Running a value analysis team or multiple teams can be very challenging to handle but not impossible. Meeting management is an art and science and when you add the element of value analysis into the mix it could become even more challenging. We have developed a simple list of dos and don’ts that you should consider in order to make your own VA team meetings hum.

VA Team Dos

• Do Take Attendance at Your Meetings – Attendance may seem like a very mundane task that is not necessary in the value analysis world, but it really is. If your team members drop below the benchmark 80% attendance for the year in value analysis team meetings, then are they really an effective team member? Probably not. Even worse, you may have team members that are hovering around 40%, 50%, or 60% attendance. You will want to consider replacing team members who are not going to attend. We found out a long time ago that poor attendance equals degraded engagement which is not what you need in a thriving value analysis team.
• Do Utilize Value Analysis Workflow Software – The time has come to retire the VA team spreadsheet and move on to true value analysis workflow software to manage all of your new product requests, value analysis spend and utilization analytics, VA project management, and your team/meeting management. Trying to squeeze all these elements into a spreadsheet is nearly impossible but database VA workflow solutions can do all of this and keep everyone on the same page. Look for quicker, better, faster results and get more done in less time with less effort.
• Do Limit the Time of Your Meetings to No Longer Than 60 Minutes – This is going to be tough for many of you, especially with the amount of new product requests that tend to dominate your entire agenda and push it from a 1-hour meeting to over 2 hours. Remember, VA team meetings are not working meetings and instead should be geared toward status updates and decisions. Even if you have a packed agenda, you should be able to roll through it pretty quickly if all of the updates are done quickly and concisely. This may take some training for your team members, but it is not impossible.
• Do Always Work to Limit the Amount of New Product Requests – New product requests can become overwhelming for VA professionals and their teams. I have spoken to VA professionals who have stated that they handle over 80-150 new product requests in a year. That is just too many. The moment this VA Pro told me that, my mind started thinking that we need to assist them with reeling that number of NPRs in. There are a number of ways to do this, like limiting the dollar amount that you can submit. For example, it must have at least a $30K annual spend, otherwise it gets handled through normal channels (with some exceptions). What I am saying is that you need to unburden the VA teams so that they can focus on the most important value analysis work, not the $6K annual change on your enteral feeding tube connector.

VA Team Don’ts

• Don’t Invite Vendors to Present to Your Value Analysis Team Meeting – The salespeople all think that if they could present to the actual value analysis decision making body in the healthcare organization that they will somehow be able to convince everyone on the team to agree to their offering. However, this is not the case. Your true subject matter experts and stakeholders may not even be on the value analysis team and thus you are going to chew up valuable time of the VA team with these presentations. It is also important to consider how many presentations you could allow with an already full agenda. These presentations need to be made in meetings other than the VA team meetings with the true customers, stakeholders, and subject matter experts. Then and only then should the offering move to the VA team in the form of a VA project or new product request.
• Don’t Talk Away Viable Savings, Performance, or Quality Optimizations – The worst thing that can happen to any optimization is for a department head or manager in a value analysis team meeting to have a knee-jerk reaction to a proposed change or initiative and shut it down before any investigations. Remember, some of these department heads and managers also sit on the VA team to watch out for their turf, so they will be the first ones to nix a change just so that no changes are made in their departments. Also, they are leery of looking bad. Remember, the louder the knee-jerk reaction is in a VA team meeting, the more you may want to delve into the initiative further as there may be something there. Don’t let lip service knock out viable initiatives without proper value analysis reviews performed.
• Don’t Be One of the First to Have the New Instrument or System – I cannot tell you how many times I sit in VA team meetings and a new product comes along which is totally new to a clinical modality, but the surgeon wants it. There may be an upside if the surgeon helped develop the product, but this is most often done at larger university teaching facilities. There are too many x-factors that could happen with adding a brand-new system/instrument that may or may not have reimbursement in place in your state or with your insurers. It is better to let these brand-new products go until there is more usage, more reviews, and more FDA MAUDE (adverse events) reported before your organization considers adding it. It should not be a no to the surgeon, but a wait to gain more valuable insights.

These dos and don’ts may seem obvious, but we see them happening often. Take a step back and see what is challenging your VA team’s productivity and performance. Even if it is not one of the actions listed above, you can still do something positive about it now. It is always better to adjust, fine-tune, and optimize how you run your VA team meetings.

About Robert W. Yokl, President of SVAH Solutions
Robert is the President of SVAH Solutions which provides value analysis, clinical supply utilization, and savings validation tools to help healthcare organizations gain the next level of savings beyond price and standardization. https://www.SVAH-Solutions.com https://www.SavingsValidation.com

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