As a leading healthcare performance improvement company, HealthTrust is constantly looking for ways to help members raise their results in areas beyond purchasing. To that end, HealthTrust’s inSight Advisory Services recently launched a set of Performance Capability Scorecards to help members enhance their performance in supply chain management, clinical performance, and labor management and productivity.
The tools will help health systems understand their current practices and capabilities in these three areas, as well as compare them to the practices of industry-leading health systems. Ultimately, the scorecards should help members accelerate their efforts to improve operational performance and financial health.
“The development of the scorecards came in response to requests from some members for a means of quickly understanding how they’re performing in terms of their supply chain, clinical and workforce productivity areas,” says David Osborn, senior vice president of inSight Advisory Services, HealthTrust.
The scorecards go beyond a grade, or a rating of good, average or bad, Osborn explains, and don’t benchmark a particular hospital against a lot of others. “They provide helpful information on a facility’s achievements compared to what it potentially could achieve,” he says.
“And, because the inSight Advisory Services team has worked in operations for low-, medium- and high-performing hospitals, members also want to know how they can take advantage of HealthTrust operator knowledge,” Osborn adds.
For HealthTrust members interested in the free scorecard service, just two things are needed:
- A summary of high-level data.
The data required is generally the type that’s already readily available in a member’s reporting systems, such as high-level summary data on readmissions and patient volumes. “It’s data that should be available and accessible without too much difficulty,” Osborn says. - An interview with key stakeholders.
An in-person or phone meeting with a few leaders who can answer questions about the facility’s current environment and processes is necessary to start the process.
“Conversations with multiple people might be helpful since no one person generally has all the understanding of how a facility is running,” Osborn says. “These interviews—usually no longer than an hour—help us complete the assessment on members’ behalf.”
Within a short time, the customized scorecard will be complete. The inSight Advisory Services staff then discusses the results with key stakeholders and answers questions.
“We want people to understand the data and our recommendations for improving performance and developing deeper capabilities in certain areas where there appear to be some gaps and opportunities,” Osborn says. “We also go beyond what’s on the printed page and give members our perspective on how to accomplish certain recommendations.”
HealthTrust has devoted significant time to developing the questions asked, data analyzed and the algorithms used to calculate the scorecard. “We’ve done testing not only on the model, but also on how we communicate the results,” Osborn says. “We don’t want to give members a bunch of jargon. We want to present our recommendations in ways that are understandable and actionable so they can actually start to make positive changes.”
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