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Value analysis has long been the process used to make well-informed, evidence-based decisions in healthcare organizations. Today, the ability to make expeditious, defensible decisions that align with value-based care, and subsequently value-based payment methods, has become one of the most important functions in every healthcare organization. However, COVID-19 exposed two fundamental realities particularly pertinent to value analysis teams and hospital leaders.

The modern American health system is an extremely complex environment characterized by a state of constant flux. Driven by both healthcare reform and technological innovation, financial pressures are changing the way care is delivered. As a result, health systems are realizing that to have a reasonable discussion about value, they must evolve operational processes.

The stakes couldn’t be higher: those who succeed will demonstrate a commitment to measuring and improving upon patient outcomes, while those who fail will negatively impact their organization’s strategic, financial, and clinical objectives. As important as any other function within the health system, the measurement of value plays a large role in whether a hospital will adapt. That adaptation will depend upon an ability to evaluate and improve upon the maturity and integration of value-adjacent decision-making processes.

Key to that improvement is a recognition that focusing on financial impact alone does not equate to value. Value in the context of healthcare must necessarily be defined as any initiative that positively impacts the “quadruple aim” of lowering costs and improving quality of care (value), while simultaneously improving the satisfaction and well-being of both patients and clinicians (experience). That goal can be accomplished only by incorporating clinical evidence into a forward-looking program that also measures long-term outcomes. And for process improvement efforts to take root, they must be implemented by a new kind of leader, one who views value through a more holistic lens than has historically been the norm.

As healthcare reform and new technologies change the way hospitals deliver and are reimbursed for care, the ability to measure and improve upon patient outcomes is becoming more important than ever.

The CQO definition serves supply chain well in better understanding the concepts of the Triple Aim and to begin to clarify the aspects needed to achieve the Triple Aim. Today I would suggest that the Triple Aim has expanded in to the Quadruple Aim!

There are a lot of heroes in our health organizations. Many, though, aren’t wearing scrubs.

Healthcare reform and now a pandemic, has mandated an evolution in care delivery. Quality and value have taken on a more well-defined meaning. No longer is a focus on costs enough. Leaders must be concerned with delivering high value care. This task requires improving processes and reducing costs without sacrificing outcomes.

Shocking change hit the workplace in March and April and will have long-term ramifications. No one should think that once the pandemic passes the workplace will go back to the way it was. Too much has changed for that. So, let’s be thinking about what is working and what is not.

Dee Donatelli Consulting, LLC, Announces Inaugural “Value Analysis Apex” Event for Healthcare Supplier Sales and Marketing Executives; Endorsed by the Association of Healthcare Value Analysis Professionals (AHVAP)

What is a Health Technology Assessment and how do we incorporate it into the value analysis process? 

This week we celebrate and thank our Value Analysis Professionals for the dedication they have to our healthcare systems. Let us take time this week to consider a new era for the evolution of the role and the process.

Clinically integrating supply chain is a marathon, not a sprint - learn some ways to prepare for the race.

Value-based care requires all of us to create a more patient-centered approach in today’s supply chain management.

We have all attended a lot of meetings and sometimes ask, what did we accomplish. Think about meeting to make a decision not just to meet.

Continued opportunities prevail to improve clinical outcomes and cost-effectiveness in healthcare. For Supply Chain this means a PULL VS PUSH approach. Think about new ways to become influencers of change.

Evidence Based Value Analysis (EBVA) is a new approach to an old process that enables clinicians to deliver high-quality medical care and leads to greater clinician/physician buy-in. From a physician perspective clinical evidence is compelling. As scientists themselves, physicians recognize the value of evidence. Although they can be resistant to contracting and standardization strategies, physicians generally will listen to evidence and be willing to use scientific information as an acceptable rationale on which to participate in cost savings and utilization decisions. To accomplish EBVA we need to combine evidence and other sources of information to make informed decisions about product performance, efficacy, safety, and impact on clinical outcomes.

In 2013 I had the good fortune to work for Hayes Inc, an evidence-based company now a part of Tract Manager.  The article I authored while working for Hayes was published in HPN Magazine that same year and is as relevant today as it was then.  The sad difference is we are still talking about how to make a difference.  As I begin independently consulting I hope to impact the need for suppliers and providers to approach a more clinically integrated supply chain.  Contact me to learn more about how my experience might help you impact change in today’s delivery of cost-effective quality healthcare.