A poll conducted by SVAH showed that two-thirds of the respondents haven’t begun integrating clinical supply utilization management (CSUM) into their healthcare value analysis programs.
This statistic means that these healthcare organizations are not only missing out on 7% to 15% in new savings opportunities, but they are not tracking the lifecycle cost/quality of their products, services, and technologies. The result of this oversight is that these hospitals, systems, and IDNs don’t know if their product, service, and technology purchases are cost/quality effective over the long-term.
This is one of the critical success elements of value-based purchasing (i.e., provider accountable for cost and quality over the entire patient episode), where healthcare organizations’ new payment models are evolving. Is your hospital value analysis team or teams ready for this transition?
Lifecycle Management Is a Core Philosophy Of CSUM
Managing the lifecycle (beginning, middle, an end) cost/quality of a product, service, or technology is at the core of the CSUM philosophy. In this new healthcare economy, it isn’t just the value analysis practitioner’s job to evaluate the product, service, or technology at the beginning of its lifecycle, but to manage its cost/quality in the middle and then assure that it is cost effectively disposed of at the end of its life.
Quality Is Value Analysis Job #1
For years, value analysis’s primary reason for being was cost management, not quality. This mandate has changed with the advent of the Accountable Care Act (ACA). Thereby, value analysis is now also accountable for the quality of products, services, and technologies that are purchased, since they will cost your hospital, system, or IDN time, money, and delays if they become defective.
Time Is Limited and a Critical Asset
Your clinical staff has never been more pressed for time, pressure to do more with less, and then take on more responsibilities. This is another benefit of CSUM. It can identify wasteful and inefficient activities that can be eliminated to free up time for your healthcare organization’s clinical staff.
Healthcare Value Analysis and Supply Chain’s Time to Shine
It is now supply chain and value analysis professionals’ time to shine by stepping up to the plate to coach, mentor, and teach your clinical staff how to reinvent the products, services, and technologies they are buying. In doing so, supply chain and value analysis professionals will need to embrace the concept of CSUM to save time, eliminate waste and inefficiencies in their healthcare organization’s supply streams, and save more money than ever before.
Below are some similar articles that you may find interesting.
Three Ways Healthcare Supply Utilization Management Can Pave the Road to Recovery
Targeting Supply Chain Expense Waste and Inefficiency in a Turbulent Economy
Integrating Utilization Management into Your Hospital’s Value Analysis Program