How to Sell to Hospitals and Health Systems in the US

Selling to hospitals in the US means selling to a committee inside a health system. A department head rarely buys alone. A new product usually has to get past four groups:

• Supply chain
• A value analysis review
• The clinical leaders whose staff will use it
• IT, if the product touches patient data

Underneath all of that there is often a group purchasing organization (GPO) contract, and it decides which vendors the hospital can buy from easily.

So the work starts with mapping, and the message comes later. You need to know who decides, who checks the evidence, who has to make the product work, and which contract route gets you in. Then you reach those people in an order that makes sense to them and give the committee calendar time to run.

How do US hospitals actually buy?

US hospital spending reached $1,634.7 billion in 2024, 8.9% more than in 2023, and CMS projects it to grow 5.2% a year on average from 2025 to 2034 (CMS National Health Expenditure fact sheet).

The account is usually bigger than one building. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality keeps a Compendium of U.S. Health Systems.

That is a sensible starting point for an account list. Contracts, committee rules and IT standards are often set at the system level and then applied to each hospital. Plan the system as the account and each hospital as a site inside it.

My team and I start every market the same way: we check who has already paid, then look for organizations that resemble them. For a hospital supplier, that means two steps:

1. List the systems where your product is already in use.
2. Find systems of similar size, region and service mix.

The arithmetic behind that step, including whether the market is big enough, is in how I choose a market before writing any outreach.

One boundary: this guide covers US hospitals and health systems only. Selling components to device manufacturers, or supplying the NHS in the UK, follows different rules and is not covered here. If you sell into long-term care instead, see how to reach nursing home operators.

Who decides on purchases in US hospitals?

The purchasing department places the order. It rarely decides on its own what gets ordered.

Before I build a target list in any niche, I go back to the client's past deals and find out who actually made the call on each one. For a hospital supplier, expect the honest answer to be two people. One is a clinical leader who wanted the product. The other is a supply chain or value analysis leader who let it through.

Use this map as the starting point. Titles vary between systems, so check each one against the system's own website and LinkedIn before it goes on a list.

Clinical and nonclinical roles hold different kinds of power: clinicians decide whether the use case is believable, while supply chain and finance decide whether it can be bought on terms the system accepts.

Two failures follow from that split. A product with an eager clinician and no supply chain sponsor stalls at contracting. A product that supply chain likes but no clinician asked for stalls at the committee.

Titles still need care. A value analysis manager or a category manager in supply chain has real influence, while a generic "manager" in the same building may have none. So I put the real titles the niche uses on a list, never a generic "manager" search.

What is the value analysis committee process for new products?

Value analysis is the gate between interest and purchase. A committee, usually made up of clinicians, supply chain and finance, weighs four things before procurement goes ahead:

• Clinical evidence
• Cost
• Fit with what the hospital already uses
• Implementation risk

Review normally starts with a request from someone inside the hospital. That is the real job of the clinical champion. They file the request, and they explain to the committee in its own terms why their unit needs the product.

Prepare the evidence file before anyone asks for it. For a physical product, that file holds:

1. A one-page clinical evidence summary in plain language, with the studies or outcome data behind it.
2. Price and total cost compared with what it replaces: consumables, training hours, storage, waste.
3. Contract status, meaning which GPO contracts carry it, if any.
4. An implementation plan covering training sessions, rollout order by site and support contacts.

For software, add which EHR it connects to and how, your security documentation, how reporting and data ownership work, and how many hours the hospital's own IT staff will spend on it.

Committee approval and a purchase order are separate events. Approval says the product may be bought. After that come pricing, legal review, vendor credentialing and, for software, a slot in the IT project queue. An approved product can sit there for months, so do not forecast revenue from the approval date.

Which door to knock on first

Use this decision rule for any new hospital product:

• It changes how clinicians work, such as a new technique or documentation step: find the clinical champion first. The committee will not move without someone who uses it vouching for it.
• It changes spend or replaces a product already on contract: expect supply chain and value analysis first. They decide whether it even enters review.
• It changes data flow, meaning it connects to the EHR or moves patient data: bring IT in before the committee date. A late integration "no" wastes the whole cycle.
• It does two or three of these: start with whoever can kill it soonest.

Three hypothetical illustrations of the rule:

1. A disposable surgical product that replaces one already on a GPO contract changes spend and barely changes workflow. Supply chain and value analysis go first, and the director of perioperative services becomes the champion second.
2. A bedside monitoring device that nurses use and that sends readings into the EHR changes both workflow and data. An integration "no" can kill it soonest, so the CNIO and IT application team see it first, and a nurse director is lined up as champion before the committee date.
3. Operating room scheduling software that pulls case data from the EHR changes data flow first. The CIO's application team goes first, then the perioperative director as the user who wants it.

Should you sell through a GPO contract or direct?

