WORTH REPEATING
“This may sound like the easiest met- ric to produce while it is the hardest to determine. If supply chain is not included in the patient charge and supply use conversation then its method of inventory management or documentation may not be adequate to provide the numerators or denomi- nators required.”
Barbara Strain, Director, Value Manage- ment, University of Virginia Health System.
“Admittedly, it is more appealing to provide financial resources for items that are experienced more first hand by patients and others in healthcare organizations. What you are seeing now is the beginning of a shift in how the healthcare world thinks about sterile processing. A renewed sense of value is beginning with attention being placed on the role of sterile processing departments and the func- tionality of how they are a large part in improving patient safety and care.”
Courtney Mace Davis, MBA, Manager of Central Sterilizing Services
“One abstract presented at the APIC 2015 conference calculated that IPs are spending five hours per day collecting, analyzing and reporting data. Surveil- lance technology can further stream- line our time with paper and permit us to interact more directly with the patients and staff. Fundamental bene- fits of these programs include reduced redundancy, more efficient review of relevant data, automated reporting for regulatory and financial purposes and identifying trends more rapidly.”
Barbara A. Smith, RN, BSN, MPA, CIC,
APIC Communication Committee Member, Mount Sinai St. Luke’s/Mount Sinai West, New York City
“While Never Events are rare, when they do occur, they are often dev- astating in both clinical and finan- cial terms. From 2004 to 2015, The Joint Commission reported a total of 1,196 wrong-patient, wrong-site, wrong-procedure incidents and 462 medication-error sentinel events. Over the past 12 years, 71 percent of Never Events reported to Joint Commission were fatal.”
Latisha Richardson, MSN, BSN, RN, Clinical Consultant, Ansell
PEOPLE & OPINIONS
Follow the third-party money trail with purchased services
Second of a multi-part series by Fred W. Crans
P
reviously, I introduced the concept of holism as it applies to Purchased Services. I also laid out an 11-step ap-
proach to the process. After much thought, I realized that no truly great approach has fewer than 12 steps, so I have added one. You will see it when it comes along. Just to review, we are using the example of Food and Nutritional Services (FNS) as the area we want to address. As you will recall, I concluded the prior article at Step 1: Define the problem (or function) you want to solve. Actually, “address” is a more appropriate word than “solve,” so let’s use that word. In our scenario, you are the Supply Chain Leader at an integrated delivery network (IDN) that has chosen to outsource the management of its FNS operation to a third party. You have been asked by the CFO to spend the next twelve months focusing on Purchased Services, and he has selected FNS as the place he wants you to start. As you may recall, last month’s article ended with this question: Who ya’ gonna call? My first call would be to the CFO or to his Administrative Assistant. I would ask for an hour of his (or her) time to talk about the big picture and get some direction. Prepare a list of questions that you need to have answered before you start out. Here are some I might ask: • What do you define as Purchased Services? • How do you want me to involve those managers, directors and vice presidents that may already be responsible for the areas I am asked to address?
• Are you willing to roll this initiative out at a leadership meeting so that it has the best chance of succeeding?
• Can I call in outside resources if I need them (our GPO, industry experts, tools and toolsets from specialty suppliers)? Are you willing to spend money to save money?
• Do we want to look at the current state “as is” and just find a better cost for what we are currently doing, or do we want to ad- dress bigger opportunities?
• Will you promise to stay involved as the C-suite face of the initiative?
64 June 2016 • HEALTHCARE PURCHASING NEWS •
hpnonline.com
I’m sure there are other questions of a simi- lar nature that I may have missed, but one of the things you owe yourself before you take the plunge into the deep and uncertain waters before you is at least some kind of an idea of whether you are swimming alone, or if someone is willing to take on these shark- infested waters with you. Depending on your current relationship with the CFO, it may take some preparation and “courage enhancement” steps on your part, but it is something that must be done. Not only must you ask the questions, but you must also have the guts to tell the CFO if his answers fall short of the mark. Addressing complex issues requires total understanding and agreement as to what and how things must be done.
Bobbing and weaving
So let’s say the CFO comes through like a champ and you are absolutely certain that she (or he) will give you all the support you would ever need to march forward. Now it is time to turn your questions to- ward the area that you have been assigned: Food and Nutritional Services. When the CFO first talked to you about looking at the current management agree- ment and perhaps putting it out to bid, you dutifully printed a copy of the current agreement, read it, marked it up, made some notes and began looking for alternative sup- pliers. You also asked Accounting to send you a copy of the FNS operating budget and budget reports for the last 12 months. After the person you asked for the information balked, you called the Controller, told him that his boss wanted you to look at the FNS management agreement, but you wanted to get a good understanding of total costs in the department. So, could he please send the information you requested ASAP because you are meeting with his boss next Tuesday at 10. He sighed and said he would get back to you (knowing, of course that his next move would be to call his boss and see if what you said was true). A couple of hours later the requested information comes through via email.
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