March 8

Rely On the Numbers: Don’t Be Dissuaded By Others

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Statistics, benchmarks, and analytics don’t lie, but will instead lead you in the right direction for new savings and quality improvements. However, you will find that your healthcare organization’s department heads, managers, and supervisors will beg to differ with you. That’s why you need to be forewarned!

Statistics, Benchmarks, and Analytics Can Be Off Base

There is no doubt about it, statistics, benchmarks, and analytics can be off base or even completely wrong, but from our experience they can easily be revised with new information, a few minutes of dialog, and some fortitude. For instance, one time we benchmarked a hospital’s bath kits’ utilization as being too high only to find out that this hospital didn’t have any private bathrooms. All of this hospital’s bathrooms were in their hallways, so bed baths were more frequent than other hospitals. Naturally, we had to revise our benchmark to reflect this new fact. But this didn’t mean we couldn’t use this new benchmark in our bath kit value analysis study. That’s the point of this article.

Rely On the Numbers: Don’t Be Dissuaded by Others

We find that 85% or more of our statistics, benchmarks, and analytics are right the first time, so we aren’t going to be dissuaded by our clients’ department heads, managers, and supervisors that tell us that our numbers are wrong. When, as we said, we find that our numbers are off base or wrong for some reason, based on new information or new dialog, we will revise so they are correct in our client’s eyes. You need to do the same; don’t be dissuaded by others. Refine your statistics, benchmarks, and analytics until they are right in your customer’s eyes. Then revisit the topic again!

Historical Data Is the Answer If All Else Fails

If all else fails, then you need to use your customer’s historical data to prove to them that a product, service, or technology’s cost (not price) variance needs to be investigated. These numbers can’t be disputed, refuted, or ignored because they are your customer’s own data. For example, if a department’s office supply cost per employee has increased by 27% over the last 12 months, this can’t be disputed if you have done the math right. If your customer is a reasonable person, they will start working with you to reduce this metric.

Let’s Be Honest: No Numbers Will Persuade Some Personalities

In the final analysis, some personalities (you know who they are) won’t believe your numbers no matter what you do, even if you make them pristine, relevant, and visual. This is because these individuals aren’t open minded, are fixed in their ways, or might even have a hidden agenda. They certainly aren’t going to win an employee of the year award for their cooperation. What we tell our clients when they run into these individuals is for them to wait for these persons to move on, get a promotion, or retire so you can revisit the subject with a new person. Yes, it’s a waiting game, but let us assure you that you will always win in the long-run.


Tags

analytics, benchmarks, healthcare, healthcare organization, historical data, hospital, quality, savings


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