Our system is currently made up of eight hospitals. Each hospital has their own buyers who purchase all of the products for their facility and all outlying facilities associated with their hospital (at some of the smaller facilities these same people also handle receiving and distribution). We are developing a new org structure in which the buyers will all move under the system umbrella and instead of purchasing for a facility, they will be assigned a category. If a buyer is assigned a category such as Lab, they will purchase Lab supplies for all of the facilities in the system. Some categories such as OR will have a number of buyers, while others are small and one buyer may be assigned multiple categories.
We are hoping to hear from other systems who have gone through this or a similar change. We are looking for suggestions and recommendations from your experience.