Supplier certification for health care.

Supplier certification is an ongoing, formalized improvement process between a customer and a supplier. Ideally, suppliers and healthcare organizations will become extensions of one another, allowing for achievement of significant quality improvement over the long haul. There are six steps to implementing the process: 1) learning the process, 2) building a team, 3) defining objectives, 4) identifying evaluative criteria, 5) developing a measurement system and 6) selecting suppliers. For different levels of certification--defined by specific criteria--the customer receives more benefits and the supplier receives larger incentives.