Vendor Management

The three purposes of the Vendor Management module are to:

1. allow the administrator to assign laboratories as preferred, restricted or no relationship in the institution's private marketplace
2. shop and compare potential laboratories
3. allow the administrator to track preferred relationships at the individual test level

Manage Laboratories

The Manage Labs feature offers you the ability to assign laboratories within the platform as preferred or restricted. Upon initial implementation, all laboratories will be set as "None," so no labs will be listed when you first access this module of the Concert Platform.

Adding New Preferred/Restricted Labs

To search for a new laboratory, switch the dropdown to 'Show All' laboratories. Once the complete list is displayed, type in the laboratory's name in the 'Search available vendors' box.

Once the laboratory is displayed, click the dropdown under Relationship and change from 'None' to either 'Preferred' or 'Restricted'. You will then be prompted to select the reason(s) for the change in relationship status. You can check multiple reasons or you can choose to not complete this information. However, documenting reasons for using or not using a laboratory will greatly improve documentation and analysis in the future. Settings will be automatically saved.

To add additional laboratories, delete the initial laboratory name you searched for and type in the name of the next laboratory. Once finished assigning relationships, make sure all text is deleted from the search box. To view your selected vendors, change the dropdown to 'My Vendors', and when nothing is in the search box, all laboratories marked as 'Preferred' or 'Restricted' will be displayed.

Interpreting Lab Specific Information

The Concert Platform highlights information important to the decision making for establishing laboratory partnerships. The first two columns include the laboratory name and the state where the lab is located. The next column displays your current pricing relationship with that laboratory. Options include:

1. No pricing available (greyed-out cash icon)
2. List pricing available (black cash icon)
3. Institution pricing available (black institution icon)

The last three columns provide insight into the selected laboratory's test catalog measured against your historical test ordering. The Volume column represents the volume of tests your institution has ordered from that lab. The Test Coverage column calculates the total number of test bins your institution has ordered from, and compares that to how many test bins that laboratory offers a test for. For example, if your institution has ordered tests from 100 different product bins, and a laboratory offers a test for 30 of those bins, their Test Coverage percentage would be 30%.

The Volume Coverage column calculates a similar percentage, but instead of measuring the number of bins, it instead measures the total volume of tests ordered. In the example above, if your institution ordered 200 total tests and 100 tests were ordered from the 30 test bins, the Volume Coverage percentage would be 50%.

Shop & Compare Laboratories

As part of managing vendors, The Concert Platform offers you the ability to shop and compare laboratories, providing information about the laboratory and its test catalog. To access the Shop & Compare feature for a laboratory, click on the shopping cart icon for that laboratory.

The Shop & Compare page has three different sections:

1. Manage Relationship
2. Catalog Coverage
3. Availability of your frequently ordered tests

In the Manage Relationship section, you can document the relationship status within the platform, and record lab-specific information such as your account number or notes related to the account (ex. special discounts).

You can also click on the 'More Info' button to access additional lab details (see More Lab Information section).

The Catalog Coverage section documents the same information displayed on the main Vendor Management screen. The third section is Availability of your frequently ordered tests. In this section you can compare your institution's highest volume tests against the laboratory's test catalog. Each test bin includes the order volume, the average cost your institution has paid for the tests in that bin and the average TAT of returned results. The last two columns include the lab's price(s) and stated TAT(s) for that test bin. We recommend performing a more comprehensive analysis before switching laboratories, but this is a useful tool for gauging coverage of your institution's highest ordered tests.

To modify the number of compared tests, click the dropdown in the top right corner. You can also switch between displaying all tests your institution has ordered versus only those offered by the laboratory. Test bins in which the laboratory has an offering are indicated with bold text and a gray line on the left of the bin name.

Manage Tests

The Manage Test module allows Administrators to monitor individual tests that have been marked as preferred. From this module Administrators have the ability to compare the other testing products in that bin or remove the preferred relationship for that test.

There are two ways for Administrators to mark an individual test as preferred. First is within the Improve Report, which gives Administrators the tools to identify comparable lower cost test options. After completing research on the new test, the Administrator can check the Preferred box next to the identified test and the platform will automatically save the new test relationship.

The second way to mark a test as preferred is from the Compare grid. After comparing available test options, Administrators can open the test details for the desired test and check the Preferred check box. After checking the box, the platform automatically saves the change, and the check mark icon (indicating a preferred relationship) will display.

Impact on the Marketplace

Preferred laboratories will be identified by a checkmark and restricted laboratories will be identified by a 'Ban' symbol. Please note that marking a laboratory as restricted does not impact its orderable status, so you can still order from restricted laboratories.