Annual Savings of $240,000 Projected Resulting From Changes Made by Participating in Premier Alliance Collaborative Breakthrough Series
CHARLOTTE, N.C.--By participating in the Premier healthcare alliance’s Sixth Annual Collaborative Breakthrough Series (CBTS), Mercy Iowa City engaged with its physicians and is expected to save more than $240,000 per year in cath lab supply expenses.
For an organization like Mercy Iowa City, additional savings are always welcome and can be used to help the hospital meet its mission of serving southeast Iowa.
In total, 32 teams representing 15 hospitals and healthcare systems participating in the Premier series implemented changes resulting in cumulative, validated savings of more than $19 million – $6.3 million more than the series’ goal of $12.7 million. Since Premier launched the CBTS six years ago, more than 230 teams have taken part, capturing cumulative savings of more than $170 million.
Mercy Iowa City is a 234-bed acute care community hospital and regional referral center for southeast Iowa, providing a full range of medical services. When the cath lab team was first approached by senior management to participate in the CBTS, team members were skeptical.
But team leader Greg Kuntz, Cardiovascular Services Manager, kept an open mind. “We thought we were doing quite well, but we are always willing to look for new savings opportunities,” said Kuntz. “Even when things seem to be going smoothly, you can always find areas for improvement.”
One of the team’s initial successes was managing the costs of closure devices. Closure device contracts are often difficult to negotiate with vendors because of high demand, but by working with physicians to reduce utilization, Mercy Iowa City was able to capture immediate savings. Initially, utilization dropped from 45 percent to 17 percent of cases in the first month and average usage has now stabilized around 25 percent. Mercy is also renegotiating its closure device contracts and expects annual savings of $72,000 in the future.
“When we joined the series, the team knew we could make progress on our original aim, which was to reduce diagnostic and interventional supply expense by 2 percent,” Kuntz added. “We started by concentrating most on the expensive items that impact overall costs. But we also knew that it has to start with a strong communication and education component.”
The Mercy Iowa City team has established a dynamic communication and education infrastructure that provides timely information about usage to the physicians. This system is supported and endorsed through the active involvement of the medical director and has support from the physicians and clinical staff, along with the purchasing staff and vendors. The team’s nurse educator plays a key role, acting as a liaison for all of the staff and regularly distributing detailed usage reports.
“Timely feedback and reporting is the key,” said Kuntz. “It requires lots of monitoring and friendly reminders to physicians.” This fact really highlights teamwork, the primary key to success according to Kuntz.
Kuntz continues, “I can’t stress this enough. Any success we’ve achieved is the result of the team’s collaborative communications efforts. The success is all theirs.” The team plans to sustain their success through monthly operational meetings and ongoing communication of savings goals and current performance.
Some other areas have produced significant savings. The Mercy team reduced peripheral stent costs by 20 percent and is expected to save $24,000 annually with new contracts. Drug-eluting stent use has declined to an average of 1.44 units (below the national average). An initiative to renegotiate DES contracts is also expected to save about $80,000 annually.
Premier’s CBTS is based on a methodology for collaborative improvement created by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). As incorporated into the CBTS, the methodology allows participants to identify and implement improvements in supply chain management that result in significant supply cost reductions. The teams set their goals and report progress toward attaining those goals monthly. Progress is shared through monthly data exchanges, e-mails, conference calls and face-to-face meetings.
About his team’s participation, Kuntz said, “Premier provided lots of value in many different areas which all add up. The BTS benchmarking targets, as well as established worksheets and strategies, helped the team reaffirm what they were doing well and provided the confidence necessary to tackle areas identified for further improvement.”
About Premier Inc., 2006 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipient
Serving 1,700 hospitals and more than 49,000 other healthcare sites, Premier is the largest healthcare alliance in the United States dedicated to improving patient outcomes while safely reducing the cost of care. Owned by not-for-profit hospitals, Premier operates one of the nation's largest healthcare purchasing networks, the most comprehensive repository of hospital clinical and financial information and one of the largest policy-holder owned, hospital professional liability risk-retention groups in healthcare. Headquartered in San Diego, Premier has offices in Charlotte, N.C., Philadelphia and Washington. For more information, visit www.premierinc.com.
About Mercy Iowa City
Mercy Iowa City has cared for Iowans since 1873. That's when three Sisters of Mercy traveled to Iowa City to open the community's first hospital. Today Mercy is an acute care community hospital and regional referral center for southeast Iowa, providing a full range of medical services. Mercy Hospital is as a private not-for-profit corporation, sponsored by the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, Regional Community of Chicago. For more information, visit www.mercyiowacity.org.
