Healthcare Value Analysis Hospital Consulting and Benchmarking for Supply Chain Savings

I can’t tell you how many times I have heard “But, my situation is different” when I’m discussing with a CEO, COO, CFO or supply chain professional why their healthcare organization isn’t maximizing their supply chain savings.

They tell me they are different because their clinicians won’t change their practices, or their reimbursement formulas are dissimilar from other hospitals, or supply benchmarks don’t tell the real story on how they are actually doing, or some other variation of the these themes!

But what they are really telling me with these statements is that if you don’t want to do something -- then any excuse is good enough.

My observation has been that hospitals, systems and IDNs do differ somewhat when you look at their cultures (or how they do things around here), but saving money isn’t one of the differentiators. The unvarnished fact is that when a healthcare organization decides to save money, nothing, no one or no thing will stand in its way of doing so!

So if you think your situation is different when it comes to saving money, maybe its not occurring as a result of something else, but because of the lack of commitment to do so.

P.S. Have You Heard About Value Analysis 2.0- The New Rules to Supply Chain Savings? Listen to the Upcoming Supply Chain Best Practices Podcast that you will receive an email notification on. You Don't Want to Miss This One!

“Sometimes, Supply Chain Professionals Have To Take A Fresh Approach In Order To Get Everyone To Jump On their Supply Chain Savings Train”

If you think about it leadership is all about change! This is especially true for supply chain professionals who must manage change even when their clinicians are entrenched in what they do. So in this environment how do you get everyone on board your supply chain savings train?

Sometimes, supply chain professionals have to take a fresh approach in order to get everyone to jump on their supply chain savings train. This fresh approach requires patience, persistence, empathy, communications, and education to deepen understanding and manage expectations in order to develop trust.

At SVAH we have found that all positive change in behavior starts with education across all levels of management on what you are trying to accomplish. You might think of these educational sessions as the who, what, when, where, how and why your healthcare organization needs to save money!

I can recall that even before I became a consultant 27 years ago, when I started a new job as a material manager and later on as a Vice President of Support Services, I immediately started my campaign to educate my senior management and department heads and managers that making savings happen –- now-- matters. I can even remember making a presentation to the board of directors of one hospital where I worked to obtain the hospital’s board members commitment to saving money. This educational strategy worked repeatedly for me as a method for smoothing the way for change in order to achieve the savings goals that my employers hired me for to make happen.

I developed seminars, workshops, special reports, manuals, a monthly newsletter, and training programs to get my message across -- that saving money is EVERYONE’S BUSINESS -- not just mine! Little by little the skeptics became advocates and the advocates become champions of what we were trying to accomplish. That is, make change happen!

Change is easy if you have developed trust with the individual(s) that you need to persuade to make the change. This doesn’t happen overnight, but can happen more quickly than you might think. The best way to do so is to teach your department heads and managers (through your words and actions) to base any change in their product, service and technology decisions on “disciplined thinking” – not by “winging it”.

Once these individuals understand that there is a defined and fair scientific process which we call value analysis, to be following in making these important buying decisions – and we stick by this process dutifully – their trust will grow to the point that change will happen naturally without any turf or defensive battles.

For Immediate Release

Contact: R.W. Yokl - 800-220-4271

One of the Most Important Supply Chain Tools to Be Introduced In the Past 25 Years According to a Leading Supply Chain Expert

Most healthcare organizations don’t have a utilization benchmarking tool to pinpoint, with certainty, where all their utilization savings reside, therefore are missing an extremely important power tool in their toolbox that can save them 3%, 6% or even 9% in their supply chain expenses. The good news! With SVAH’s new UTILIZER™ Utilization Management Dashboard, healthcare organizations will have the exact tool that they have been searching for to quickly and easily uncover all of their utilization misalignments.

Skippack, PA June 29, 2007 - We all know that a hammer is used to strike nails, a drill is use to make holes and a screw driver is use to turn screws. We call this using the precise tool for the right job to get the best results! Then why do healthcare organizations continue to use the wrong benchmarking tool to uncover their utilization savings? The answer is that we don’t always know there is a better tool to get the job done right the first time!

Robert T. Yokl, President of Strategic Value Analysis® In Healthcare (SVAH), an acknowledged expert in supply chain management, recalls talking to a healthcare supply chain manager a few months ago who told him that he was working with three databases (a spend manager, analytics manager and clinical manager), but still couldn’t uncover his hospital’s utilization misalignments. While SVAH’s own measurements showed however that this hospital had $4.2 million in utilization misalignments that were invisible to this supply chain manager. “This is the quandary that too many healthcare supply chain professionals face today, how to move to the next level of savings performance”.

More importantly Yokl states, “If a healthcare organization doesn’t have a utilization benchmarking tool to pinpoint, with certainty, where all their utilization savings reside, they are missing an extremely important power tool in their toolbox that can save them 3%, 6% or even 9%.”

“When you consider that a hospital, system or IDN can have 18,000 to 48,000 or more products (in 176 categories of purchase) in their MMIS system, where do supply chain professionals get started probing for these hidden savings?”, Yokl asks.

“The good news” Yokl predicts, “is that with SVAH’s new UTILIZER™ Utilization Management Dashboard healthcare organizations will have the exact tool that they have been searching for to quickly and easily uncover all of their utilization misalignments.”

Over the last seven years SVAH has conducted hundreds of utilization benchmarking studies for hospitals, systems and IDNs employing their own proprietary utilization dashboard which has identified close to a half a billion dollars in utilization misalignments for SVAH’s clients.

SVAH has now decided, after much internal debate, to make available their proprietary utilization dashboard to the marketplace as a monthly subscription service. This is because they now believe that periodic utilization studies aren’t a timely or effective way to manage a multi-million dollar supply chain business.

“We believe that a much better way, after we have repeatedly observed that our client’s utilization patterns are changing so rapidly (in less than three months in some cases), is to provide our clients with real-time access to mission critical and actionable information.”

This then is the genesis and the reason for SVAH introducing its new UTILIZER™ Utilization Management dashboard which Yokl believes,” Is one of the most important supply chain tools to be introduced in the past 25 years.”

Yokl says, “that the UTILIZER™ Utilization Management Dashboard will be provided as a subscription service on a fixed monthly fee basis (with a 30 day cancellation for any reason) to identify all of our client’s utilization savings.” SVAH will also provide its clients with unlimited phone and e-mail coaching and consulting to assist them in the implementation of the savings that have been identified with the UTILIZER™. SVAH will also provide them with quarterly refreshing of their purchasing data so clients will always be on top of their utilization misalignments. “The best feature of our UTILIZER™. subscription services,” Yokl states, “is that we can have new clients in the drivers seat within 30 days.”

About The Company: Strategic Value Analysis® In Healthcare, (SVAH) Skippack, Pennsylvania, is a software, training and consulting firm specializing in supply chain management. SVAH’s mission is to give our clients greater control over their supply chain by providing them with better information, better focus, and better systems so they can make better decisions on their second biggest expenditure.

For More Information Contact:

Robert W. Yokl

Vice President

Strategic Value Analysis® In Healthcare

800-220-4271

ryokl@strategicvalueanalysis.com

www.strategicvalueanalysis.com