Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Rubik's Cube

"I find a lot of humor and frustration in how much management needs reports, yet they have no idea what they want to see or how to make sense out of what they are looking at. Each report generates a need for a new report and the focus seems to get lost in the details."

This was an observation from an individual who inquired about employment opportunities at our firm. We are a firm that is markedly focused on producing bottom line results for our customers. We achieve this through a keen focus on turning data into useful information that can be utilized in problem solving.

Much like a Rubik's Cube, there are several ways to solve the puzzle. It does not matter how you solve the puzzle - it matters that you actually solve it. However, in order to get there you need to know where you are going.

I have been in many healthcare organizations that have built countless reports and dashboards with many slices and dices of information. This information requires much interpretation and many years of experience to uncover where potential opportunity lies to improve performance. Once these opportunities are identified, it takes much rigor to actually turn them into bottom line results.

While there may be many ways to get there, the real question is, "Where is there?"

Chris George, CEO, Think First
http://www.thinkfirst.us/

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Two Ears

I was speaking with a Chairman of Surgery today and we were discussing the continual need for information in all facets of his department. He kept saying that his monthly financials were not right - they couldn't be.

He thought for sure that the charge volumes and work RVU's for many of his providers were inaccurate.

After more discussion, I finally understood where he was coming from. It was not that the reports were technically incorrect - it was that the business processes and supporting analytics were not designed in a way that delivered the information needed to make decisions. Not all of the charges were being reconciled and entered and some of the procedures had unlisted procedure codes that had no RVUs. While seemingly easy to resolve, these particular issues take time to work through and arrive at a point where the information being provided to key stakeholders is trusted.

How many times have you heard that someone does not believe in the data being provided? Typically, this is financial information. Imagine moving to a world of clinical information where all healthcare providers are benchmarked according to industry standards. How many of us are really going to believe these numbers?

The reality is that sites are already emerging with this information. Sites such as hospitalcompare.hhs.gov, patientsfirstma.org and healthgrades.com. How credible is this information? Is this all self reported data?

The real challenge for healthcare quality will be how we get to unbiased and reliable data we can all trust and believe in. Consumer Reports is the goto source for comparing many products. They have a rigorous process for evaluating and rating competing products. Don't we also need this for healthcare providers? It would be nice to know from an unbiased third party what the strengths and weaknesses are of the healthcare providers in your area. I wonder where our Consumer Reports for healthcare will come from?

Chris George, CEO, Think First
http://www.thinkfirst.us/

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Relentless Repeatability

The key to any successful sustainable business is the concept of relentless repeatability. Doing the same thing, the same way, every time to achieve a consistent outcome. This concept is well document in Ray Croc's book about McDonald's. A Big Mac in New York taste exactly the same as one in Toyko. This is because the process by which they build the Big Mac is exactly the same across the world. All McDonalds employees' are educated the same way in the art of creating a Big Mac. We can learn a lot from this success story.

When working with healthcare provider organizations I often see how one simple workflow has the potential to create organizational chaos. Take for example, the patient regstration process. Every insurance company needs the same registration information in order to process a claim, yet when I go from client to client and clinic to clinic - the forms are different, the data elements are different and sometimes the systems are different. Employees have been trained by a number of different methods. Some by their Managers. Some by Corporate Trainers. Some not at all.

This leads to inaccurate registrations which delays claims, ultimately delaying revenue. Getting to a relentless repeatable process is imperative for resolving some of your chronic issues around the revenue cycle. Read Ray's book and transform your organization into the next McDonalds.

Chris George