Experience. Expertise. Excellence.
Jennie Simmons
President, Surgery Center Consultants
Since 1998, the privately owned GPO (Group Purchaing Organization) - Surgery Center Consultants, located in Gainesville, Georgia has been helping surgery centers reduce their costs and address operational issues through savings, service and industry experience. The company was founded by Jennie Simmons, R. N. who offers over twenty years of experience in surgical outpatient nursing and administration with over ten years of consulting experience in the areas of surgery center accreditation and cost analysis.
The GPO concept and idea began to take shape in 1995 when Ms. Simmons, as the manager of an office-based plastic surgery center, was asked to reduce the facility's costs. She discovered that no one was really addressing the needs of these surgical centers in terms of pricing. With this realization, Ms. Simmons formed a consortium of eight centers and negotiated a contract with a national GPO. Two years later and devoting most of her time to the group purchasing activities, Ms. Simmons negotiated a direct contract for her group of then, over thirty-eight members and thus Surgery Center Consultants was born.
With such a simple, win-win program, it didn't take long before both manufacturers and distributors took interest in a surgery center GPO. Ms. Simmons didn't stop there, she then began pursuing contracts for additional services including linen, biohazardous waste, and medical gas equipment installation and inspection. As a result, many of the big players such as Ethicon, 3M, DeRoyal, and BD wanted to get on board with the purchasing program, along with supply distributors such as McKesson Medical Surgical, Physician Sales & Service (PSS), Henry Schein, and Cardinal Health.
Surgery Center Consultants also offers specialized consulting services with freestanding and office-based surgery centers for such issues as surgery center accreditation, administration and management, as well as facility construction and design. As a leading accreditation specialist, Ms. Simmons is often requested and available for speaking engagements and educational seminars.
Today, Surgery Center Consultants is a successful group purchasing and consulting organization specializing in supplies and accreditation services for healthcare facilities. Surgery Center Consultants has over 1000 members in 48 states and has continued to grow since its inception in 1995.