Cooperative Brings Easy Access to Public Health Supplies for Georgia County

Providing for a large county is a lot of work and requires a diverse set of goods and services. Ensuring your staff and residents have access to the supplies they need, when they need them, is KEY.  

Keep reading to hear how a major county in Georgia leveraged cooperative purchasing to nail down supplies for their public health officials, medical examiner and fire and EMS teams. 

The Challenge

Cobb County, Georgia is a major metro county of Atlanta that is home to roughly 800,000 residents. Stephanie Brice, the Deputy Purchasing Director, has been working with the county for almost 19 years. No two days are alike when you are purchasing for a county of this size, and that is what Stephanie loves most about her job. To her, the role of procurement is unique as you are challenged with how taxpayer dollars are spent while providing value to your community. 

Stephanie and her team have policies in place for how and when purchasing takes place, just like any public agency. She noticed the Public Health, Medical Examiner, and Fire and EMS teams had been making several purchases outside of the medical supply contract that they had in place but under their threshold for micro-purchases. Seeing the need for more supplies, Stephanie and her team knew they needed another compliant solution.  

The procurement team is small, but they understood the importance of the needs for each of the teams. She knew there was an easier way to support these teams in their day-to-day operations through the use of a cooperative contract. 

The Solution: Cooperative Purchasing

“Cooperative purchasing allows us to focus on other things because we're not devoting the time and effort to doing a formal solicitation or getting multiple quotes.” says Stephanie “We're not having to go through that time-consuming process over and over and over again.”  

Stephanie went on to explain how utilizing and leading cooperative contracts not only saves them time and money but also allows her and her team to give back to their organization.  

“We don't always have a strategic place at the table. We don't always have a place at the table in general so I think with cooperatives and these types of contracts, we can show it helps the organization more than others may think.”     

There is so much strategy that goes into purchasing that other departments may not fully understand. With cooperative purchasing, you can show your stakeholders the proof that is in the savings, whether it be time, money, or resources. 

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