Here are 3 proven tactics to inspire peak performance

Simply stated, hospital, health system and integrated delivery network’s senior management and their VA leaders aren’t holding their VA teams and their individual team members responsible for timely investigating, reporting, explaining, justifying and implementing the value analysis studies that they have been assigned.

I’ve seen first hand the following: Value analysis studies being reported month after month in a VA team’s minutes without any disposition for 12 months, team leaders and team members not being present at team meetings for months, and team members frequently making excuses for not getting their work done on time. It all adds up to a waste of time, money and motion that could have been avoided if your VA team leaders and members were accountable and answerable for their results.

We have learned over the last 22 years of training, facilitating and coaching value analysis teams that if you build accountability into your value analysis process you can quickly smooth the road to your VA success. Here are three proven accountability tactics that you should consider if you are looking to greatly increase the accountability and responsibility of your VA team leaders and team members:

1. Steering committee - It’s your management’s role to hold people, teams, and committees responsible for their actions, but if they aren’t plugged into your value analysis process how can they meet this obligation? That’s where a value analysis steering committee (VASC) comes into play.

We have found that if your hospital, system or IDN establishes a VASC comprised of key customers, stakeholders and experts who meet monthly to guide, monitor, manage and arbitrate disputes surrounding your value analysis program, you will increase your team’s accountability, responsibility and results by the power of 10.

2. Balance scorecard - Over the last three-years we have employed a VA Balanced Scorecard to measure and monitor our client’s VA team’s key performance indicators (projected savings, actual savings, team attendance, champion’s attendance, project milestones, team turnover, etc.), which is shared with their VASC at their monthly meetings.

The amazing result has been that even before these VASC meetings have formally begun the VASC committee members are asking questions about why a team’s attendance is low, why more champions aren’t attending meetings or why the surgical team isn’t meeting its savings target. This management tool alone has brought new, better and even higher levels of accountability to these clients’ VA processes than they ever thought would or could be possible.

3. Status reports - An equally effective accountability tactic that we have instituted with the value analysis teams that we have trained, is to require each member to complete an electronic "status report" prior to every team meeting (even if they are going to be absent from a meeting) to update their team leaders and team members on the current status of the projects they are working on. We use a standardized electronic format for submitting these reports therefore everyone is reporting the same consistent information at every meeting. The accountability psychology behind this tactic is that it is very embarrassing for a team member to report that they have done absolutely nothing on their project(s) since the last team meeting. Only a few dare to do so!

If you think about it for a moment, all of these accountability tactics I have shared with you are built on a foundation of policies, protocols, and techniques that hold team leaders and team members accountable and responsible for their results. Trust me when I tell you that all of these strategies work in practice, if you have discipline along the way.

Integrating these accountability tactics into your value analysis process is just the first essential step in building accountability into your value analysis process. Just as important, is for you to have discipline along the way. By this I mean that you need to hold your team members and team leaders responsible and answerable for their actions.

For instance, just the other day I attended a client’s VASC meeting where the chairperson asked the surgical team leader why her team’s balance scorecard was showing a 69 percent attendance (80 percent is the standard) at her team meetings. When she responded that the day and time of her team meeting was very bad for the operating room staff’s team members to attend, it was immediately decided to change the meeting day and time. As you could have guessed, by the next VASC meeting the surgical team’s attendance significantly improved!

So if you want to dramatically improve the responsibility, answerability and results of your VA team leaders and team members, you will need to build accountability into your value analysis process with new policies, protocols and techniques along with a strong dose of discipline along the way.

Robert T. Yokl is president and Chief Value Strategist of Strategic Value Analysis In Healthcare, which is a leading healthcare firm in supply and process value analysis. Yokl has nearly 30 years of experience as a healthcare materials manager and supply chain consultant, and also is the co-creator of the Utilizer Dashboard that extends beyond spend management for deeper and broader utilization savings. For more information, visit www.strategicva.com. For questions or comments e-mail Yokl at bobpres@strategicva.com.