Tina Vatanka Murphy to lead GHX in 2023

LOUISVILLE — When she becomes president and CEO of GHX next January, Tina Vatanka Murphy will build on the strengths of the mission-driven company she’s been a part of since its founding 22 years ago.

“People at GHX are very passionate about our mission and vision,” said Vatanka Murphy, division president of value-based care at Louisville-based Global Healthcare Exchange LLC since 2021. “My first and foremost goal is to build on that strong foundation and continue creating a diverse culture.”

GHX, the provider of the largest cloud-based supply chain network for the health care industry, values diversity of thought, background, culture and gender, welcoming employees to “bring their full authentic selves” to the workplace, something Vatanka Murphy appreciates as a wife and mother of two. 

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“I can show up and do meaningful work, not cover up who I am,” Vatanka Murphy said.

Vatanka Murphy, who lives in Danville, California, and plans to move to the Denver area for her new position, started out as a corporate account manager when the company was founded in 2000, nurturing relationships with executives at hospitals, integrated delivery networks and large medical manufacturers in the Northeast region. She will take over for Bruce Johnson, who will become executive chairman of the board after serving as president and CEO since 2007.

“Tina has an unmatched determination to do what’s right for our customers, our employees and the health care industry at large,” Johnson said. “It’s this resolve combined with her steadfast belief that we can create a future where affordable, quality health care is possible for all that makes her the ideal person to succeed as CEO and lead GHX into the future. Her accomplishments are a testament to her ability to communicate vision, deliver results by building high-functioning, empowered teams and drive innovation while maintaining growth and an exceptional customer experience.”  

At the time of GHX’s founding, four companies came together to collaborate around innovation with the ultimate goal to lower the cost of health care, making it more affordable and available to all. To do this, they created an exchange platform that allows health care providers, suppliers and distributors to work in tandem to ensure health systems, hospitals and integrated delivery networks have the products they need when they need them to deliver quality patient care. 

“What we are focusing on is to simplify the patient-centered business of health care to improve outcomes. When we do that, we are creating a future where affordable and quality health care is realized for all,” Vatanka Murphy said.

The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the human and financial impact of a supply chain in crisis, when health care providers didn’t have the products they needed to be able to deliver care, Vatanka Murphy said. Other issues also resulted, such as inflation leading to rising labor costs, a shortage of labor, with 20% of nurses planning to leave the industry by the end of the year, and declining operating margins, she said.

To address the supply chain crisis, GHX helped hospitals with acquisitions in the inventory space and recommended alternative products and vendors when main suppliers had extensive back orders. 

“We vetted 1,000 non-traditional vendors offering PPE and critical medical supplies for hospitals … more than 400 of them were approved,” Vatanka Murphy said. “Because the supply chain runs on GHX, we were able to see the bad actors and prevent them from doing harm to the supply chain.” 

GHX became even more innovative, standardizing product selection and automating the process of buying and receiving health care products, resulting in the automation of $120 billion of hospital spending, Vatanka Murphy said.

Second, GHX provided inventory management solutions to help health care providers optimize their working capital — the pandemic resulted in complications to that management with supply shortages and overages throughout the country.

“We optimize inventory management by making sure that products are where they need to be so that clinicians can deliver the care they need to deliver,” Vatanka Murphy said.

And third, GHX gathered pricing information and clinical evidence for strategic sourcing, helping health care providers make product decisions based on the best clinical evidence. This replaces the practice of selecting products based on price only by taking into account results for what is called the cost quality equation.

“We’ve been documented by third parties that we’ve removed $40 billion in costs over our history,” Vatanka Murphy said.

GHX’s various solutions ultimately help health care systems redeploy their investments in staffing, infrastructure and products to improve patient care, Vatanka Murphy said.

“Today we have 85% of hospitals that are part of our community, and they are able to connect with suppliers that represent 85% of their spend,” Vatanka Murphy said.

Vatanka Murphy held a number of leadership roles at GHX, including president of GHX Europe from 2012 to 2014. She then served as senior vice president of global product and corporate development from 2018 to 2021 before taking on her current position. She has a bachelor’s degree in business from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, which she earned in 1993.

“My history prepared me to be the CEO, 22 years of working closely with customers in a number of positions, lead sales, marketing, global products, customer operations … and product development,” Vatanka Murphy said. “This has given me a 360 view of what our customers need today … what we need to do internally, how to mobilize our services to solve our customers’ problems.” 

In her new role, Vatanka Murphy plans to lead the health care industry on the path to value-based care, which is defined as replacing fee-for-service with value-based reimbursements. Instead of insurance reimbursements for each service, hospitals would be paid based on outcomes, such as a one-time hospital visit for a procedure free of reinfection or post-surgery treatments.

“To do that hospitals need data,” Vatanka Murphy said. “GHX is arming them with the data they need to make that transformation. … We have the duty and responsibility to continue leading the industry as they navigate the aftereffects of COVID and as they build toward a value-based future.”

GHX helps hospitals “thrive,” by freeing up resources, allowing staff to engage in higher quality patient care, such as spending more time with the patient and family, Vatanka Murphy said.

Editor’s note: This report was updated to clarify GHX’s role in supply chain management as well as Murphy’s plans regarding value-based care.