AANA + Concord

Background

The American Association of Nurse Anesthesiology (AANA) is a rapidly growing organization focused on advancing, supporting and protecting nurse anesthesiology and a transformational leader in driving innovation and excellence in healthcare that requires careful management of contractual relationships and legal obligations. As the organization has grown, so has the volume and complexity of its contracts, creating significant challenges for its legal team.

For AANA, effective contract management isn’t merely an administrative function but a critical component of its risk management strategy and operational efficiency. Its agreements span multiple departments and stakeholders, each requiring appropriate oversight and approval based on contract type, value, and potential risks.

The challenge: Decentralized contracts with manual approval matrix

As AANA experienced rapid growth, its legal operations struggled to keep pace, highlighting inefficiencies in the contract review process.

“There was no centralized contract repository, and the manual approval process was a nightmare,” explains Bobby Saleem, Director of Legal Affairs at AANA.

The company lacked a unified approach to contract storage and management. Agreements were scattered across various departments, and stored in different locations ranging from shared drives to email folders and even physical files. This fragmentation made it nearly impossible to maintain a comprehensive view of the company’s contractual obligations or quickly locate specific agreements when needed.

The approval process presented even greater challenges. AANA maintained a complex approval matrix policy that determined required approvers based on contract value, type, and other factors. Without a system to automate this matrix, implementing it required constant manual intervention, creating bottlenecks and occasional confusion when contracts weren’t routed to appropriate stakeholders.

Their previous attempt at implementing a contract management system had fallen short of addressing these challenges. The platform lacked the automation capabilities needed to enforce its approval matrix effectively and didn’t provide the centralization and visibility the legal team required.

These inefficiencies created real business impacts. Contract execution often took longer than necessary, delaying important initiatives. Legal staff spent excessive time on administrative tasks like locating documents and manually routing approvals rather than focusing on strategic work.

The solution: Centralized repository with automated approval routing

AANA implemented Concord’s contract lifecycle management platform with a particular focus on centralizing its contract repository and automating its approval processes.

The priority was establishing a single, organized repository for all contracts. Every

agreement—regardless of department, type, or status—was migrated into Concord’s secure platform, creating a comprehensive system of record. This centralization immediately eliminated the scattered approach to document storage that had previously complicated contract management.

To address its approval challenges, AANA leveraged Concord’s workflow automation capabilities to implement its matrix policy digitally. The system was configured to automatically route contracts to appropriate approvers based on predefined rules that reflected their approval matrix. When a new contract was initiated or an existing one modified, Concord would automatically determine the required approval chain based on parameters like contract value, department, and agreement type.

“Concord has been a game-changer,” notes Saleem. “It has automated our workflows, minimized the chance for errors, and provided us a clear view of all our contracts.”

To further streamline their processes, AANA implemented Concord’s AI-powered data extraction. This technology automatically identified and captured key information from contracts, including parties, terms, values, and dates. This automation eliminated manual data entry, improved accuracy, and accelerated the contract review process.

Blake Youngdahl, Customer Success Manager at Concord, worked closely with AANA throughout the implementation. “Bobby is a great example of how Concord can help companies streamline their legal operations,” Youngdahl explains. “He was able to implement Concord quickly and efficiently, and he’s already seeing significant benefits.”

The implementation process focused on minimizing disruption while maximizing adoption. AANA’s legal team worked with Concord to develop a phased approach, beginning with the migration of active contracts and configuration of approval workflows before expanding to historical agreements and more advanced features.

The results: Streamlined processes with enhanced compliance

The implementation of Concord delivered significant improvements across AANA’s legal operations, transforming their contract management from a fragmented, manual process to a streamlined, automated system.

Operational efficiency improved dramatically:

• Contract approval time was reduced by eliminating manual routing and follow-up.
• Document retrieval transformed from hours of searching to seconds.
• Automated data extraction eliminated manual entry of contract information.
• Legal staff freed from administrative tasks to focus on strategic work.

Compliance and risk management strengthened considerably:

• Consistent application of approval matrix across all contracts.
• Complete visibility into contractual obligations and commitments.
• Reliable tracking of expiration dates and renewal deadlines.
• Standardized approach to contract review and execution.

Perhaps most importantly, the legal team’s role within the organization evolved from administrative bottleneck to strategic business partner. With Concord handling the routine aspects of contract management through automation, the legal staff could dedicate more time to providing valuable business advice, identifying optimization opportunities, and supporting growth initiatives.

The centralized repository created unprecedented visibility into AANA’s contract portfolio. For the first time, leadership could see a robust picture of their contractual relationships, obligations, and risks. This visibility enabled more informed business decisions and strategic planning around vendor relationships, resource allocation, and risk management.

For AANA, the value goes beyond simple efficiency gains. The improved contract management represents a significant enhancement to their risk management strategy. The ability to consistently enforce approval policies, maintain complete records, and proactively track obligations helps protect the organization from compliance issues and potential liabilities.

As the company continues to grow, this robust foundation for contract management positions it well for further expansion. The scalable nature of Concord’s platform means they can handle increasing contract volume without proportionally increasing the administrative burden, enabling sustainable growth while maintaining appropriate legal oversight and control.