DELIVERY OF CARE

The effective delivery of care is incredibly complicated. Of course every industry has its own challenges and complications but healthcare is by far the most complicated because in order for Healthcare to win it has to excel at two levels simultaneously, and both are critical and complex. First, Healthcare must win at patient care using ever changing medical technology and clinical protocols (the science of medicine) and they have to synchronize, execute and deliver those clinical protocols operationally with skills and capabilities that are efficient, safe and effective (the delivery of care).

The approach used by Group50 Healthcare  is designed to span the gap between clinical protocols (the science of medicine) and operational protocols (the delivery of care).Without the ability to synchronize and deliver clinical protocols effectively healthcare cannot win the game, period.

Senior healthcare leaders are puzzled and many have said “we’re losing the delivery of care contest but we have the best doctors, nurses and technology”. It doesn’t matter if you have the best players, the team that wins is the one that executes the playbook the best all the time. You can’t be the best clinically and just okay operationally. You can’t do only one well and win, you have to do both. Leaders in healthcare don’t always recognize what winning looks or feels like.  Unfortunately in healthcare, the most common definition of winning is just surviving the day or playing not to lose. Or worse, “making the budget” (just another way to say tie game). But in healthcare there are no tie games and a tie is as good as a loss.

What is winning in healthcare?

• Performance is controlled and well managed through the organization
• Patient care is both clinically and operationally in control.
• Situational issues are anticipated, and there is pre-approved courses of action
• Crisis management is the exception not the normal day
• Correctly and efficiently collecting and recording patient info and data is normal and reliable
• Policies, strategy, goals and plans are well known to every one
• Everyone knows the score and what it means
• Financially stable
• All Resources that provide patient care are utilized effectively (especially human resources)
• There are no “unforced errors” when it comes to capturing and coding patient charges
• There is a balance between demand and capacity
• There are policies and processes that control discretionary spending such as overtime, agency support, inventory, new equipment or materials, inventory
• Patient focused
• Performance improvement centers around patient care at the bedside.
• Care services are “tightly connected” to care plans and needs of care-givers
• Delivering patient care includes the coordination of all activities from admission through post discharge care
• All patient care activities are coordinated with the goal of getting the patient out of the hospital quickly, safely and ready for post discharge care
• Staff sensitive
• Caregivers spend their time providing care, not “hunting, chasing and fetching”
• Care givers have reliable processes they can follow to “get the job done”
• Communication and information sharing is efficient and accurate
• Ancillary patient care services are coordinated and tightly connected in order to give caregivers more time to provide care
• Roles and responsibilities are clear and well known
• Team based execution

This above list is what consultants from Group50 Healthcare are most skilled at. We work closely with our clients to create healthcare environments that leverage people, process and technology and we use the above list as our litmus test. We are not experts in the science of medicine but we are experts in the delivery of care..  

Our healthcare performance improvement tools have been finely tuned by the delivery of over 100 projects.  You can see what our clients have realized in the healthcare section of Group50’s project overviews.

Talk to a Group50 healthcare professional about how to significantly lower the cost of healthcare operations by calling (909) 949-9083, sending an email to info@group50.com or requesting more information here.