“You have to prove that a value analysis/cost management review is necessary and need buy-in from department heads and managers.”
How do you know when to start, stop, or continue with a value analysis review? There should be valid reasons why you are going to perform a value analysis review, why you may stop it midstream, or why it must continue out to a final resolution. These are valid issues that VA/supply chain team members deal with every day.
Today I am talking about the “Start, Stop, Continue” conundrum. If you get this dynamic right, you will do big things and get great results for your health system. If you get it wrong, you have just wasted a bunch of time with little or no results to show for it. The strategy here is to get it right more than you get it wrong.
You Have to Prove that a Value Analysis (VA) and/or Cost Management (CM) Review is Necessary – Today, you are going to need the buy-in from your department heads and managers to even review a product or service in their areas. They do not even want to discuss change without proof that the needed change is real, so make sure you have proof. Pretend you are in their shoes and try to punch holes in your proof. Make it bulletproof and you can make big things happen.
Lip Service from Start to Finish in a VA/CM Project is Part of the Game – Those department heads and managers are going to do everything they possibly can to try to put the brakes on your efforts or even dispel the results you find in your VA/CM projects. You are going to have to expect the lip service and roll with it. The good part about the lip service is that they are going to offer up valid points and reasons that are worth their weight in gold. Then, you can research them and validate/invalidate them without losing a beat.
One of Our Long Time Mantras – “Don’t Stop at the First Savings You Find” – Let’s face it, you will always find initial/quick savings on just about any VA/CM project you work on, but we have found over our decades of experience that there is always much more.
Organizational Inertia is Very Real in Healthcare – Nobody wants to have their VA/CM project drag on and feel as though it is stuck in neutral or just taking small baby steps. What I learned from some very skilled Quality and VA Managers over the years is that some hospitals and health systems have a pace at which they work. The more complex the VA/CM study, the slower their pace might be. This inertia usually rears its head on areas that involve changes to entire clinical areas such as changes to oxisensors, IV products, procedural areas, etc.
Learn to Read the Room (Hospital) – I remember a value analysis project that I worked on with a large community hospital and the Director of Value Analysis. Together we were able to uncover a $200K savings opportunity through our analysis. All clinicians agreed on the major savings opportunity, but it would require the entire hospital (nursing, anesthesia/OR, etc.) to change the way they set up their IV sets. The Director of VA then made a bold statement and said that they would only implement the changes on the nursing staff which would net $130K in savings and leave the OR team alone. He basically said that hospitals like his can only take so much change at once and he would bank the savings and address OR down the road. He knew how to read the room (hospital) and is now the COO of that very large and prestigious hospital.
Don’t Take Your Implemented Results for Granted – Validate Them 60, 90, and 120 Days After Implementation – So much great work is put into VA/CM projects but after the project has been completed, the VA/CM project managers move on to the next project. VA/CM project managers need to build follow-ups into their process to ensure that their good work does not fall back into old habits or that previous products do not creep back into the departments where you enacted the changes. Plus, if the results weren’t achieved, you can then easily re-implement those changes and regain the results. It just makes sense to perform the savings validation. Otherwise, what good is saying you saved money when the organization really didn’t?
I could go on and on with the things that are just part of the school of hard knocks that do not have to be in healthcare value analysis and cost management projects. The key is having the awareness that these things could happen on any given value analysis or cost management project, but they don’t have to make you stop in your tracks or get thrown out of kilter. Learn to anticipate these and you will be unstoppable!
| About Robert W. Yokl, President of SVAH Solutions |
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| 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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