the bottom line
Imaging Metrics
By Ed Yoder, MBA, MHA, RT(R), FAHRA, CRA
More and more, imaging continues
to be under the Centers for Medicare
and Medicaid Services (CMS) spotlight.
As a result, The Joint Commission and
the DNV survey us on these issues, depending on which accrediting body you
choose to accredit under. From CMS
quality initiatives to HCAHPS, reporting metrics continue to add up. Quality
initiatives, reimbursement, monitoring,
infections, hand washing, the list continues and it all equals less reimbursement
every year. Every time Congress gets together we wonder what’s next. Doing
more with less isn’t funny any more.
Measuring and reporting become a challenge when we are asked to cut staff and
save on supplies. Yet, as healthcare moves
slowly to an ACO model and a capitation
payment system, it now becomes more
crucial for imaging directors to become
financially astute and monitor the imaging businesses we run. No longer can
we manage with month and a half late
P&L statements. No longer can we manage with business reporting systems that
are antiquated. We must now find ways
to manage with metrics and benchmarks
and challenge and beat best practice
thresholds.
Finding and driving out waste is
one way to make sure a department is
functioning properly. The Toyota Production System and Six Sigma are a few
ways imaging directors have made the
most out of productivity. Once waste
has been defined, it must then be driven out of the system to be productive.
Being able to collect data and share it
among the department can help identify areas that need further investigation.
Comparing results against best practices
then becomes essential for success.
While improving productivity is great,
if you do not monitor or create department metrics and benchmarks to keep
track of department and organizational
objectives then you are letting important
opportunities slip away and you lose the
ability to manage operations on a day to
day basis. Organizations that do not give
directors these tools will be organizations
that fall behind the pace of the healthcare
leaders who will set the benchmarks for
the rest of us to follow. I am betting that
organizations that do not require this are
the organizations that have already fallen
behind the curve and are losing money in
the current healthcare landscape. Is that
true of your institution?
Having recently changed jobs, I realize
the importance of a great electronic med-
ical record with built in financial reports
that allows you to manage the imaging
business day-to-day and week-to-week,
not by late monthly P&L reports that
require the time of the imaging direc-
tor to dig deeper into the data. This data
needs to be at our fingertips as it allows
us to manage and correct variations as
they occur, not a month later. If we are
allowed to be proactive, we can correct
the variations and perhaps end up on the
better end of the financial report when
the end of the month finally arrives! This
allows us the financial awareness of issues
at the source, where they veer off course,
and gives us the ability to correct them as
they occur, or at least by the next day. It
makes us better managers and allows us
to create a healthy, financially operating
department, thus creating a financially
strong organization.
