Healthcare value analysis is a real profession and a lifetime career for those who decide to make it so. Yet, too many value analysis professionals decide to go it alone when they enter this profession. Meaning, they have no training, mentoring, or pathway to success to follow in this important field. Too many are “winging it” at their own peril.
Just think of the power value analysis professionals have to wield. They can endorse or negate a million-dollar purchase while saving hundreds of thousands of dollars annually for their healthcare organization. They can influence the decisions of the value analysis teams and/or their supply chain leadership who look to them on a daily basis for guidance. Hence, value analysis is a position of influence that too often goes unnoticed in a hospital, system, or IDN.
Just like any other profession, value analysis has ethical standards, creeds, doctrines, and beliefs that set it apart from other occupations, such as, the tenet that value analysis is the study of function and the search for lower cost alternatives. It’s not about price or comparison shopping as too many value analysis practitioners believe. However, without comprehensive value analysis training and mentoring value analysis practitioners can and will get caught up in this paradigm and then be lost forever.
Most new value analysis practitioners receive on-the-job training by an incumbent or are self-trained. The disadvantage of doing so is that you either are taught the bad habits of the incumbent and/or you never seek out training or mentors that can help you to follow the right path to success. I personally had a mentor when I was first hired as a supply chain/value analysis practitioner who kept me on the straight and narrow path to success. I don’t know if I would be where I am today without this mentor.
Here are four sources for training and mentoring that I recommend to help you in your quest for professionalism: SAVE International, Association of Healthcare Value Analysis Professionals or our Special Reports and Best Practices sections at our SVAH Solutions website. We hope you will investigate these excellent resources to up your value analysis game. It is mission critical that you do so!
