New Pay for New Work!
Robert T. Yokl
President & Chief Value Strategist
Greetings!
New Pay for New Work!
We just held our summer session of our Certified Value Analysis 3-day Training Program which brought into the daylight that only a small number of healthcare organizations are rewarding and recognizing their value team members for the hard work that they do.
This hasn’t ever made sense to me, since hospitals, systems and IDNs should be authorizing new pay for new work that these value teams are doing. By incentivizing your value teams you can keep them on track, on budget and keyed up to save even more money for your healthcare organization.
I’m so convinced that this is the right thing to do that we mandate that every healthcare organization that installs our LEAN Value Analysis Program also establish a rewards and recognition program to encourage their value teams to be peak performers. Or, why else would their staff squeeze into their already busy days, weeks and months all this new work. Rewarding people for extra work is not only logical but it’s a key facet of human nature!
Every client of ours who has adopted this philosophy of “new pay for new work” has been repaid for their investment by at least 100 fold. Likewise, their value team members’ productivity, creativity and doggedness has risen to a new level of superior performance.
Reward and recognition programs aren’t just the right thing to do for your value teams, but are a prerequisite for everlasting savings and quality improvements. Without this your value teams aren’t firing on ALL eight cylinders, just meandering along on three or four cylinders!
Isn’t it time you get your value teams into high gear?
Your Partner In Savings Beyond Price™,
Robert T Yokl
Chief Value Strategist
Strategic Value Analysis® In Healthcare
800-220-4274
P.S. We have been told by our Value Analysis Resource Web members that our Value Analysis Leader Resource Web is the right product, at the right time and at the right price to fuel their value analysis teams performance. If you haven’t seen this unique knowledge management resource yet, may I suggest that you check it out now at www.strategicva.com/vaweb.htm
P.P.S. Don’t forget to check out my new blog article “Fail Often to Quickly Succeed”. This blog is all about how failure isn’t a stigma, but an opportunity for massive innovation.
New Supply Best Practices Webinar Announced!
Influence Your C-Suite for Positive Results!
Webinar Objectives:
What is Your C-Suite Thinking?
What Are They Really Thinking?
Solution: More and Better TLC
TEACH to Gain Respect
LEAD in the Right Direction
COACH to Gain Commitment
July 17, 2008 - 1:00pm EST.
Webinar Leader - Robert T. Yokl, President/Chief Value Strategist Strategic Value Analysis in Healthcare
Remember…The Webinar May Be FREE But The Information is Priceless
How Are You Selecting Your Value Analysis Projects?
First of all, don’t confuse new or renewal GPO contracts as being value analysis projects, because they are not. This is contract management in its purest sense, which is a whole other discipline that has its own rules and models.
What I’m talking about here is the way in which you selecting your VA projects, which can unearth millions of dollars of savings in your value streams. For the best results, you should establish criteria for the selection of your VA projects. Here are five criteria I would suggest you start with:
1. Dollar Threshold: No VA project should be undertaken on a product, service or technology that has less than a $25,000 annual spend. The reason: Your ROI would be very small, if at all!
2. Projected Timeline: If your VA project will take more than 90-days to complete it might be better to break the project into smaller projects. Projects that have long timelines tend to go off track. Keep your projects in bit size pieces!
3. Probability of Success: If you only have a 50% probability of success in implementing a project (e.g. orthopedic implant study) then delay the project until you have an 80% success factor.
4. Project Alignment: If your VA project is not supported by your management then I would delay it for another day. Why fight city hall – you rarely win!
5. Solution Clarity: If you already know the solution to a problem (e.g. defective material) then don’t initiate a VA project — just fix the problem. It will save you a lot of time and effort by doing so.
These are just a few ideas to get you on the road to selecting the best VA Projects using criteria vs. gut feel with the greatest possible ROIs.
Your Partner In Innovative Savings,
Bob Yokl
Robert T Yokl
Chief Value Strategist
Strategic Value Analysis® In Healthcare
P.S. My staff thinks I’m crazy to offer our e-newsletter subscribers a 30-day “test drive” on our Utilizer™ Dashboard and you only pay if it works! But I’m so convinced that once you try it you won’t want to live without it that I have turned a deaf ear to my staff’s objections to bring you this outrageous “pay if it works” guarantee. Email me to learn more about this special offer - bobpres@strategicva.com
P.P.S. Don’t forget to check out my new blog article “A Lean Way of Thinking! This will give you a new way of thinking about your workload.
**New Comic** Persistence is Key!
Who Needs Project Management?
Of all of the tactics that I have employed, over the years, to save money one of the most powerful advances in our programs has been project management. It’s fundamental, time-tested and successful at all organizations who have employed it to manage their savings initiatives.
Yet, throughout my travels I rarely see it used at healthcare organizations for the planning, organizing and managing of their value analysis projects. This is a missed opportunity because this tactic will enable you to set time-lines on your projects, keep things moving on your projects, monitor and control your projects, get the most out of your limited resources and enable you to manage multiple projects with ease.
Save the easy way! At one time we too didn’t use project management techniques to manage our client’s value analysis projects only to find that our client’s team members were going every which way – but forward. That’s when we realized we had to do something different to control these unruly herds. We found that by providing a practical, easy-to-use project management system for planning, organization and managing our client’s projects we could tame the herd, speed up projects and perform 10x more value analysis studies than ever before. That’s what successful management can do for you.
