We have been hearing a lot about evidence-based value analysis in our hospital supply chain conferences and publications, yet there hasn’t been a lot of information on how to apply this concept. Especially since out of the hundreds of thousands of products, services, and technologies healthcare organizations buy each year there are only a few hundred formal evidence-based studies, usually high-ticket new and emerging physician preference items, conducted on these commodities. With this said, here are three surefire ways to perform evidence-based value analysis to meet this challenge:
- Empirical or Observed Data: This involves the cumulative effect of seeing data that consistently points to an anomaly in a product, service, or technology’s supply stream as compared to your peers or your own historical data. Examples could be using 10x your peer’s usage of floor gloves or observing an increase of 27% in your floor glove usage in just one quarter without any increase in your census. We see this as reliable, evidence-based proof that you have an opportunity to save money or improve your quality.
- Researched or Investigated: These are the traditional, original published investigations (sometimes blinded) that are performed by a trustworthy and unbiased source that has researched a product, service, technology or current best practice and discovered a new or better recommended best practice, validated the worth of a current best practice, or examined new modalities entering the healthcare marketplace.
- Self-Evident or Obvious: If you observe with your “own eyes” that something is wrong with a current practice at your healthcare organization, and this practice is contributing to waste and inefficiency, then this is evidence-based data you can use to make necessary changes. For instance, one of our clients observed that their emergency department had standardized on neonatal oxygen sensors at a higher cost than using adult oxygen sensors. This is self-evident and obvious wasteful practice and should be changed.
My firm’s pragmatic evidence (listed above), leads us to believe that evidence-based value analysis doesn’t always mean researching original, secondary, or comparative investigations on a product, service, technology, or best practice. It can also mean employing historical, empirical, and observational data to validate your value analysis studies. Remember that you can rely on only .0001% of the products, services, and technologies that you buy to have been formally researched and investigated. This means you need other reliable evidence to ensure that your buying decisions are based on facts, not conjecture or emotions. Pragmatic evidence is the answer to this challenge!