Doing More With Less the “Jugaad” Way!
New hard to pronounce words are always showing up in our business lexicon that at first has no meaning to us. Yet in time become part of our own healthcare organization’s everyday language because it now makes sense for us to do so.
One of those new words you will be hearing about is Jugaad (pronounced “joo-gaardh”), that has its roots in the Hindi language, meaning “innovative fix” or using whatever is at hand to get the job done quickly and cheaply. Think of “Jugaad” as business duck tape to fix all those nagging problems you encounter each and every workday.
It’s best described as producing quick results for very little money. That’s why I believe it has its place in the healthcare lexicon, since today, tomorrow and the future healthcare organizations will be challenged with doing less with more. In fact, I didn’t know I was employing Jugaad when I first started to preach to our clients last year that if they were looking for quick fixes to their utilization challenges all they needed to do was “measure then observe” to root out much of their utilization misalignments in their supply chain.
I have become a believer! Prior to this “aha” I thought this transformation would only happen if our clients used our patented 6-step LEAN Value Analysis Funneling™ Process. But now I know that you can take some shortcuts even with our LEAN Value Analysis process and still make significant savings happen without all the fuss and bother of following a defined, repeatable and auditable process.
Don’t get me wrong! Jugaad isn’t an end all or be all and isn’t for everybody. It can lead to unrepairable fixes, safety hazards, and shoddy service if applied haphazardly. From my own experience, it must be applied knowingly, carefully and artfully. It’s like my plumber; he will take short cuts when he is fixing my plumbing leaks because he is an expert and knows what he is doing. If I tried the same thing, I fear I would flood my house. It’s all about knowing what you are doing first, before ever tinkering with any product, service, technology or process in your healthcare organization.
Take the road most traveled! While shortcuts (or The Jugaad Way) are the answer to some immediate challenges that we all encounter, I have found that there is no substitute for taking the road most traveled if you have the time, money and resources to do so. To illustrate, even though I have promoted here and elsewhere that the technique of “measure and observe” or “The Jugaad Way” will quickly uncovering much of your utilization savings, I know from our experience, observations and analytical data that you will still be leaving too much money (hundreds of thousands of dollars to be exact) still on the table — untouched. This isn’t a good thing to do!
Summing up, Jugaad is a great new technique to add to your toolbox for solving your ever mounting cost and quality problems quickly and cheaply if you know what you are doing. However, don’t compromise your hospital, system or IDN’s savings, quality or safety by amateurishly tinkering with things you know nothing about.
Filed Under: Best Practices • savingsblog
