Jump to content

Benchmarking and Lean Expectation


Terry Rees

Recommended Posts

I am at a large level 1 trauma center.  In addition, we have an active liver transplant program among other specialties such as a 40+ bed NICU.  Our organization is now using benchmarking to force a reduction in FTEs.  They are using a vendor called Truven who is claiming we need to cut out staff by one third.  Our biggest problem is that we not physically located anywhere close to our general lab.  Our Transfusion Service is located in the main patient building while our general lab sits in its own separate building about 1 block away on the same campus.  It is one thing to cut FTEs when you have generalists who can cross train and be quickly pulled from general lab.  What do you do when you have no other lab staff to pull from?   I am hoping to identify if there are any other facilities who are in a similar boat, i.e. they operate a Transfusion Service that is isolated from the rest of the lab.  Also, do other folks have experience with benchmarking?  When you have no idea who they are benchmarking you to, how do you know if the "big wigs" are comparing you to the right per group?      

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dear God, you have my deepest sympathy. 

1.  Push the company to give details on their benchmark standards and where they come from.  Chances are, you are not in the same boat.  We had a similar problem here because our Micro and BB staffing for the weekends did not meet corporate standards (desires), but we were unable to cut staff because of the physical layout of our facility and the distance between the departments. 

2.  Your situation matches one hospital I know of, if you could contact them - University Medical Center, El Paso, TX.  The Blood Bank is in the Main hospital and the main lab is way across the parking lot.  They are a level 1 trauma center and a big surgical hospital, but the NICU is in a separate hospital next to them and did have it's own Blood Bank staff.

3.  Do you have current FTE numbers that justify your current staffing?  What is the difference in the "factors" in the staffing equations that are being used that lead to this new company coming up with their figures vs. your current FTE figures?

Good luck.  Patient safety arguments sometimes sway Administrations when nothing else will.  If you can make a case for how dangerous it is for the staff of a Trauma center to be too little, too late - maybe it could help.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
On 4/24/2018 at 1:13 PM, cswickard said:

Dear God, you have my deepest sympathy. 

1.  Push the company to give details on their benchmark standards and where they come from.  Chances are, you are not in the same boat.  We had a similar problem here because our Micro and BB staffing for the weekends did not meet corporate standards (desires), but we were unable to cut staff because of the physical layout of our facility and the distance between the departments. 

2.  Your situation matches one hospital I know of, if you could contact them - University Medical Center, El Paso, TX.  The Blood Bank is in the Main hospital and the main lab is way across the parking lot.  They are a level 1 trauma center and a big surgical hospital, but the NICU is in a separate hospital next to them and did have it's own Blood Bank staff.

3.  Do you have current FTE numbers that justify your current staffing?  What is the difference in the "factors" in the staffing equations that are being used that lead to this new company coming up with their figures vs. your current FTE figures?

Good luck.  Patient safety arguments sometimes sway Administrations when nothing else will.  If you can make a case for how dangerous it is for the staff of a Trauma center to be too little, too late - maybe it could help.

 

Excellent suggestions. Unfortunately, our fabulous consultants won't explain how they arrived at their recommendations because it's "proprietary". 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, MOBB said:

Excellent suggestions. Unfortunately, our fabulous consultants won't explain how they arrived at their recommendations because it's "proprietary". 

Oh, you mean that they have suddenly woken up to the realisation that their figures don't add up, but are too embarrassed to admit it.  :disbelief::disbelief::disbelief::disbelief::disbelief:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I found it amazing that one of the corporations I worked for loved hiring consultants and on any given subject they would hire one after another until they found one that would tell them what they wanted to hear.  It just never made sense to me to spend that kind of money only to search until they found someone who would confirm their chosen course of action was a good idea no matter how many others told them it was a bad idea.  One place actually fired me because I told them the CEO's idea was a bad one when a consultant was blowing the expectations all out of proportion.  Five years later they are still trying how to figure out how to make it work and it never will.  :spank:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The corporatisation of Healthcare in the US has naturally led to administrators who are more and more likely to trust other corporation's advice on how to justify business changes.  This is bad business and bad for the patients.  It seems like health care administrators who seek out advice on direction from those who are actually taking care of the patients are few and far between.

Scott

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The other piece that is usually considered in those efforts to cut FTE's is that much of the time in the Transfusion Service isn't measured by "billables" as it is in the other sections of the laboratory.  The time needed to work out a complex antibody cannot be equated to running an automated line in Core lab.  Things like thawing plasma and so forth, take time, but aren't really represented by billable time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 hours ago, SMILLER said:

The corporatisation of Healthcare in the US has naturally led to administrators who are more and more likely to trust other corporation's advice on how to justify business changes.  This is bad business and bad for the patients.  It seems like health care administrators who seek out advice on direction from those who are actually taking care of the patients are few and far between.

Scott

About 10 years ago I was having a deep philosophical discussion with the best blood bank medical director I ever worked with.  During that discussion I told her that I thought the decline of the American Healthcare started when physicians stopped being hospital administrators and they started hiring MBAs to run the "business".  She completely agreed with me. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And back in the day (last century) we had to deal with CAP workloading, more recently LEAN. etc.  

Anyway, one does have to find out how to deal with whatever the latest "big wig" administrative push is (something they got at their latest seminar).  Like has been suggested above, information is power.  Find out as much as you can about the new process.  You will also want to be clear on what your immediate management expects out of all of this so you know what to focus on.

Scott

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Advertisement

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.