So who needs project management? I would say everyone who wants a systematic approach to staying on top of all of your value analysis multiple projects at once and doesn’t want to leave anything to chance, happenstance or fate! Doesn’t that sound like you?
Your Partner In Innovative Savings,
Bob Yokl
Robert T Yokl
Chief Value Strategist
Strategic Value Analysis® In Healthcare
P.S. Almost Everyone who has seen a demo of our Utilizer™ Dashboard has told us that it is just what they have been looking for to manage and control their utilization misalignments! Isn’t it time you sign up for a demo too?
P.P.S. Don’t forget to check out my new blog article “Grow, Lead and Succeed with One Big Idea”, that will give you one big tactic that you can’t afford to miss to improve your communications with your bosses.
Are You Really Practicing Value Analysis or Are You Doing Something Else? (Revisited)
I have written often about healthcare organizations’ value teams not practicing value analysis, but are instead doing something else. But what I didn’t know, until we started conducting our Certified Value Analysis Leadership Program (CVAL) in 2007, is that value analysis coordinators, managers and directors aren’t practicing value analysis either.
What I have found from my interaction with these coordinators, managers and directors, at our three-day CVAL program, is that these individuals spend most of their time evaluating new and renewal GPO contracts! That’s not value analysis at all, that’s contract management in its purest sense.
After these very intense three days of training I’m happy to report that most of the attendees at our CVAL program finally realize that they aren’t practicing value analysis and have decided that going beyond price is where they want to go in the future with their value analysis programs.
As I mentioned last week at the North Carolina Materials Management Association annual conference, hospitals should have an annual audit of their pricing, then fill in the gaps of their contract portfolio where needed. It doesn’t make sense for these individuals to spin their wheels and waste their time trying to eke out a few more percentages savings with their GPO contracts, when there is about 26% savings on just about any commodity these individuals would investigate using the techniques of value analysis.
I went on to tell the NCMMA members that they should petition their GPOs to have more 3, 5 and 10 year contracts, with annual renewals, so their members could stop the madness of trying to keep up with their new and renewal GPO contracts that are e-mailed to them daily.
Bottom Line! Value analysis coordinators, managers and directors need to get back to basics by actually practicing the tenets of value analysis and then move away from being contract managers. Contract management isn’t your job (it’s your purchasing department’s job) and it’s not what you were hired for.
It’s your job to study the functions of the products, services and technologies your hospital is buying, and then search for lower cost alternatives to meet those functions. That’s what’s missing from your value analysis program and is holding back huge savings for your hospital.
P.S. If you would like more powerful savings ideas like this one I would recommend that you sign-up for our “no cost” weekly Savings Beyond Price™ e-Newsletter at www.Strategicva.com. You will also get a copy of my e-book “Your Target Blueprint for Supply Chain Management Success”, as a bonus.
Vendor Credentialing Analysis Article
Just got my latest issue fo Supply Chain Strategies by Patrick Michael Plummer which gives a great analysis of the current state of the vendor credentialing situation. This is really a hot topic and it effects so many people in the healthcare supply chain, including us consultants/trainers as well. You may have to sign up for this newsletter to gain access to this newsletter article but I guarantee you Patrick always has great insights and articles like this vendor credentialing that will make it worth while.
https://stratcenterpro.com/shop/shopexd.asp?id=13
What Were They Thinking?
Studies show that 3 out of every 10 change initiatives fail to sustain their momentum over time. My thinking is that this statistic isn’t shocking to you because you have found this to be an accurate representation of what happens — time after time — in your own healthcare organization.
Here’s what this phenomenon looks like! The change initiative, whether it’s value analysis, Lean Management or Six Sigma, had a full head of steam over its few years of its existence, then fizzles, sputters and quietly dies a slow but unnoticed death. Then everyone forgets, after a few years have gone by, that your organization ever had such a change initiative in place.
What were these organizations thinking when they spend weeks or even months to conceive, champion and launch these change initiatives in the first place? My guess is that these hospitals, systems and IDNs were thinking that somehow or someway these change initiatives had a life of their own and didn’t need to be nurtured, re-tooled, re-invented and re-energized from time to time to sustain their momentum.
Nothing lasts forever if it isn’t given a new coat of paint, thorough clean-up and reinforced when it is weakened by the ravages of time. We see this observable fact with our Lean Value Analysis Programs. If our clients don’t provide the on-going leadership, discipline, maintenance, coaching and training to sustain their value teams’ efforts, then this mission critical change initiative will inevitably die on the vine.
From our experience, a well-planned change initiative has, at its core, transformation elements like balanced scorecards, annual training, planned team member turn-over and twelve-month retreats to keep the cobwebs from forming.
Otherwise, it is nearly impossible to keep the thrust, energy and impetus of your change initiative at a high level of performance without investing the requisite time and life force to fine-tune the human side of your change management equation. Partner In Savings Beyond Price™
Your Partner In Savings Beyond Price™
Robert T. Yokl
Robert T Yokl
Chief Value Strategist
Strategic Value Analysis® In Healthcare
P.S. One of the new power tools that are available to you and your c-suite to give them and you a window into your supply chain operations is our Utilizer™ Dashboard. This new tool will show you and your c-suite members all their supply chain costs in one database along with actionable targets for savings. Why not make it easier on yourself by having this tool at your disposable to effortlessly cost justify your initiatives vs. fighting your c-suite for every dollar you request to improve your supply chain operations. Check out our “test drive” to see how we do it!
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You’ve Heard it All and Seen It All Before…Except for This!
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Major Breakthrough for the Healthcare Supply Chain! 