Unlocking your value analysis savings potential
I’m often asked what is the secret to unlocking a healthcare organization’s value analysis savings potential? My simple answer always is to embrace the four“ Ts” (time, training, teams and technology) to supercharge your value analysis program. It has been my experience that if the four “Ts” are applied in unison they will be a money-saving excelorator for your value analysis teams. It’s all about synergism and connectivity!
First, you will need to allocate and dedicate the TIME to ferret out your value analysis savings. If your VA team(s) is just meeting once-a-month (we recommend twice a month meetings) or not at all, your savings will be drip, drip drip, not cascading like a water fall. And your senior management will need to allot the necessary time for your team members to participate in your value analysis program. If your team members don’t see this happening, they will eventually start to skip your VA meetings or not show up at all.
Second, if you haven’t formed TEAM(s) yet to do this hard work or you are still working with a product evaluation committee model, you are stunting your savings potential. The difference is that teams own and work their projects to completion, where committees just talk about making savings happen. Third, your VA team(s) need advanced TRAINING, so they aren’t “winging it,” but actually know what they are doing to save money. Larry Miles, the Father of Value
Analysis, recommended 40 hours of training for value analysis practitioners in functional analysis. Is this the amount of training that your team members are receiving? If not, why not?
Lastly, you need to harness the power of TECHNOLOGY to proactively manage, monitor and control your value analysis program. Employing spreadsheets, list serves and multiple databases to manage your value analysis team’s activities and tasks is actually holding back dramatic advances in any and all value analysis team’s productivity and performance. If you want to quickly and consistently generate superior value analysis savings results, then you will need to employ technology to do the heavy lifting for you!
Remember, there are no substitutes for the four “Ts” if you want to unlock your value analysis savings potential. Missing even one of these successful elements (time, training, team and technology) will hold you back from peak performance and never-ending savings for your healthcare organization.