“Remember, the biggest value to your hospital value analysis program is you and your team members.”
Let’s face it, value analysis can be quite overwhelming. It is a faster-better-quicker expectational environment. As fast as a new product request, contract conversion, or cost savings initiative is submitted/presented, our end customers want results. But there is a due diligence in value analysis as well as the contracting process that is a must in this fast-paced supply chain world.
I cannot tell you how many times I have spoken to overwhelmed VA and supply chain team members trying to keep up with the fast-paced supply chain demands. When you get even a little bit behind, it tends to snowball.
We thought we would give you a few strategies that would help you take a breather, reset, and become even better and more confident than before.
Help Your Hospital Value Analysis/Supply Chain Teams Take a Breather
1. Break It Up – Sometimes, sitting at your desk all day long can add to the grind of the supply chain/value analysis duties. It might be a good time to select a VA project that may be on a nursing floor or in your ED and take a walk to view the incumbent product(s) in action in the clinical or non-clinical departments. A good example of this is exam gloves. There is more to the equation with exam gloves than just the gloves themselves. That would be a great study to view in action, and perhaps take pictures of the glove holders or boxes sitting out that should not be. View the housekeeping carts as they clean the rooms and see the gloves they are using, go to dietary and see how they are using gloves, etc. This could be done on, say, a Friday afternoon, but the idea here is that it breaks up the grind of the VA or supply chain job, but you are still performing value analysis.
Personally, I like to see the product in the storeroom and how many are stocked on the shelves. This always tells you about things you never see in reports but are very important. Plus, you can ask Inventory Techs questions. They know more than you think!
2. Pause the New Product Requests – Some organizations have 10, 20, 30, or even 50 new product requests that will come in in any given month. It takes a lot of due diligence to properly facilitate all these requests through the contracting reviews and value analysis workflow processes. If this keeps happening month after month, you are bound to get behind. The best strategy here is to ask your supply chain leaders for perhaps a week, two weeks, or even a month’s pause on new product requests. All in the name of allowing the supply chain/VA team to catch up on everything that is in the VA workflow agenda. There is a good chance your leaders will be agreeable to this and realize that this may be a good strategy moving forward.
Pausing new product requests can benefit you in many ways but if you build these into your operating model, the pauses can be used to allow you to catch up and also buffer time and resources for things like major contract conversions that are time sensitive.
3. VA Teams – Sometimes it is a good idea to have training instead of a value analysis meeting. This breaks up the ongoing tedium of the VA teams but also results in advancing the team members and leaders in new strategies for change, quality, and cost management. You would be surprised what the break and the new perspective from the training can do for you and your teams.
You Are the Biggest Value to Hospital Value Analysis
These are not the only ways you can break things up during your VA meetings. I know some break up meetings by having lunch meetings or coffee/pastry breakfast meetings for their teams. There are many ways this can be done but you have to be open to the idea of how to break up the tediousness that comes along with VA/supply chain analysis over the long term. Remember, the biggest value to your hospital value analysis program is you and your team members.
Below are some similar articles that you may find interesting.
Hospital Supply Chain: 3 Different Ways for You to Find Big Savings
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