How many health care group purchasing organizations (GPOs) are there?

The Healthcare Supply Chain Association has a brief FAQ-type primer that has some interesting statistics about group purchasing organizations (GPOs).

• 600+ organizations provide group purchasing services
• About 30 of these are big GPOs
• On average, 72 percent of hospital purchases are made through GPOs
• Just about all hospitals use GPOs
• The first GPO was the Hospital Bureau of New York, created in 1910

Source: Healthcare Supply Chain Association. A Primer on Group Purchasing Organizations: Questions and Answers. Retrieved from http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.supplychainassociation.org/resource/resmgr/research/gpo_primer.pdf Posted by AHA Resource Center (312) 422-2050, rc@aha.org