Hospitals need “SWAGGER”

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.