We are all looking for better, faster, and more agile healthcare value analysis processes, since we need to get more done in less time. The best way to do so is to take a hard look at your value analysis process, eliminate and then automate for better lasting results. This is a concept created by Amanda Prochaska, Vice President, Procurement, MGM Resorts International. Here’s how it works:
Get Comfortable with Questioning Everything About Your Value Analysis Program
Most value analysis programs have been in place for some time (2, 4, or even 10 years) and yet haven’t been re-evaluated for efficiency, effectiveness, and challenging their success. A good place to start is to ask questions about everything in your value analysis program, such as:
- Why does our value analysis team only meet once a month?
- Why do we have 35 members on our value analysis team?
- Who should be leading our value analysis team meetings?
- Why are we only looking at new products and new GPO contracts?
- Why don’t we have a champion on each of our VA teams?
This is just a short list of questions that you and your value analysis team members can develop to challenge what you are doing now. I can assure you that your questions will lead to better answers for your value analysis program.
Process First, Eliminate, Then Automate
The next step is to map your value analysis process from start to finish. In many situations, this will be a two or three prong procedure, since you have a different process for new products, GPO contract evaluations, and products currently in use.Â
Once you have your current VA process or processes mapped, it is now time to eliminate redundancies, streamline inefficiencies, and re-invent problem areas. For instance, if it is taking your VA team more than 90 days to evaluate a new product, service, or technology, this process needs to be re-worked to remove the roadblocks.
Once this phase has been accomplished, you need to automate everything that can be computerized in your value analysis process. Here is a short list of tasks/activities that can and should be computerized:
- Minutes
- Agendas
- Attendance
- Meeting Schedules
- Team Management
- Clinical Trials
- Savings Scorecard
- Project Management
- New Product Requests
Since time is money, all your value analysis tasks/activities should be automated to speed up your processes because spreadsheets just won’t get the job done efficiently for you any longer.
Measure and Manage for Best Results
Once you have improved your value analysis process you will want to establish measurements (e.g., time to complete projects, savings vs. savings goals, attendance at meetings, etc.) to ensure that your new value analysis processes are working as planned. To ignore these maintenance steps can almost ensure that you and your value analysis teams will fall back to old habits. Don’t let this happen!