A GPO negotiates contracts on behalf of its member hospitals. Members buy from those contracts because price and terms are already settled.

Because money moves between vendors, GPOs and hospitals, compliance sits inside the commercial decision. The Office of Inspector General describes safe harbors as payment and business practices that could fall under the federal anti-kickback statute but are not treated as offenses under it when their conditions are met.

The safe harbors are written out in 42 CFR 1001.952, which has separate paragraphs for discounts, warranties and group purchasing organizations, among others. The GPO paragraph covers fees a vendor pays a GPO under a deal to supply the GPO's members, and only when that paragraph's standards are met.

The practical point for a supplier: fees, rebates and discounts need a documented structure before you offer them. Anything that looks like a payment tied to purchase volume goes past healthcare counsel first. This is not legal advice.

Direct selling makes sense when no contract covers your category, when a system negotiates its own deals, and when a pilot at one hospital is the fastest way to earn proof. A common path is direct first to build a champion and a reference site, then a GPO contract once there is something to scale.

How do software buyers in hospitals evaluate vendors?

Your software is never the first system a hospital buys. As of 2024, more than 99% of non-federal acute care hospitals had adopted a certified EHR, according to ONC's national adoption trends. Every new tool is judged by how it lives next to that record.

Reporting raises the stakes. Under the Medicare Promoting Interoperability Program, eligible hospitals and critical access hospitals submit data to CMS on their meaningful use of certified EHR technology, including clinical quality measure data, and must reach a minimum total score. A product that disturbs that data flow is a risk the CIO has to own.

Price disclosure is regulated too. Since January 1, 2021, every US hospital has had to publish pricing information online: a machine-readable file of all items and services and a consumer-friendly display of shoppable services. CMS audits a sample of hospitals and can impose civil monetary penalties.

The buyer you are writing to already works under audits and penalties, so put your compliance and data answers in writing before they ask.

Answer these before the first demo, in writing:

• Which EHR versions you connect to, and through what kind of interface
• Who builds the integration, and how many hours of the hospital's IT staff it takes
• Your security review package, ready to send
• How the hospital's reporting stays intact after go-live
• How much clinician time the new workflow adds or saves per shift
• Who supports the system after launch, and how a problem gets escalated

Leave these for the contracting stage and the deal usually stalls there.

How long does the hospital sales cycle take?

Plan in quarters, not weeks. A hospital deal moves at the pace of committee meetings, budget cycles and IT project queues, and none of those speed up because your quarter is ending.

When a founder calls a slow pipeline a failure, my answer is that people do not make decisions fast in every space, and some pipelines are just getting started.

The goal of the first 30 days is not a signed contract. It is real conversations with the right titles at your target systems, each one logged with its stage and its next step.

A booked meeting is stage 1 and nothing more, which is why booked calls do not equal closed deals.

How should outbound reach hospital and health system roles?

Before anyone at a health system replies, they check who is writing. My rule for any outbound: one email never makes the sale, people buy only after they have audited you.

In a hospital, that audit has three parts:

1. The LinkedIn profile of the person sending.
2. Your website page for hospitals.
3. Whether your evidence and security documents look like something a committee can use.

I treat that audit as the place where the sale happens, online and before the call, so the profile and the proof get built before the first message goes out.

Start on LinkedIn so the buyer sees a name and a face, then follow with email once that context is visible.

Ask for a short conversation, not the purchase. What changes by role is the reason that conversation is worth their time:

That order is the default for a product that changes spend. Apply the decision rule from the value analysis section and the order shifts. A workflow product starts at row 3. Software starts at row 4, with row 3 close behind.

Reach system roles and hospital roles at the same account in the same weeks, each with a message written for that role. When the committee meets, your name should already be familiar to more than one person in the room. Sending one generic message to all eight titles does the opposite.

Replies need a human. At a health system, expect many replies to be redirects to another team. Each one is a warm introduction if a person on your team answers it the same day.

What should a hospital supplier checklist include?

Have these ready before the first message goes out:

1. A target system list built from the systems that already use you, plus lookalikes.
2. A title map for each system, with real names against the roles in the decision map.
3. A compliance review of any fees, discounts or rebates you plan to offer.
4. Implementation proof: a site where it is live, or a trial plan with clear measures.
5. Integration notes and a security package, if the product touches data.
6. A pricing path: GPO contract, direct contract, or a pilot that converts into one.
7. One named clinical or operational use case, written in the committee's language.

The go or no-go rule is simple. If you cannot say who signs, who validates and who implements at your first target system, you are not ready to sell to hospitals yet. Outreach before that point burns the names you will need later.

Pick one system from your list this week and fill in those three names. If one stays blank, that blank is your first piece of research, and it comes before any email does.

Working out who signs, who validates and who implements at your first target health system? If you want to talk it through, book a call and we can fill in the blanks.