RESUMEN
Today, the VHA stands as the country's largest hospital purchasing program, representing hospitals that purchase over $1.5 billion in supplies each year. But not all of that comes through VHA programs, and it is in the relationship between the individual institutions and the VHA system, that the group draws its strength and discovers its limitations. At once highly sophisticated and fiercely independent, the materials managers that make up the VHA program must weigh the significant opportunities inherent in the group's size and scope against the individual demands of their institutions. Mutual understanding leads to consensus and eventually to commitment and out of that process comes a number of highly innovative programs, such as standardization and single sourcing and the VHA Plus private label program, that are helping to make the VHA not simply the country's leading purchasing organization, but its most innovative as well--a true materials management system.