Healthcare Value Analysis Hospital Consulting and Benchmarking for Supply Chain Savings

This is a Yogi Berra-ism (the famous New York Yankee catcher of yesteryear) who actually had more insight into how things worked than he was ever given credit for. This is because his quotes or witticisms when read or heard usually brought a chuckle to the receiver of his wisdom – then forgotten.

However, I have found Yogi’s wisdom on this topic to be one of the most powerful tactics for you and me for saving money – big time. In fact, I once saved $93,689.22 in one hour by “observing a lot by watching” how a healthcare organization who retained our services was utilizing a form they called “General Requisition” used to order Lab, PT, Radiology or any other test or procedure a physician wanted performed for their patients.

I won’t go into the details here on how I did it, but I’m sure you will get my point. That being, if you observe how your customers are utilizing the products, services and technologies that you are buying for them, you will find that there is an enormous amount of waste and inefficiency in what they are doing. You can do this without spending a lot of time to uncover these misuses and misapplications.

P.S. If you want to read more about Yogi Berra’s quips you might want to read his latest book, “I really didn’t say everything I said” for a few more chuckles and some great homegrown wisdom too.

“As Time Becomes Even More Of A Scarce Commodity, Now and In The Future, Virtual Teamwork Is An Imperative For All Healthcare Organizations”

How many committee or team meetings did you attend last week that could have been accomplished virtually if you would just think about them for a minute? My guess is all of them!

This is especially true with value analysis committees and team meetings. If your healthcare organization would just invest a little money in online resources where your members can meet and collaborate in a virtual environment they can be even more productive than they are now. And save hundreds of hours annually by doing so!

I think there is a “blind spot” in our current healthcare management practices where we think that we can’t be productive unless we meet face-to-face.

Around the world companies’ tasks, projects and other business are regularly performed by teams of employees who rarely, if ever, meet in person. Other industries have found that technology makes it possible for them to work together on projects and teams relying solely on electronic communications.

In fact, because of my own company’s technologies I rarely meet with my consulting team in person either, and we haven’t missed a beat in seven years by doing so! We are also meeting less and less face-to-face with our clients, since we have much of our coaching, training, and project management sessions on-line as well.

There are four things you should know to conduct virtual meetings before you venture into this domain:

(i) Create an online site where your team(s) can collaborate, exchange ideas and document their work.

(ii) Select a team leader that can deal with ambiguity and the challenges of virtual teamwork.

(iii) Choose a few team members who already know each other to rapidly build your team’s social network.

(iv) Encourage frequent communications between team members to inspire and motivate them.

Lastly, successful virtual teams are a work in progress, so don’t give up on them when you experience your first bumps in the road. Continue to work out the kinks until your virtual meetings closely resemble the face-to-face meetings you are now happy not to attend.

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