“If You Are Doing The Same Things And Are Expecting
Different Results, It’s Time For A Reality Check”
With the
introduction of the supply/value chain management concept a few
years ago, healthcare organizations thought all they had to do to
reduce their supply/value chain cost was to put together a committee
or a few teams, with the goal of saving money. They thought the
savings would just flow as a matter of course! What really
happened is that commitment soon “waned” and when resistance to
change raised its ugly head, these initiatives fizzled, stalled
or hit the wall on savings altogether.
To reverse
the negative effects of this flawed thinking “progressive”
healthcare organizations need to: (i) change their culture, (ii)
re-organize to save, (iii) change their focus from “price”
thinking to function, customer and quality
thinking, and (iv) adopt new innovative and revolutionary
strategies, tactics, tools and techniques to create new positive
behaviors and outcomes. This can only happen if and when healthcare
organizations decide to change their strategic direction.
It’s no
secret that “if you are doing the same things related to your
supply/value chain performance and are expecting different results”,
it’s time for a reality check! Healthcare
organizations that have reached the level “superior”
performance with their supply/value chain performance, “think
differently” and “do differently”, than healthcare organizations
that have “average” performance. In fact, they do four things
differently.
First,
they adopt new functional models for the evaluation and
selection of the millions of dollars in products, services, and
technology purchases that they commit to annually.
New functional models provide a standardized
value-based process that will remove the time and cost of your
employees’ “Winging It”. This will inaugurate a new
process, which will have department heads and managers redefine and
reinvent all of the products, services and technology they are
buying, thus create a new, innovative way for them to think about
their buying process.
Second,
they create new organizational architectures and new rules
that are Team-based. This enables them to engage all of their
department heads and managers in making savings happen, since they
are the individuals who actually manage and control their
budgets.
Third,
they change their culture from “Price” thinking to
function, customer and quality thinking. This
streamlines and reinvents their product, service and technology
evaluation/selection process evermore. Cultural change is necessary
so that sustainable supply/value chain savings can flow easily
and consistently without turf battles and wars being
fought over moving a paper clip from one desk to another.
By changing
this paradigm (from “price” thinking to function, customer and
quality thinking), their clinicians become willing partners in their
supply/value chain initiatives due to the fact that they won’t be
pushed and pulled in the wrong direction by traditional
products evaluation techniques and tactics.
Fourth, they employ the latest technologies so that their department
heads and managers can, plan, organize, analyze, track, and document
their value studies. At the same time they utilize the new
technology to guide them in the search for lower cost alternatives
for all of the products, services and technologies that they are now
purchasing.
Above all,
these “superior” performance supply/value chain organizations
optimize their supply/value chain successes through a
never-ending search for enhancements and improvements
in their supply/value chain. Success to them is not just a
destination, but a never-ending journey!
Supply/Value Chain Success: A Never-Ending Journey
As I
mentioned, when these “superior” performers talk about their
supply/value chain successes, they talk of it in terms such
as “superior performance isn’t a sometime thing, or one time
thing, but a never-ending journey” In fact, they never
expect to reach perfection with supply/value chain management,
because they are always on an inexhaustible “quest” to
enhance and improve it.
My
inescapable message to you is,
if you are to move from “average” to “superior”
supply/value chain performance you too will need to “think
differently” and “do differently”, like those few, but
“elite” healthcare organizations that get it, live it and are very
proud to be called “leaders” in supply/value chain management.
by
Robert T. Yokl, President