According to espicom, the global medical device, technology and equipment market is forecast to be worth over US$440.5 billion by 2018. With so much money in the market, medical suppliers compete ferociously to provide their equipment to healthcare facilities. In order to make this possible, they have to have a platform that makes the process of ordering the items they produce these facilities need as simple as possible. Cook Medical, a medical device manufacturer, announced that it has introduced an improved e-commerce solution to make ordering their products much easier.
Established in 1963, Cook Medical started by manufacturing wire guides, needles and catheters. Today it produces over 16,000 products that serve 13 hospital lines while making its inventory available to 135 countries around the world. The company needed to improve its online ordering platform because more than 80 percent of its North American incoming orders were taking place through some form of e-commerce, which the company hadn’t updated since it was first launched in 2008.
By upgrading the system, the company has introduced an advanced e-commerce transaction solution that reduces human error, takes less time and is more efficient. Even though this new solution is more efficient, Cook realizes there are still customers who prefer using fax, phone, or e-mail to make their orders, and for that reason these options are still available.
The new system gives customers the ability to monitor current orders and save routine orders so that frequently used items can easily be quickly accessed and reordered. Users can also view their entire order history, view detailed product information, search for products using more parameters, confirm product availability, and choose multiple payment options.
"Over the past few years, members of the healthcare industry have been increasing their use of e-commerce as a way to improve efficiency and lower the costs associated with doing routine business. But the costs associated with advanced e-commerce platforms can be a big challenge for smaller hospitals and providers, which is why we decided to make our system more user-friendly," said Dave Reed, vice president of the Healthcare Business Solutions division and vice president of operations at Cook Medical.
Edited by
Blaise McNamee
