It’s our estimate that 71% of healthcare value analysis practitioners are employing spreadsheets to manage their tasks/activities of their value analysis programs, which isn’t a bad thing. Yet, there are many disadvantages* I’m sure you have experienced, such as:
- Susceptible to Human Errors: Carry-over data to another week, month or year creates a potential for errors. It is much better to have your VA data automatically populate the proper field and the right week, month or year without manual labor.
- Unfit for Value Analysis Practices: Spreadsheets are generally personalized by their users with a lot of shorthand only known to the user, so when a newcomer takes over they must start from scratch. In fact, when we audit a hospital, system or IDN’s value analysis spreadsheets showing their tasks/activities they are many times challenging and sometimes impossible to read. If you automate your VA system, all your data is automatically archived in a standardized format for ease of use.
- Not Designed for Collaborative Work: Clinical value analysis project management is a collaborative activity, which can’t be facilitated with spreadsheets. And if you’re a multi-hospital system scattered over many cities and states, collaboration becomes mission critical. This is not the case with cloud-based system that enables you to collaborate with all your facilities across state lines in real-time.
- Hard to Consolidate Data: When used for simple data entry and quick ad hoc analysis spreadsheets are ideal. However, when it’s time to consolidate hundreds of your value analysis projects and generate cross- department or cross- facility savings reports it becomes unworkable to do so with spreadsheets when an automated system does this for your automatically.
- Scales Poorly as Organization Grows: As your healthcare organization grows, VA data in a spreadsheet-based system get more robust; subsequently this compounds all the issues we just talked about. An automated system is scalable for any size healthcare organization and grows with you.
- Unsuited for Hospital Value Analysis Continuity: Generally, value analysis spreadsheets are never kept in a single repository. Therefore, if they are lost for any reason, your clinical value analysis program records are lost forever. On the other hand, with a central or cloud system your value analysis records are safe and sound forever.
The point we are tying to make here is that there is a time in your value analysis program’s maturity that you need to consider automating your value analysis tasks and activities. Otherwise, you will stunt the growth of your value analysis program.
(*) Source Denizon Team