When you find savings opportunities that go beyond price alone, such as clinical supply utilization cost overruns, you will at some point need to address this with the end customers who use the product on an ongoing basis. You need to be ready for this and have confidence in the steps that will lead you to the savings and not leave any money on the table for your organization. In addition, if cost inefficiencies are present, there is a strong possibility you may also uncover underlying quality concerns, creating an even greater win-win for your end customers. VA is not always about costs!
1. Let Them Try to Talk You Away – Often times, your customers’ first reaction will be one of talking you out of delving further into a value analysis review. They are all for change and doing things right, but they also don’t want to engage if they don’t have to and the best way for them not to engage is to give you a reason or two why their costs are running higher. I have learned to welcome these reactions, and you should too, as they will give valid reasons that you can check on before you even engage fully in a VA Study. But if you find that their reasons are not valid, then you know that you need to move ahead with a full-blown value analysis study. It is a great litmus test!
2. Your Data Must Be Right – First things first, you must ensure that the data you are basing your cost savings opportunities on is in fact accurate. Don’t be quick and dirty with your data, especially when you are dealing with your end customers. They deal with these products on an ongoing basis and thus will be able to sniff out data irregularities in a heartbeat. Once you think you have the perfect report, take a step back and scrutinize your own reporting in the way an end customer would. Do you have your metrics right? Are you comparing the right products to the right products? Are your volumes correct? Were there any price changes in the period that you are using for your baseline comparisons?
3. Be On Point with Your Questions – Just because you show a new savings opportunity with a particular product does not automatically mean that your end customers are going to instantly “get it.” We must ask questions and try to solve the puzzle as to what is causing these costs overruns that now need to be dialed back or changed. The best way to open a dialog with your customers is to ask open-ended questions. When was the last time you in-serviced your nursing team on the use of these products? Were there any changes to your nursing procedures that may have caused this increase in utilization of your product?
4. You Don’t Need to Have All the Answers to Engage – It can be intimidating to engage clinicians in their respective disciplines when we are outsiders looking in, but you need to engage. Remember, we are just working on the value analysis process to find the root cause of the issues at hand. Don’t expect to have all the answers and remember that sometimes a value analysis study is more of a marathon, not a sprint.
5. Value Analysis is the Search for Reliable Alternatives – Once you find the root cause of an increase, you can start to develop functional alternatives to what they are using (or how they are using it) now. It could, at times, not have anything to do with the functionality of the product but may pertain to waste, product selections (if more than one choice), or just inefficient use patterns.
6. It Is Okay to Brainstorm with Your Customers – Learn to work with your customers to develop the corrective actions or product alternatives that will work best to solve the cost overrun. If there is a problem with the product, look inside your existing contract lines for lower cost/equal quality alternatives. If the cost overrun is due to wasting a product or misusing it, then look for nursing leadership to adjust policy, practices, and procedures to eliminate the waste.
By following these best practices for engaging customers in value analysis, you will have a strategic framework to address clinical supply cost overruns without compromising quality. It emphasizes that while clinicians may initially resist change, their feedback serves as a vital “litmus test” for the necessity of a formal VA study. It’s part of your success process as VA professionals to ensure data is bulletproof to maintain credibility, use open-ended questions to uncover the root causes of waste, and approach the process as a collaborative “marathon” rather than a sprint. Ultimately, the goal is to work alongside clinical end-users to brainstorm functional alternatives — whether through policy adjustments or product substitutions — that eliminate waste and optimize organizational value.
Below are some similar articles that you may find interesting.
What Things are Important to Track and Measure for Value Analysis?