By Beth A Brooks, PhD, RN, FACHE
The Vizient Innovative Technology Program helps move demonstrated healthcare solutions into the procurement pipeline.
For many nurse-led startups, the journey from initial concept to a validated product is a triumph of clinical expertise. A founder has identified a persistent gap in care and built a solution that improves patient outcomes while delivering clear financial value.
But there is a second, equally demanding phase: the journey from “proven pilot” to “standard of care.” This is where momentum often stalls.
GPOs and PIs: What’s the distinction?
The majority of health systems in the US purchase equipment and technology through Group Purchasing Organizations (GPO). The largest is Vizient, A provider-driven healthcare performance improvement company that helps hospitals and health systems lower costs, improve clinical quality, and operate more efficiently.
Vizient manages a massive contract portfolio representing $156 billion in annual purchasing volume. But categorizing it solely as a GPO is only a part of what it does.
As a provider-driven healthcare performance improvement (PI) company, Vizient also evaluates promising new products that deliver quality and safety improvements. Since 2003, Vizient has reviewed over 1,700 innovations, acting as a rigorous filter that signals to the market which products are ready for broad adoption.
A pathway in
For founders who are seeking ways to introduce their innovations to hospitals and healthcare systems, Vizient can be a valuable partner in unlocking the pathway into the vast, complex and seemingly impenetrable healthcare ecosystem. Its Innovative Technology Program was built to solve a persistent industry problem: How do large health systems identify and adopt innovations that offer clear clinical as well as financial benefits?
Dr. Barbara Seymour, DNP, RN, NE-BC, Vice President of Member Connections at Vizient with a background as a system chief nursing officer, has spent her career sitting on the “buying side” of the exact tables nurse founders are trying to find a seat at. At a recent meeting of the Nurse Capital Network, she gave us valuable insights as well as a necessary reality check for founders.
Hospitals are not just looking for lower prices; they are seeking solutions that drive operational excellence and clinical value.
Founders, Dr. Seymour noted, need to learn the “language” of the buyer, which requires understanding the procurement process and being able to present quality, improvement, or safety data alongside a compelling financial argument.
Beyond the prototype
Dr. Seymour emphasized that the Vizient Innovative Technology Program is not an incubator for early-stage concepts. Rather, it is a provider-led pipeline designed to vet, validate, and scale established solutions. The program’s criteria are strict, because the end-users (hospital clinical leaders and supply chain leaders) evaluate each solution on its ability to improve performance, enhance safety, and deliver measurable value.
A founder’s product must be well past the prototype and already having demonstrated that it works.
The practical roadmap: Engagement, not sales
The Vizient Innovative Technology Program offers a clear, two-phase on-ramp:
Phase 1: The Innovative Technology Forum. This is the primary point of entry and a prerequisite for any contracting conversation. Submissions are accepted year-round. No contract conversation happens until this initial review is cleared. This is how a solution becomes visible to Vizient’s client hospitals—and establishes a supplier’s credentials.
Phase 2: The Innovative Technology Exchange: Once that foundation is laid, the Innovative Technology Exchange is where potential turns into impact. This annual event is more than a typical trade show: It’s a high-energy, hands-on environment where selected suppliers demonstrate their innovations directly to clinical leaders, supply chain executives, and the provider councils that shape Vizient’s contracts. A strong showing can lead to a Vizient Innovative Technology contract or designation—a powerful credential that ripples across the entire healthcare landscape.
The work of a founder
Hospital adoption is a multi-step sales, evaluation, and implementation cycle that demands significant capital. The reserves required, and the sales team needed to gain traction, are easy to underestimate. Winning a spot on a GPO contract is only the first step. Structured programs like Vizient’s Innovation Technology Program remove the guesswork, replacing cold outreach with a professional, transparent pathway to adoption.
Nurse founders understand workflow needs better than most builders who have never worked at the bedside. Paired with the discipline of a professional supplier, that clinical insight is what carries an innovation from proof of concept into the pipeline. The founders who learn the system and engage in a structured program are the ones who get there.
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