How many of your healthcare value analysis projects are stalled, or worse yet, in limbo? My guess is that it could be as high as 23% to 35%, at any given time, representing tens of thousands of dollars in savings not being implemented. To avoid this bottleneck, here are three surefire ways to get your stalled or rejected hospital value analysis projects approved:
1. Document your stalled or rejected value analysis projects: We have found this problem to be so serious that we have built into our Utilizer® Dashboard a savings tracker that documents and quantifies all stalled or rejected value analysis projects. We then recommend that our clients share this information with their senior management and request that they provide assistance in moving these projects forward.
2. Review all stalled or rejected projects with your value analysis steering committee monthly: More and more healthcare organizations are establishing value analysis steering committees, but aren’t using this leverage to push hard on their stalled or rejected projects. This was the case with one of our clients who had identified $827,288 in telecommunication savings, but their IT director, who was in charge of this expense category, refused to investigate this saving opportunity. The chairperson of the value analysis steering committee then challenged the IT director’s vice president at a monthly steering committee meeting on his intransigence. Well, it only took thirty days for the IT director to make these savings happen. That’s how you get stalled or rejected projects moving again; by applying leverage where it is needed!
3. Post all stalled or rejected hospital value analysis projects on a dashboard for your senior management, department heads, and managers to see: One of our clients has done this for years with the result that even their board chairman has reviewed their stalled or rejected projects and commented on them. It’s similar to a blog in that anyone can comment, make suggestions, or help get your projects moving again.
As you can see, all three of these surefire ways to get your stalled or rejected projects approved have one thing in common, VISIBILITY. If you don’t report or bring to the attention of your senior management, department heads, and managers, the number of your value analysis projects that are slipping, stalled, or have been rejected, through no fault of your hospital value analysis team, then you will never get them to the finish line. Visibility, persistence, and fortitude are the answer to this challenge!
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