Case Study

Froedtert ThedaCare Health:

Standardizing Pharmacy Procurement at Scale

Saving $4M in one year by creating a scalable foundation for pharmacy supply chain management

Froedtert ThedaCare Health is one of Wisconsin’s leading integrated delivery networks, serving more than 1.3 million patients annually through 18 hospitals, hundreds of outpatient centers, and a workforce of over 3,000 providers. The system was formed in 2024 through the combination of Froedtert Health, known for its academic medical center and research affiliations, and ThedaCare, a century-old community health system with deep roots in Northeast and Central Wisconsin.

Froedtert Health has had a strategic focus on pharmacy procurement for over a decade. In 2016, Froedtert Health opened its Integrated Service Center (ISC) to centralize pharmacy distribution and purchasing. By 2023, the health system had developed a high-functioning centralized pharmacy procurement team, but leaders recognized that growth, drug shortages, and constant price changes demanded a stronger foundation—one that could scale, automate, and standardize pharmacy procurement practices across the enterprise. They also realized they needed a vendor-agnostic platform to support growth following the addition of ThedaCare.

The Cost of Pharmacy Complexity

As the system grew, pharmacy procurement became increasingly complex. To maximize the effectiveness of its ISC, Froedtert needed to standardize purchasing practices at scale. The pressures were felt in several ways:

  • Buying nearly 6,000 NDCs created significant operational and financial complexity.
  • Constant drug shortages and price fluctuations made it difficult to manage contracts and inventory.
  • More items were being purchased from the ISC, making 340B and GPO inventories inefficient.
  • Leadership could see inefficiencies in the process but struggled to measure or quantify their full impact.

Despite a capable centralized pharmacy procurement team, Froedtert’s leadership realized that successful projects alone could not overcome these systemic challenges. A new, automated foundation was needed to scale improvements and bring consistency to pharmacy purchasing practices.

Moving Forward with SpendMend

Froedtert approached the decision carefully. The team valued the openness of the Trulla by SpendMend group during the evaluation process and confirmed the platform’s capabilities by speaking with existing clients. That combination of transparency and validation gave them confidence to move ahead.

Implementation followed a deliberate pace. A Trulla Account Manager guided each phase of the rollout across different locations, ensuring the process was manageable for staff already carrying heavy workloads. Alongside that work, a Trulla Strategist stayed connected with Froedtert’s pharmacy leadership to anticipate how the system’s needs might evolve and align those priorities with Trulla’s ongoing updates.

This approach allowed Froedtert to adopt the solution without disruption while preparing the pharmacy supply chain for continued growth.

High-Level Benefits

Trulla provided Froedtert with a scalable foundation to:

  • Standardize pharmacy procurement across the ISC.
  • Improve visibility into purchasing activity.
  • Reduce complexity caused by shortages and price shifts.
  • Neutralize the ISC inventory to the GPO class of trade.
  • Strengthen inventory control across the pharmacy supply chain.

Quantifiable Results to Date

After one year live on Trulla, Froedtert achieved more than $4 million in savings:

  • Improved account catalogs delivered approximately $1 million in savings.
  • Standardization to preferred NDCs produced another $3 million in savings.

In addition to the financial results, the ISC team now has greater ease and confidence in managing inventory and maintaining pharmacy supply chain resilience across the health system.

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What’s Next

Froedtert is expanding its use of Trulla in two key areas:

  1. Non-Wholesaler Purchasing — Trulla is connecting Froedtert’s top 15 non-wholesaler suppliers to the platform, enhancing visibility and improving the buyer experience.
  2. Merging with ThedaCare Pharmacy Procurement — As Froedtert continues its integration with ThedaCare, Trulla will play a key role in automating and standardizing pharmacy purchasing practices across the combined system.

Leadership Perspective

“Trulla has given us the foundation we needed to scale pharmacy procurement at the system level. The transparency and partnership from the SpendMend team made it clear they understood both our challenges and our vision for the future.”

— Kristin Tiry,
Director of Pharmacy Supply Chain,
Froedtert ThedaCare Health

 

“With Trulla, we’ve gained visibility and control that simply wasn’t possible before.

It’s helping us not only achieve significant savings but also build a pharmacy procurement process that will serve us well as we continue to grow and integrate ThedaCare.”

—Christine Vogt,
Executive Director,
Pharmacy Centralized Services,
Froedtert Health