One big fallacy about healthcare value analysis processes is that you need to be an “expert” in the product, service or technology you are investigating or evaluating. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, by being an “expert” you bring along your biases, prejudices, and favoritisms that often color your decision making.
It’s better to know nothing about the product, service or technology you are studying; then you can bring your unbiased deductive powers into play. I can speak from experience, since I’m not a physician, clinician, or biomedical engineer, yet I have successfully performed thousands of value analysis studies that have saved tens of millions of dollars for our clients.
The trick to doing so is to have a value analysis system (ours is called the Healthcare Value Analysis Funneling™ Process) that leads you to the right value-based decision each and every time. It all begins and ends with functional analysis! You see, you and I don’t need to know anything about the product, service or technology under investigation if we have these three questions answered (using an active verb and a noun) by the customers who use the commodity:
1. What is the primary function or purpose of the product?
2. What are the secondary functions or what else is the product used for?
3. What are the aesthetic functions, or what most call, features?
The whole purpose of this exercise, as stated by Larry Miles (the father of value analysis), is, “When most people evaluate a product, service (or technology) they only look at the product, service (or technology’s) aesthetics and not its reason for being…FUNCTION.” Therefore, “The more one understands the function of a product, service (or technology) the more opportunities arise for dramatically reducing the cost of the product, service (or technology) by substituting and/or in some cases eliminating an element of a product, service (or technology) with an equal or better product, service (or technology).”
However, you can’t do any of these things until you ask and have the answers to the aforementioned three questions. For example, the primary function of a paper towel is to DRY HANDS; secondary functions are CLEAN UP SPILLS, CLEAN WINDOWS, and CLEAN SURFACES; aesthetic functions are COLOR, SIZE, WEIGHT, TEXTURE, and CONSTRUCTION. Now that you understand the functions, you can work on substituting or eliminating functions and then search for lower-cost alternatives.
I like to think of a healthcare value analysis coordinator as a facilitator of this functional analysis process. Therefore, they don’t need to be an “expert” in the product, service or technology that they are investigating; they just need to be an “expert” in the value analysis process. If you want to become an “expert” in the healthcare value analysis process, may I suggest you consider investing in our Ultimate Value Analysis System that will teach you methods that are guaranteed to double or even triple your value analysis savings within 90 days.