Travis County Commissioners Court
October 16, 2007
Item 23
23. Approve interlocal agreement with the county of san diego for the purchase -- san diego california, right? For the purchase of pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical supplies from amerisource bergen corporation.
>> good morning, judge, Commissioners, cyd grimes, county purchasing agent. As you will recall over the last year and really longer, we have been struggling with pharmaceutical costs and we have been trying to find the best way to buy those. As you know, we have gone through a whole process and changed the way that we are doing our pharmacy out at the sheriff's office. We now have our own pharmacist on staff. We also hired a consultant to help us organize that, look at automated system to make it more efficient out there and also to help us look at drug costs. We had looked that the agreement before we went through this process and this is where we got back to and -- and we believe that this will give us the best pricing on our pharmaceuticals now. And juvenile court also uses this contract along with the sheriff's office.
>> I had a couple of questions, just because this is an amazingly wonderful thing that purchasing is doing. And I was curious how san diego county was found for -- as a threshold question.
>> well, for one thing, we -- part of what we do in the purchasing office is -- is understand who, you know, sources or resources are out there for us. So we know about different local agreements and we actually had -- we've had a contract with american bergen, they might have been the ones that told us there was an interlocal with san diego.
>> actually, we had the agreement with ameirsource bergen our agreement was expiring. They said why don't you buy off of us through this arrangement with san diego. At the time that they said that, about a year or two ago, something else came up so that we didn't move that direction at that point in time. But -- but our vendors help us out when --
>> uh-huh.
>> it's a wonderful thing. It's so innovative. And I -- I asked for it to be a discussion item because I'm wondering if it can be expanded. It's juvenile and the sheriff's department but of course we have other pharmaceutical needs in the county as well as I was thinking other major metropolitan counties. I was wondering if we might explore expanding that kind of --
>> service.
>> -- group purchasing organization, is that what it's called.
>> right. Cooperative agreements. We are members of several -- mostly within the state. These are available to us, you know, across the nation. Which is a good thing. We had tried, you know, the -- the clinics in the city, I mean, you know --
>> absolutely. That's the first thing that --
>> in the health care district. But we had to see owe you to --o take care of our business first.
>> that's totally understandable. Gives us basically a pilot from which to expand. But I would love to do anything that would be helpful from my end to -- to explore expanding it to maybe other pharmaceutical purchasing needs. Mhmr, health care district. Also our clinic for our employees.
>> uh-huh.
>> that's true.
>> as well as perhaps going through the cuc to see if other counties might be -- might be able to benefit from an organized purchase as well.
>> yeah. We've talked about in our group and our county purchasing association, in fact we have a meeting next week. We can bring it up again. Because it does -- everybody -- all the counties can enter into this agreement with san diego now, but the more you have the bigger buying power that you have and hopefully better discounts. Pharmaceuticals is a very controversial issue.
>> yeah. I just wanted to applaud purchasing and the sheriff's department for coming up with this innovative and the county attorney's office for coming up with this innovative structure.
>> we are hoping it will save us money. Thank you.
>> also, cyd, I had a -- a long conversation with several of the purchasing in the county for a while on making sure that the employees of Travis County are able to benefit from having to -- by purchasing pharmaceuticals at a discount. We have been kicking this idea around for a while but of course the vehicle to get there has really, haven't really been in place. Maybe this -- if everything work out all right, may be a step in that right direction. I talked with danny hobby and I talked with bill campbell with the sheriff's department, all of those folks that are dealing with this stuff, and of course you being the purchasing agent, I need to probably tie you down sometime in the near future --
>> actually, judge -- actually Commissioner Davis you all brought this up several months ago.
>> longer than that.
>> through the Texas association of counties, we passed that on, I passed that on to trish young with the hospital district because that's how in dallas county they were doing it. They distribute those cards but not only through our clinics, but like through --
>> [multiple voices]
>> but her and sherri flemming we talked about that. I will e-mail to see where we are on that because that's available now through our agreement with naco, I believe what I was hearing is that we could get a 20% discount on our already discounted drugs. I'm not sure about all of the rules but we are looking into that.
>> I think it's a lot of opportunities. I know that even during the time that we sit and talk about the benefits for Travis County, we are looking at health insurance, we are also looking for discounts. But not only that, though, even during the discussion of the wellness clinic, a lot of this stuff was brought in even under that, how can we get better pharmaceutical prices for the employees of Travis County. How can we piggyback, combine our efforts to make sure that that happens. This is like I have said been kicked around for a long time. I think it's time to land on something. This is a vehicle for us to get there to that end, well I'm all for it. Of course I'm supporting this. But I'm also supportive for a number of years of getting the same thing for the Travis County employees and I want to make sure that we continue to go in that direction. So that's -- that's basically --
>> I will follow up with sherri and trish.
>> okay, thank you.
>> thank you so much.
>> thank you.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Thank you.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, October 17, 2007, 18:30 AM