ValueAdvisor® helps Michigan IDN
move to best practice value analysis
Flint-based McLaren Health Care Corporation, one of the top 25 integrated healthcare systems in the U.S, serves 29 counties with 2,052 licensed beds in eight hospitals – McLaren Regional Medical Center (Flint); Lapeer Regional Medical Center (Lapeer); Ingham Regional Medical Center and Ingham Regional Orthopedic Hospital (Lansing); Bay Regional Medical Center and Bay Special Care Hospital (Bay City); Mt. Clemens Regional Medical Center (Mt. Clemens); and POH Regional Medical Center (Pontiac). It has more than 13,000 employees, 4,200-plus physicians and 2,000 volunteers and includes more than 100 physician practices, the Visiting Nurse Services of Michigan and McLaren Health Plan. www.mclaren.org
Challenge:
In the past nine years, McLaren Health Care Corporation, Flint, MI, has grown from three to eight owned hospitals plus affiliates. Each hospital was allowed to make decisions around product analysis and selection. Supply chain executives began to explore opportunities to standardize supplies, service contracts and equipment system-wide. Healthcare reform has given these efforts added significance.
Solution:
McLaren Health considered Premier’s first ValueAdvisor® product, and when asked by Premier to be part of a work group to develop a new version of the product, McLaren jumped at the opportunity. McLaren would help evaluate, design, test and provide feedback for the Web-based solution to automate value analysis management processes.
ValueAdvisor is the cornerstone of ValueConnect™, an alliance-wide approach to value analysis that includes the Web-based product, implementation services and knowledge sharing, as well as an in-depth, up-front value analysis process assessment by Premier Consulting Solutions™ value analysis experts.
“You must first understand your processes so you can effectively pursue change,” Corporate Supply Chain Director Dave Bueby said. “We wanted the unvarnished truth. Show us where the opportunities exist so we can evaluate and start making positive changes for our organization.”
All requests are for new products go through ValueAdvisor; there is now a repository of information that anyone with rights to the product can see.
Local decisions are now based on corporation processes; ValueAdvisor helps maintain the structure.
Result:
The corporate value analysis team – made up of representatives from hospitals, affiliates and other services areas – meets monthly. ValueAdvisor is already helping make the meetings more efficient.
One expectation for ValueAdvisor is to speed the value analysis process. Time is money and one of the assessment findings was that evaluations in general take too long. The new best-practice goal is a 90-day cycle time. McLaren already has run $500,000 in opportunities through ValueAdvisor, closing out about half and reaching conclusions more quickly.
McLaren hopes to increase the projects the supply team handles from roughly 500 handled in the past year.
Capital equipment acquisition, assessments and trials now must go through ValueAdvisor.
ValueAdvisor is already generating operational efficiencies. System-wide
value analysis team meetings were typically held on-site at McLaren
headquarters in Flint. For most members it’s an hour-and-a-half drive.
ValueAdvisor could potentially eliminate 8,000 travel miles and, more
important, taking members away from other responsibilities for two to three
hours.
"We’ve had four meetings during which we used the product online. Each
meeting has gotten more efficient. ValueAdvisor fits exactly where we are around
standardization. I can see the value in adapting it to lots of manual processes
or semi-automated or not even documented, just word of mouth ones."
Dave Bueby
Director, Corporate Supply Chain
McLaren Health Care Corporation Flint, MI
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