Did you know that Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) is part of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS’) long-standing effort to link Medicare’s payment system to a value-based system to improve healthcare quality, including the quality of care provided in the inpatient hospital setting?
Also the program attaches value-based purchasing to the payment system that accounts for the largest share of Medicare spending, affecting payment for inpatient stays in over 3,500 hospitals across the country.
Basically participating hospitals are paid for inpatient acute care services based on the, “QAULITY” of care, not just, “QUANITY” of the services they provide. To make this simple the government has asked hospitals to perform on certain processes with flawless execution. Hospitals that do not perform will not receive reimbursement. Understand some of these processes if not done correctly can harm or kill a patient.
These processes all start with the first step and end with the last step. The definition of the word SWAGGER is as follows, “walk with confidence”. If hospitals want to regain or create SWAGGER in regards to patient care they must start by walking in confidence as how to execute on processes.
Here are some high level steps to begin your SWAGGER journey:
- Empower frontline employees i.e. nurses, housekeeping etc..to express how they can improve processes.
- Explain to physicians, surgeons’ administrators, and hospitalist, and all staff that if we are not at 100% for all VBP criteria we have to change. Start the political dialogue to come to a bi-partisan agreement.
- Incorporate the use of a Lean / Six Sigma tools known as GEMBA, Cause and Effect, Measurement System Analysis, etc…to determine root cause for none optimal performance
- Educate and socialize to all staff the latest VBP score so that they understand how they truly play a role in the care of the patient. I don’t feel that everyone understands what VBP is or how they play a role in the success.
If you’re a hospital employee and you know you’re not 100% successful on your VBP contact us we want to help you help your patients.
Hospitals need “SWAGGER”
/0 Comments/in News /by Steve GriffinDid you know that Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) is part of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS’) long-standing effort to link Medicare’s payment system to a value-based system to improve healthcare quality, including the quality of care provided in the inpatient hospital setting?
Also the program attaches value-based purchasing to the payment system that accounts for the largest share of Medicare spending, affecting payment for inpatient stays in over 3,500 hospitals across the country.
Basically participating hospitals are paid for inpatient acute care services based on the, “QAULITY” of care, not just, “QUANITY” of the services they provide. To make this simple the government has asked hospitals to perform on certain processes with flawless execution. Hospitals that do not perform will not receive reimbursement. Understand some of these processes if not done correctly can harm or kill a patient.
These processes all start with the first step and end with the last step. The definition of the word SWAGGER is as follows, “walk with confidence”. If hospitals want to regain or create SWAGGER in regards to patient care they must start by walking in confidence as how to execute on processes.
Here are some high level steps to begin your SWAGGER journey:
If you’re a hospital employee and you know you’re not 100% successful on your VBP contact us we want to help you help your patients.
How Lean can create a safe Operating Room (OR)
/0 Comments/in News /by Steve GriffinWhat is if you or your love one were having open heart surgery, and the surgical instruments were dirty? What if the anesthesiologist had to keep you unconscious longer than expected because the instruments that were needed to complete your surgery had to be cleaned for an additional hour or there were not enough instruments in the building? There is a machine known as an Autoclave, it uses high temperature, steam and pressure to clean medical instruments and to perform sterilization. When the Autoclave is used it is known as Flash Sterilization. The worst case Surgical instruments can be cleaned at (132 C, 270 F for a max of 30 minutes). The goal for all hospitals should be for ( 0%-.5% ) of surgical instruments go through flashing, I have seen some hospitals at ( 4% – 6.6%) ! The dangers that this can cause could result in death. Surgical instruments are sent to what is known as SPD (Sterile Processing Departments) In an SPD, the purpose of the department is designed for one thing: the preparation, assembly, and sterilization of instruments for surgery. This process is human manual. It reminds you of washing very complex dishes and assembling very complex puzzles. Thus, the staff has to be very knowledgeable of cleaning and assembly. Also with access to the autoclaves only a few SPD staff have this privilege. The autoclave zone is not visited by staff who have patient contact. This minimizes the potential for contamination. How can Lean help reduce or eliminate this situation? Here are a few high level steps that have been personally proven.
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Physicians need to be involved in your Kaizens
/0 Comments/in News /by Steve GriffinPhysicians love Kaizens
Kaizen is a Japanese for “improvement.” When used in the business sense and applied to healthcare, Kaizen refers to activities that continuously improve all functions and involve all employees from the CEO to the house keepers. For what ever reason front-line employees in healthcare are a bit apprehensive to approach physicians. No one wants to tell a physician about process improvement, safety, or efficiency. Kaizen is another Lean tool that is created to take a part a process and improve it for the good. This is accomplished by involving everyone.
Here are some proven suggestions:
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The 5y’s of perfect patient care
/0 Comments/in News /by Steve GriffinThe 5 Y’s for perfect patient care.
On of the greatest common sense tools of Lean is the (5Y) analysis. This tool simply ask’s Y (why) 5 times. The following is a result of me asking for the 5Y’s for perfect patient care .
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Reduce 30 day Readmission for Congestive Heart Failure
/0 Comments/in News /by adminReduce 30 day readmission for Congestive Heart Failure (CHF), once the patient leaves the hospital the 6SigmaTek way.
The following steps are what I personally used to reduce my father’s 30-day readmission rate for CHF. My father has CHF, diabetes, high blood pressure, he has to take two types of dialysis six days a week, he has two Ziploc bags of meds that he has to take daily, he weighs 98 lds., and I thank God for him every day. But he will eat a bag of hot skins and drink a beer to watch football (Roll tide)! Here is what I did (to) him to keep him from returning to the hospital in 30 days or less. Home health, and the physician must discuss with the caregiver and the patient about the process and the importance of being compliant prior to these steps. I feel that the patient truly needs to understand they have a responsibility also or they will feel the consequence.
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Decrease ER wait times – admit the 6SigmaTek way.
/in News /by adminHow to decrease wait times from your Emergency Department to patient discharge or admit the 6SigmaTek way.
If your hospital is experiencing long length of stay, patients leaving without being seen, patients leaving against medical advise? Here is our high level approach.
1. Provide 6sigmaTek with one year of ED data from your EMR.
2. From your data 6sigmaTek will create an electronic model and analyze the busiest day, time of day, volume of patients ,and acuity of patients.
3. From the data the busiest day and time will be chosen. Then the 6SigmaTek CEO will dress up as a secret patient and present himself with a severe stomach ache. He will have no i.d., no insurance , but will have a cell phone with a Value Stream Map app and will be timing how long each process takes to complete.
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Time of Reflection
/0 Comments/in News /by adminEvery year during the holidays I become sad due to the fact my only brother passed away 17 years ago. His passing is what ignited me to start 6SigmaTek www.6sigmatek.com. My brother died of CLABSI , which still infuriates me. I use this tragedy to fuel my companies passion toward perfect healthcare outcomes. Have a happy holiday and be safe to all.