
MicroSurvey
Online, on-demand market research connecting you to the right healthcare stakeholders.
More About MicroSurvey
Large hospital systems are always in flux. Therefore, it is important to keep tabs on who is involved with purchasing decisions and what they look for during this process.
In February 2018, InCrowd set out to paint the above picture. We sent a 6-minute MicroSurvey to 20 physicians and 21 purchasing managers who work at hospitals with at least 200 beds. These stakeholders had to work in a health system or integrated delivery network (IDN), an independent community hospital, an academic hospital, or an accountable care organization (ACO). They also had to be the final purchasing decision maker for medical devices, equipment, and supplies at their hospital, or part of a decision-making team.
Based on our 2018 survey of large hospital physicians and purchasing managers, the vast majority are considering surgical and diagnostic devices, closely followed by imaging equipment.
And most large-scale equipment purchasing decisions are being made with input from both the appropriate physicians/healthcare professionals and centralized purchasing managers, including committees. This echoes a 2017 Bain & Company report that found that, “more than 80% of surgeons and procurement officers say they work in collaborative partnerships to purchase medical equipment.”
In our study, the $10,000 price tag presented an interesting tipping point where purchasing behaviors began to drastically change:
Beyond cost, the main barriers to large scale purchasing for hospitals were:
One physician said they wanted to “limit time required taken from direct patient care.” Another physician commented that their priority was “ensuring that the purchase fits in our long term plans.”
We also asked physicians and purchasing managers what they thought medical device manufacturers could do to make the purchasing process easier. These were their top recommendations: