A conversation at the PACHC Summit led The Wright Center to take a closer look at how they could better leverage their CNECT membership, uncovering new contract opportunities and savings across several areas of the organization.
The Member
The Wright Center for Community Health is a federally qualified health center (FQHC) serving communities throughout Northeast Pennsylvania. Founded in 1976 as a physician residency program, the enterprise now serves more than 39,000 patients annually through 14 primary care offices across the region, along with its Driving Better Health mobile medical and dental clinic, and three new clinics are scheduled to open in the coming weeks.
Whole-person primary and preventive health services are central to The Wright Center’s approach, including integrated medical, dental, mental and behavioral health, addiction and recovery, and Ryan White HIV services. Other specialty services include care management, pediatrics, women’s health, geriatrics, Alzheimer’s and dementia care, infectious disease care, obesity medicine, lifestyle medicine, and pharmacy services. As a Teaching Health Center, The Wright Center also integrates patient care with graduate medical education and interprofessional training, preparing the physicians and interprofessional healthcare workforce of tomorrow in community-based settings and helping strengthen the primary and interprofessional healthcare workforce that is needed to serve our communities today and in the future.
The Challenge
As The Wright Center prepared to build a new community health center offering primary care, behavioral health, and dental services, they were navigating purchasing across several GPO relationships and looking for ways to support the expansion. A conversation between The Wright Center’s leadership and CNECT at the PACHC Summit opened the door to a broader review of their purchasing activity and how CNECT could support their needs.
The Results
Following the conversation at the PACHC Summit, CNECT began working closely with The Wright Center’s purchasing team to identify contract opportunities across the enterprise. The two teams established a monthly review process to evaluate purchasing activity, align applicable contracts with CNECT, and identify potential savings.
One early opportunity was Patterson Dental, which CNECT identified for its discounts on capital equipment investments. The Wright Center was able to save on those purchases while continuing to leverage dental supplies at a discount from Benco, another CNECT partner.
The ongoing engagement has also resulted in connections to other contract opportunities, including Trane, HireRight, and CNECT’s construction portfolio. In partnership with McKesson, CNECT also completed tier and price audits that identified 14 price activations, creating additional savings opportunities across products from manufacturers including Welch Allyn, Midmark, Baxter, UMF Medical, Healthmark Industries, Johnson & Johnson, and Berry Global.
Together, these efforts have expanded how The Wright Center uses CNECT to reduce costs on trusted products and services.