8 practices that hold back superior value analysis performance

Yet, with few exceptions, hospitals, systems and integrated delivery networks have not reached the superior performance stage of maturity in this evolving discipline. As value analysis matures in the healthcare industry, the basics need to evolve, thus taking your value analysis program to the next level of maturity. This great leap forward is crucial if your healthcare organization is going to survive, let alone thrive in the 21st century.

I have listed below eight practices that are holding back superior performance in value analysis programs at our nation’s hospitals, systems and IDNs today, with the goal of giving you some insight into where you need to focus your efforts for improvement:

Most value analysis programs are started or restarted without much thought, planning, guidelines or training, thereby getting off on the wrong foot before they get to the starting gate.

There is never enough time, tools or resources allotted to support value analysis programs so VA teams are left to sink or swim on their own.

There is a lack of a defined scientific repeatable VA process for evaluating and then selecting the most appropriate and cost effective products, services and technologies for purchase.

There is no central database to store VA team’s documentation: Just multiple spreadsheets being continuously pieced together without capturing vital documents, studies and project outcomes.

There is no follow up, follow through or accountability for completion of VA studies. Hence, too many VA studies wither on the vine or die a slow death.

The conventional wisdom says that standardization of products, services and technologies is one of the primary goals of value analysis, when in fact VA’s principle goal should be customization. Meaning, you need to write your specifications to an exact match of the requirements of your divergent value groups – not assume that one size fits all customers needs!

We see the practice of consuming clinicians’ time with trials of this product or that product in their particular department to see if they like it without first defining their exact critical-to-quality functional requirements.

We often see the practice of pushing and pulling clinicians in every direction but forward as opposed to doing it with data to help them self-correct their aberrant buying behaviors.

As these eight practices suggest, being a top performer in value analysis requires a constantly evolving process, not a static methodology. It necessitates higher-level skills, new and better strategies, tools and techniques to keep pace with the ever changing demands of the healthcare marketplace.

To get you started on this evolutionary process, we have found that there are four levels of value analysis maturity that you can use as a check list to gage your own VA program’s maturity level:

Organization is aware that changes in their VA program are needed since it isn’t working as planned.

Organization has some understanding of the basics of value analysis but doesn’t know how to get to the next level of performance.

Organization is competent in utilizing most VA best practices, but still is challenged by time constraints, accountability issues, and clinician resistance.

Organization has obtained mastery over VA strategies, tactics and processes and is now performing at a superior level of performance.

With this checklist in hand, you will now have a tool to objectively measure the maturity of your own VA program so that you can identify your performance gaps. The next step is to take massive action to radically improve, refine and reshape your VA program for peak performance.