February 12, 2003
Finding A Senior Executive
Level CHAMPION Is A Requisite For Your Value Management Success!
___________________________________________
Robert T. Yokl - President -
The HCP Group, Ltd.
“ One Common Trait Of Successful Value
Management Programs Is Finding The Executive Management Connection In Your
Health Care Organization”
Bottom up
initiatives are commendable, but from my experience top down
initiatives work best when a hospital or healthcare system’s executive
management team buys into, is committed to, sets the tone and direction
for any initiative. It all starts with finding a senior executive
level CHAMPION for your new or refined value management program
within your healthcare organization’s executive management team to sponsor
your new or refined value management program.
Typically, the best champions are your CEO, COO or CFO, because of
their clout and status in your healthcare organization. If it is
impossible to enlist one of these top executives in your campaign
for some reason, then any of your vice presidents can be a strong
candidate for sponsoring your value management program. The key here is
that you must find a high level executive to FIGHT FOR, DEFEND AND SUPPORT
your value management initiative in the short term and long term or you
could quickly find the doors to your executive suite closing on you
and your ideas before they even have a chance to take hold. Let me
give you an example of what I’m talking about.
It All
Starts With Finding A Champion!
A 350-bed
community hospital in the southwest engaged my firm to assist them in
refining their current value management program (and even paid their first
payment on our fee), but when we arrived to give the hospital’s executive
management team an orienta-tion on what to expect from their new value
management program the only reaction we got were BLANK STARES AND NO
QUESTIONS. Shortly thereafter, the new initiative was cancelled by
a phone call from their material manager. After investigating what when
wrong with the start-up of this value management program, we found
that although the hospital’s material manager was promoting this new
program to her executive management, she didn’t enlist one member
of the hospital’s executive management team as a champion to prepare the
way, defend, or fight for her new program. When she found that
there WAS LITTLE OR NO INTEREST in reinventing her current value
management program, she was left to her own devices to try to resurrect
her old value management program, with little or no success,
because she had the doors closed to the executive suite before she
even got her program off the ground.
The good news
is that one year later, the hospital’s executive vice president visited
the office of this same material manager and asked WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO
the new value management program she was promoting about a year ago, since
he now needed this type of program to SAVE MONEY on his next year’s
budget. After she got off the floor from the shock, she told him she was
still high on the program, but she didn’t think anyone else was. He told
her that attitude would change, since he was now SPONSOR-ING
the new value management program. Further, he asked that she call my firm
and get us back to the hospital as fast as possible for a new start-up
orientation to the executive management team. He told her if there
were any further issues to be dealt with regarding this new program,
she was to come to him for any decision or guidance necessary to make
this new program successful this time around.
Let me repeat again….
“The Executive
Management Connection”
always begins with finding a
CHAMPION
within your healthcare organization’s executive management team to
sponsor
your new or refined value management program.
WITHOUT A CHAMPION ON YOUR SIDE,
it will be
next to impossible
to move forward with your value management program. All you can do is wait
for the right
opportunity
to wage your campaign again with a
strong champion
on your side.
