibility into their relationships with facility vendor partners.

Beckers Hospital Review reported that this level of reporting and visibility can help health care organizations improve their contract, operational and fiscal management by as much as 55 percent.

"It is true that the initial motivation for many facilities to adopt a vendor credentialing system was that it was a way to control access," said Greg Goyne, vice president of marketing at health care managed service provider IntelliCentrics. "Today, however, when asked what benefits they have experienced, the top two answers are compliance with laws and regulations and a safer environment."

A rich source for analytics

VMS also provides more surprising time and money saving benefits, such as the way it can support an analytics initiative. Currently, more hospitals are leveraging analytics to glean insights about the way resources are consumed and how to improve the facility's overall performance.

Because VMS ensures detailed record keeping and in-depth information on service contracts and their related financial data, it is a robust source to analyze. Becker's Hospital Review noted that key uses cases here can include:

• Comparing purchases against contracted transactions.
• Providing visualization of how budgets are allocated and spent.
• Reducing contractual non-performance.

This last analytical insight in particularly is especially helpful for time and money savings in health care. If a vendor doesn't fully deliver on their agreement, financial resources are wasted and the problem only grows if the institution doesn't have an effective way to track contracts. A VMS effectively addresses this issue, providing a way for health care organizations to keep vendors accountable and ensure their contracts are fully fulfilled.

When it comes to selecting a VMS that can provide these types of money and time saving advantages, it is particularly beneficial to select a system that was created with the needs of the health care industry in mind.

BlueSky Healthcare VMS is a leading solution providing web and mobile access, credentialing templates, unlimited history reporting and real-time view of input orders. To find out more about how a VMS can help your facility save, contact the experts at BlueSky Medical Staffing Software today.