Bridging the Gap Between Price and Utilization
By now I hope our readers realize that they aren’t limited to just price savings alone. There is now a whole new world of supply savings in utilization (i.e. targeting your products, services and technologies in use cost) just waiting to be harvested at your healthcare organization. But how do you bridge the gap between price and utilization without skipping a beat? It might be easier than you think if you have the right mindset!
Here is how one of our clients, Alan Weintraub, Director of Materials Management, Enloe Medical Center (EMC), Chico, California, bridged the gap with a new “mindset” that was written up in this month’s issue of HFMA’s Cost Containment Newsletter. “One of the keys to success at the outset of EMC’s utilization management program was to create a “new mindset” for its material management staff, physicians, clinicians, and department heads to spur them into action. EMC calls this mindset “value-based thinking”; taking a questioning, probing, and inquisitive approach as to why clinicians and staff do the things they do and focusing on outcomes, not activity. It was especially important for the program coordinator to realize that it was okay for her to challenge the organization’s long-held assumptions regarding the value of any given commodity.”
“This mindset brought about immediate results on one of the hospital’s first utilization management projects: wound care. Instead of signing off on a new (wound care) GPO contract being offered, ECM decided to pursue a value-based approach by reviewing the organization’s wound care program in total in an attempt to reduce EMC’s pressure ulcer rate. During the course of the initiative, EMC reviewed its use of patient transfer devices, skin care and incontinent care products, ultra-absorbent pads, its bed-making process, and transport team training. In doing so, the organization uncovered inefficiencies (in the use of patient transfer devices, the efficacy of the skin care products, value mismatched with absorbent pads, and lack of a consistent process in bed making). Once these inefficiencies were corrected, EMC reduced its ulcer rate by 10 percent while reducing its wound care supply spend by $262,000 annually.”
There you have it! A new “mindset” can bridge the gap between price and utilization for even bigger and better utilization savings that goes right to your bottom line. All it takes is the motivation to dig deeper and broader for savings rather than just accepting the next new GPO contract price that comes across your desk.
Filed Under: savingsblog • Utilization Management
