Value analysis workflow is paramount for organizations to vet their new product requests. These systems have to take a raw request through all the evaluation phases and on to implementation as well as all of the communications, project tracking, tasks, reporting, and alike. The days of tracking these on just one spreadsheet are behind us. Those are the mission critical items that any VA workflow software needs to have. In this article, I will outline some add-ins that you might not expect but are very important.
Important Add-Ins to Your Value Analysis Workflow Software
1. VA Does More Than New Product Requests – There is more to value analysis workflow than just managing the product through your “process.” There is savings reporting, email communications, team management, agendas, meeting minutes, etc. The goal for you would be to utilize a system that not only handles the new product request workflows but also handles the other very important areas of managing your teams and meetings as well as the savings results.
2. What About Follow-Up Reports? – If your VA workflow software only handles new product requests then you should realize that there is more that this software can and should do for you in this day and age. A perfect example of this is what we call savings validation or what happens to the projects that you have implemented over the short and long term. For you to track after this, you are going to have to spend a good amount of time pulling PO data and crunching it, and that is only for one VA project. The time it takes to do this is beyond what VA professionals have left in the tank after the VA work is done. But some systems, such as ours, have the before, during, and after effect built in. You just set your parameters (date and time range, and even operating metric) and the reporting will automatically tell you where every NPR or VA project’s results are.
3. Email Routing and Communications – As a company that provides customizable VA workflow software, we are amazed at how differently each hospital and/or health system we do business with handles their new product requests. Things like email routing and general communications are one of the areas that you sometimes don’t consider when selecting a VA workflow solutions provider, but it very much should be. You want to ensure that your communications from notifications to next steps to completion of steps are all available for you to work with a system. The worst thing would be having to compromise on how your organization does business to comply with a canned software approach.
4. Benchmarking and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) – One of the areas that we find the best to have at our disposal in the value analysis environment is the ability to benchmark products and product categories. This allows us and the teams we work with to be able to know what is happening internally and externally with the products and their product categories, which is vitally important in our industry. Having an active benchmarking program will build in another layer of cost savings and quality improvement, and establish best practice areas within your healthcare organization with the products you are approving or not approving.
Every time we sit in on a client’s value analysis meeting in which projects or new products are being discussed, we review the categories and their products to see if they are increasing, decreasing, or remaining the same as a first step in evaluating a new product. Imagine, vetting a new product for a surgical procedure that is already 35% or more over their previous year’s cost per procedure and 39% over their cohort benchmark peer group’s average cost per procedure. This is very valuable information to know beyond just VA workflow.
Don’t Get Caught Up in Shiny Features of Value Analysis Workflow Software – Get Your Must Haves
I highly recommend that you perform a value analysis functional requirements study if you will be purchasing a new VA workflow software solution or even perform this analysis if you are looking to upgrade features on your existing system. I caution you to make sure that you don’t get caught up in the “shiny” features of a software solution only to find out that they were great in the demo but then you hardly use them in your day-to-day VA workflow. Make sure they are part of your functional requirements and are must-haves, not nice-to-have or just “shiny things” that in the end don’t hold much value at all.
Below are some similar articles that you may find interesting.
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Podcast 88 – Getting Max Value Out of Sales Reps for Your Value Analysis Program