University of Chicago Medical Center Achieves $5.3M in Capital Savings

Challenge

University of Chicago Medical Center (UChicago Medicine) operates in a high-spend, high-complexity environment in which every capital request must be justified, prioritized, and negotiated. Prices vary across suppliers and sites, technology evolves rapidly, and equipment evaluations—now including AI features, connectivity requirements, and software add-ons—have become increasingly complex. At the same time, leadership set aggressive targets to reduce purchased services spending, a category that remains difficult to benchmark or compare.

Without reliable market intelligence, UChicago Medicine risked overpaying, losing negotiation leverage, and diminishing essential budget flexibility. As Ian O’Malley, Executive Director, Strategic Sourcing explained, “Purchased services and capital equipment are massive areas of spend and opportunity—and they’re complex. We would waste an incredible amount of money if we didn’t have the right data to support negotiations in these categories. We rely on ECRI to help with this.” 

Solution

UChicago Medicine embedded ECRI’s decision-support tools across its capital and supply lifecycle, providing the Strategic Sourcing team with the data foundation needed to plan confidently and negotiate effectively.

ECRI’s Capital Market Analytics enabled UChicago Medicine to:

• Validate capital requests with accurate budgetary pricing
• Assess true end-of-life needs
• Prioritize projects transparently

Once projects advanced, ECRI became the negotiation blueprint—with detailed, line-item benchmarks for equipment, accessories, and service costs. As O'Malley noted, "We rely on ECRI for the line-item breakdowns. That's what empowers us to better negotiate with vendors and push pricing down."

UChicago Medicine also leveraged ECRI's Supply Guide—including tools such as Price Parity and Higher-than-High—to strengthen systemwide price parity, uncover outliers, support spending-reduction goals, and identify pricing discrepancies that led to immediate savings. ECRI additionally supported purchased services evaluations with benchmarking resources and RFP templates. 

"There's a significant opportunity in purchased services to not only control existing spend but also drive that spend down. To do this we need better data—and ECRI helps with this."
-Ian O'Malley, UChicago Medicine

Results

UChicago Medicine’s disciplined use of ECRI’s benchmarks and analytics generated measurable, organization-wide financial impact. The organization achieved millions in annualized savings; strengthened budget flexibility to reinvestment in clinical priorities; improved transparency and defensibility in high-stakes capital decisions; and enhanced operational consistency across its expanding system. ECRI’s insights also ensured accurate GPO tiering, including resolution of a surgical gown pricing discrepancy that produced immediate savings.

UChicago Medicine is a model for how health systems can use ECRI’s data, insights, and expertise not simply to reduce costs, but to negotiate more effectively, plan more strategically, and make consistent, systemwide decisions that benefit both clinicians and patients.

"ECRI is such a big part of our team and our success. We use it constantly—and it delivers a lot of value."
-Ian O'Malley, UChicago Medicine

FY2025 Capital & Supply Achievements

• $5.3M in capital avoidance (14% of CAPEX budget)
• $1.2M routine capital budget savings
• $609K discretionary project savings
• $3.5M through creative contracting strategies
• $39K eliminated in unnecessary freight charges from one major proposal 
• 2% YOY supply spend reduction target, supported by ECRI data