Cost transformation doesn't have to be the key driver to making organizational change, but if done properly, healthcare facilities can experience significant cost savings.
At the 13th Annual Spine, Orthopedic and Pain Management-Driven ASC Conference + The Future of Spine, hosted by Becker's Healthcare, K.R. Prabha, Principal with Strategy&, outlined a case study for a hospital seeking to transform its brain and spine service line through collaboration and analytics.
The key to developing a successful transformation, Ms. Prabha said, was establishing early on that cost was not the driving force.
"The key thing was this was not about the cost transformation," Ms. Prabha said. "This was about transforming the way care was delivered. Focus on maintaining and improving quality and engagement, ultimately for better outcomes and better experience."
What's more, centering initiatives on patient care means recognizing that individual patients have individual needs, Ms. Prabha said.
The hospital assembled a multidisciplinary team including clinicians and representatives from finance, IT and human resources. Having a multidisciplinary team is one of three keys to success, according to Ms. Prabha. The other two are having the correct mindset — again the patient is the focus instead of cost transformation — and measurement. With regards to measurement, Ms. Prabha said it is important to have a way to track progress and see where change is happening after establishing the hypothesis.
During the pre-planning process, the hospital identified approximately 150 initiatives that could help transform spine and brain service lines and eventually landed on 16 to implement. One of those initiatives was to create a neurology step-down unit, a unit between the neurology unit and the intensive care unit.
Ms. Prabha said this initiative was exemplary of the mindset of patient-first, cost-later approach to transformation.
In the step-down unit, the staffing would be a little different. Those in the step-down unit require slightly higher attention than those in the neurology unit and slightly less attention than those in the ICU, she said. Though the step-down unit requires an alteration in staffing, Ms. Prabha said one such advantage is having a nurse in the step-down unit who knows the neurology patients, which may not happen when a patient gets transferred to the ICU.
"When the team proposed that, they realized it's better for the patients and better for care. And then they looked at cost," Ms. Prabha said.
The cost savings do come. Over the three to five years it took to implement the initiatives, the hospital experienced cost savings of $10.5 million.
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