To Be Truly Great at Healthcare Supply Expense Management you Need to Break Down a Few More Walls!

The Innovation Killer!

The biggest threat to innovation or “The Innovation Killer” as I like to call it is doing NOTHING at all! Or, doing the same things over and over again and getting the same meager results. Innovation is all about trying new things, doing new things and failing at new things to bring about new and better results.

We all know the story of Thomas Edison failing 10,000 times before he invented the light bulb. But did you know it took Milton Hershey (the chocolate king) 12 years to perfect his 5 cent chocolate bar and Charles Goodyear spent his whole life inventing a workable rubber tire when his competitors thought it was impossible to do so.

If these innovators didn’t try, do and fail repeatedly on their journey to find new, better and innovative ways of doing things we wouldn’t have the benefit of their life changing improvements in our lives today. You too need to think of your supply chain as an experimental laboratory where new and better ideas are created to reduce your cost and improve your quality -- even if it takes a few years to do so.

One thing for sure, if you do nothing new, exciting and adventurous with your supply chain you won’t benefit from the AMAZING quality and savings results that are just waiting to be discovered at your healthcare organization.

Don’t let “The Innovation Killer” hold you back from becoming a brilliant innovator at your healthcare organization.

P.S.There is only 3 more days to claim your Early Bird Rate and save $211 on our “Certified Value Analysis Leadership Training™ Program” to be held on March 11-13, 2008. Otherwise, you will need to pay full-price for this event after February 2nd!

To Be Truly Great at Supply Expense Management you Need to Break Down a Few More Walls!

“We Haven’t Really Moved or Improved the Dialog Much In 27 Years”

It’s amazing to me that after 27 years of talking to supply chain professionals about their supply expense management challenges that I’m still hearing the same song: Their doctors won’t change, their management won’t give the support they need to be successful and their clinicians don’t see why they need to change anything at all.

By 2008 I had hoped that we would have won all of these battles, but as you can see from my observations, we haven’t really moved or improved the dialog much in 27 years. That’s why I have come to the conclusion that to be truly great at supply expense management we still need to break down a few more walls!

By “breaking down a few more walls” I’m implying that we haven’t gotten the job done of connecting with our doctors, management and clinicians in a variety of ways so that they clearly and unmistakably understand that saving money is everybody’s job -- not just material management’s job. We can break down a few more walls in these three ways:

1. Education at Every Level of Your Organization

Early on in my consulting career I found that it was very important that I educate everyone (executive management, process owners and stakeholders) on every one of my assignments on what I was going to do, when I was going to do it, and how I was going to do it. I told them why it was important that we all address the problem I was hired to solve problem as a team. This education immediately broke down the barriers to resistance and my projects usually when forward very smoothly.

This educational strategy needs to be embraced by you too, since without it your docs, management and clinicians will continue to erroneously believe that it is only material management’s job to make savings happen without assistance from anybody else.

2. Teamwork, Teamwork, Teamwork

In today’s multifaceted healthcare environment you need your customer’s buy in and ownership on almost everything you do. The most efficient and effective way to do so is with value teams. These value teams MUST be led by your department heads and managers, and facilitated by material management, to ensure that all of decisions that are made are collectively in your team’s best interest -- not yours.

1. Manage with Hard Data and Facts -- Not Opinions

Most buying decisions are made on opinions, not hard data and facts. One MM I talked to recently told me that his management won’t let him even look at savings opportunities on his physician-preference items because they think that their docs will jump ship if he does. I asked this MM was this decision based on their opinion or hard data and facts. He had to admit that it was based on their opinions!

If I was this MM I would have researched and found the hard data and facts on this savings opportunity before I even talked to my management. Once they saw the opportunity in dollars and cents I believe that they would have been more inclined to attack this problem.

The lesson to be learned: Never recommend any change without hard data and facts -- or you lose!

These are just three ideas on how to move and improve the dialog so you can break down more walls in your healthcare organization to become truly great on your supply expense management efforts.

SVAH will share with you our strategies and insights that will allow you to start to utilize Supply Six Sigma^TM and show you how you can begin to integrate this powerful quality and savings strategy into your everyday operations.

Webinar Leader - Robert T. Yokl, President/Chief Value Strategist Strategic Value Analysis in Healthcare

3-Days to Achieve the Highest Level of Supply Savings and Value Analysis Leadership and Performance!