Larry Miles, the father of value analysis, informs us that an individual that will be filling the positions of value analysis coordinator, manager or director requires a minimum of 40 hours of classroom instruction and 40 hours of on-the-job training for leading and coaching their value teams before they can become proficient as a value analysis practitioner. Do new hires for these positions have these proper credentials?

And if that’s not enough, these new hires should also be experienced value analysis trainers, because 80 percent of what a value analysis practitioner does is training, coaching, consulting and facilitating value teams so they can grow and quickly reach peak performance. Do these new hires in this position also have these credentials?

Putting first things first
Since the starting salary for the positions we are talking about could range from $65,000 to $75,000 annually (or more), I believe that highly effective healthcare organizations should "put first things first" by investing training dollars in their most important asset: "People."

For a value analysis practitioner/ trainer, this investment in training would mean that the individuals in these "people-sensitive" positions must be taught and must learn how to expertly and skillfully:

• Train their organization’s value team leaders and team members in the art and science of value analysis and team building, so that they will grow in performance and purpose.

• Deploy, facilitate, consult and coach their organization’s value teams to generate prompt action and peak performance.

• Mentor, advise, counsel and guide new team leaders and team members through the roadblocks and landmines they will encounter as they lead their teams and conduct their value studies.

• Provide maintenance function to always know how your team leaders and team members feel, act and do. Then provide the appropriate interventions to maintain their peak performance.

• Identifying and qualifying new high impact value analysis candidates (savings targets with the best ROIs) for their value teams.

• Selection of new team leaders and team members based on their ideal competencies as opposed to their titles, power and influence in your organization.

The mastery of the above basic learning objectives by your value analysis coordinators, managers or directors is to insure that no key element of your value analysis program will be overlooked, neglected, ignored, forgotten or eliminated because no one had the responsibility to manage these critical functions for your value analysis program.

Ignorance can be hazardous
It’s been my observation that healthcare organizations who haven’t invested in the education and training of their value analysis coordinators, managers and directors have found that this flawed decision has stunted the growth of their value analysis program irreparably and caused them irreversible financial losses.

After a year or two an executive management team watches their anticipated savings machine come to a sputtering, coughing and wheezing end, then breathe its last breath and die, because their coordinator, manager or director didn’t know what they should have known.

This is just part of the story! To their amazement, executive management then finds out that their value analysis program administration cost was $200,000 annually (sum of salaries, time expended and resources utilized), and only had meager savings and quality gains to show for their efforts.

No Wonder: Ignorance, blindness or naiveté can be hazardous to your healthcare organizations’ financial health. If you hire individuals to lead these mission critical programs that don’t have the requisite and essential training in the art and science of value analysis, it can inhibit the growth and maturity of your value analysis program.

Is this also how you would select and hire your CEO, COO, CFO, CNO and CIO? I don’t think so! HPN