Northfield, Ill., February 6, 2023 – Medline today announced that Children’s Nebraska, headquartered in Omaha, has expanded its partnership with Medline by awarding the healthcare supplier and manufacturer a laboratory prime vendor agreement. This new agreement is an extension of Medline’s existing relationship with the healthcare provider in which Medline has been Children’s Nebraska medical-surgical prime vendor since 2013.
Founded in Omaha in 1948 as Children’s Memorial Hospital, the recently re-branded Children’s Nebraska is the only full-service, pediatric hospital and medical center in the state, providing expertise in more than 50 pediatric specialty services to children across a five-state region and beyond.
As part of the lab prime vendor agreement, Medline is providing a comprehensive portfolio of lab testing materials, consumables and equipment to Children’s Nebraska main lab and its 20+ outreach specialty clinics. Medline also helps enable Children’s Nebraska to more easily monitor key metrics, such as item utilization, contract compliance, price accuracy and spend by product categories.
Children’s Nebraska lab division can now leverage Medline’s logistics and warehousing capabilities to control next day deliveries to its lab facilities more seamlessly and with more transparency. In addition, Children’s Nebraska hopes to lean into Medline expertise in lab capital as well as lab automation in the near future.
“We are pleased to be able to provide a holistic approach to medical-surgical and lab distribution,” said Megan Schwellenbach, vice president of corporate sales in acute care at Medline. “Building off our long-standing partnership, we found efficiencies and value for both its acute and lab divisions, while helping Children’s Nebraska streamline their supply chain.”
Chris North, laboratory director at Children’s Nebraska, cited Medline’s consistency, level of service and an increasingly robust lab product portfolio as reasons for awarding Medline its lab prime vendor agreement.
“Switching lab prime vendors can be daunting,” said North. “But the Medline team took the time to be sure our lab team was comfortable and confident about the shift.”
Prior to finalizing the agreement, Medline analyzed lab product usage to determine where Children’s Nebraska could improve efficiency without sacrificing Children’s Nebraska quality of care or uprooting established team processes. Medline also organized a OneMedline event for Children’s Nebraska to showcase Medline’s lab portfolio and give Children’s team members the chance to handle and learn more about Medline’s lab product offering.
