Operational Improvement

The first step in making change is to understand what needs to be changed, where the gaps in productivity reside and where revenue opportunities are being missed. NXThinking employs a Rapid Improvement cycle that includes a problem, cause and diagnosis approach to uncovering needs.

NXThinking employs two steps in the improvement cycle making sure there is a full and complete understanding of the business challenges and barriers involved.

Department Productivity Assessment

Research has proven ambulatory departments have their own individual challenges that need to be overcome for enhanced operations and cost reduction. Our goal is to eliminate wasteful operational processes that are not core medical standards ultimately improving safety, quality and profits. NXThinking focuses on a thorough assessment of three areas:

Patient Experience

Studies have shown that the ambulatory and patient interaction is changing and quickly. A 2003 report by The American College of Physicians titled: The Changing Face of Ambulatory Medicine—Reimbursing Physicians for Computer-Based Care highlights just some of the occurring changes. Centers are implementing tools that offer physicians an online environment to communicate with patients. This saves money, provides a tracking forum for liability purposes and increases the number of patients a center can “process” in a day.

This is just one example of the patient experience shift. Ambulatory centers know that patients want high quality, timely, and affordable solutions from their ambulatory experience. They also know that making changes will enhance patient perceptions and increase revenues. But how do centers make necessary changes with tight budgets and limited resources.

HOW?

Map out the current patient care processes used by departments and physicians
Monitor what patients say about their experiences
Analyze research and findings of the current proccess
Provide a future state approach and the tools to enhance the patient experience

Urgent Care and ER Transfers

Urgent Care and outpatient departments face unique challenges and requirements when dealing with every stage of patient interaction, administrative procedures and insurance processes. Often times, a person enters the Urgent care facility and needs to be transferred to a hospital Emergency Room. Combined these various factors make streamlining process in care a challenge. Administrative staff is asked to understand a multitude of procedures based on the patient need. This can lead to a breakdown in communication and opens the door for profit loss opportunities.

It is because of these complexities that change needs to be implemented to reduce costs and improve operations. Leaders understand that the situation is getting worse and not better and profit leaks become abundant in these areas. The question asked is HOW to implement change? What steps can be taken now for short and long term results?

How?

Analyze current state patient-based procedures

How are patients admitted and released?
How are patient services coded and billed?

Review the current administrative process – automated or manual?
Analyze current ER transfer process and discover the gaps
Analyze research and findings of the current process
Provide a future state approach to increase productivity, decrease costs per patient and reduce profit loss areas

Surgical Care

Surgical care procedures through Ambulatory Surgical Centers (ASCs) is becoming a mainstream resource for patients that do not require overnight or long term hospital care. Numerous regulations are now coming into play for ASC’s enhancing the trust of the public and insurance companies to use ASC as a surgical alternative.

NXThinking’s approach to operational improvements provides ASC’s with tools and protocols that will reduce wasteful activities, improve on-time procedure starts, enhance staff utilization and streamline the workflow process around the ASC model.

HOW?

Review regulatory and accreditation procedures with daily activities. Determine what can be streamlined and improved for administrative personnel.
Analyze the safety measures that are in place. Are they reliable and is there room for improvement?
Monitor patient centric activities and determine if the patient experience is optimal
Analyze research and findings of the current process
Provide a future state approach to increase productivity, decrease costs and enhance patient experience.

Through a deeper understanding of the gaps that exist and the implementation of a clear and concise process, surgical care teams can increase their productivity, reduce costs in the surgery room and enhance patient care on the front end and back end of care.

Hospital Wide Assessment

Administrative Evaluation

Administrative tasks that ambulatory centers and ASC’s must address include requirements delineated by government regulators, payors, and other stakeholders in the healthcare arena. Couple these needs will patient billing, processing and coding, and the tasks seem nearly insurmountable.

Ambulatory centers are recognizing the financial and patient need to streamline these activities to be more simplistic, less time consuming with higher quality results.

HOW?

Map out the current administrative processes and tools being used including patient admitting and release materials and tasks, health insurance processing, service coding, physician notations and patient transferring.
Monitor communication barriers for efficient transfer of materials
Discover key problematic areas and inefficiency contributors
Analyze research and findings of the current process
Determine improvement implements that can easily be integrated

Revenue and Profit Leaks Discovery

A report released in April 2009 by Becker’s ASCReview titled, “4 Things to Know About Bundled Pricing by ASCs” highlights the growing need by ASC’s to streamline procedures to reduce their operating costs. The report indicated an increased use in bundled pricing and the cost savings benefits to all parties from ACS, to insurance companies and for the patients.

NXThinking digs deeper to find additional areas that can be streamlined to improve revenue opportunities through all stages of the Ambulatory Center model. We provide a quick and easy approach to learning where those opportunities are and offer a plan to capitalize on them.

HOW?

Analyze current billing procedures
Review patient-services coding process
Determine current gaps in communication with hospital billing and coding processes
Monitor space usage and inventory levels of supplies and pharmeceuticals
Analyze research and findings of the current process
Determine improvement implements that can easily be integrated

Staff and Culture Assessment

Research shows that in order for change to be sustainable, all members of staff must understand the need for change and buy-in to the improvement processes.

Most ambulatory center owners and physicians agree that change needs to happen and most recognize the barriers in long standing organizational structure but they can’t agree on the easiest and most cost-effective way to push those barriers for improved operations, safety, quality and productivity.
NXThinking addresses the issue from a multitude of angles:

HOW?

Conduct staff interviews to gain insights into what personnel barriers really exist
Review current approach to new strategy communication from top level down
Monitor negative incidents due to inefficient processes
Analyze findings
Educate executives as to the results and the core barriers the need to be overcome
Outline steps and the future state for change adaptation

Public Perception and Marketing Research Results

Numerous research results indicate that patients expect better wait times, more physician interaction and a more aesthetically appealing environment when using an ambulatory center. Patients and the public want to trust their healthcare facility. As consumers become more savvy and have more ways to research and learn about their healthcare choices, it becomes essential for ambulatory care facilities to heavily market their strengths and differentiators in the market.

NXThinking provides a solid and clear approach to understanding public perception and marketing needs.

HOW?

Conduct confidential patient response mechanisms to track patient experiences.
Conduct primary and secondary research on public positioning and perception
Review current marketing program
Analyze findings
Educate executives as to the results and the core perception barriers the need to be overcome
Outline marketing steps and public perception impact points that need to be implemented for improvement.