the benefits of healthcare policy management software and how that impacts roi

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THE BENEFITS OF HEALTHCARE POLICY

MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE AND HOW

THAT IMPACTS ROI

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We have seen many hospitals try to calculate basic and highly subjective figures to determine how much time is wasted looking for policies and procedures. Examples of typical calculations include: “If your facility has 100 employees searching for

policies, and each employee searches for 5 policies per month, with each policy taking 50 secs to find, then the amount of time your organization as a whole spends searching for policies is 6 hours & 57 mins each month.”

“If you have about 35 departments, with an average of 7 binders per department & an average of 250 pages in each binder, you will have around 61,250 pieces of paper.”

OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY

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It is this type of data that is essentially sales fluff in a slick PDF with the word “whitepaper” or “calculator” bolded at the top of the page. Here is an unbiased look at the ROI of healthcare policy management software.

OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY

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Hospital staff can reduce their effort by 25-50% per employee in the time it takes to manage and retrieve policies and procedures. Saved resources can be applied to other functions

such as patient care or generating additional revenue. An electronic policy management system includes

enhanced workflow management to address regulatory and procedural compliance. This is an additional 15-25% reduction in effort for updating documentation.

REDUCE OPERATIONAL COSTS BY IMPROVING STAFF EFFICIENCY

There is no doubt that a significant return on investment can be found in the operational efficiency of your healthcare and corporate staff through time savings, resources and materials. Here are some general rules of thumb for you to use to determine your own operational efficiency savings:

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Hospitals can reduce direct operational costs for producing printed policies and procedures by over 90% by reducing the cost of:Materials and shipping costs for updates to policies and procedures.

Materials and shipping costs for binder “reorders”.


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Hospitals can reduce indirect operational costs by streamlining processesPolicies and Procedures ManagementComplianceLegal Contracts… and more


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Hospitals can add to their policy management ROI by proactively mitigating risk and reducing exposure during accreditation surveys by demonstrating employee adherence to regulations and standards. This will significantly reduce the cost of survey citations. Here are the general savings that can be achieved by the following risk mitigation steps that are possible with an electronic policy management system:

REDUCE INSURANCE COST BY REDUCING YOUR RISK EXPOSURE

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Limiting your risk exposure will allow you to reduce your hospital’s risk reserve funds by 10-20%. Every year hospitals set aside funds for legal action based on their risk exposure. If a hospital can immediately prove that the policy in question was up-to-date, available, and read by the employee, the risk and cost of legal action is significantly reduced, thereby reducing the need for reserve funds.


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Maintain a continued state of readiness. The most current policies and procedures are readily accessible and available to staff, therefore reducing risk of patient safety and abiding by federal and payor regulations and standards.


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Reduce the risk of exposure to survey citations. Learning from the knowledge of prior citations will help hospitals prevent surveyors from imposing fines on citations that have not been mitigated and preventing new citations for the same observation.



Greater control and management for team members allows everyone to stay on top of the latest policies which reduces risk exposure.



Improve intangible items such as surveyor satisfaction, hospital brand protection, your reputation, and your credit rating and protection.



Reduce errors by 30-40% on governance risk and compliance reports.



When hospitals reduce their citations, they get a better rating from programs like Medicare which leads to increased reimbursements for all procedures. Policy management systems contribute to this ROI for all of the same reasons listed above.

EFFECTIVE GOVERNANCE INCREASES HOSPITAL REIMBURSEMENTS BY

MEDICARE


Immediate accessibility allows administrative departments to focus on improving policies and procedures and providing oversight rather than getting caught up in updating binders.


MEDICARE


Standardization of governance and best practices across the enterprise reduces risk exposure.


MEDICARE


Reduced cost of governance by always having the right policies in place rather than constantly updating binders and figuring out who needs which update.


MEDICARE


Increased business agility to accelerate on-boarding of new clinics and partners.


MEDICARE


Compliance agility to react more proactively to emerging risks and changes in regulatory compliance.


MEDICARE


There are many benefits to always being in a state of ready compliance. Not only do your hospital employees benefit from the knowledge they gain by always having the latest information, but whenever you are “tested” by either governing agencies or risk assessments, you will pass with flying colors. Some hospitals now welcome the opportunity to shine in the eyes of their surveyors. The cost savings associated with a state of continued readiness include:

THE VALUE OF A STATE OF READY COMPLIANCE


Reduce consultant costs to maintain regulatory compliance by more than 50%.



Reduce compliance citations by a minimum of 20%.



Decrease in the overall cost of surveys and spot checks by federal and state agencies because it doesn’t take as long to complete with an electronic policy management system as it does for a paper-driven system.



Automatic policy crosswalk of practices across regulatory standards as it relates to each policy and procedure provides proven compliance to reduce risk exposure.



Intangible benefits of an enriched environment for collaboration and sharing of knowledge amongst peers. The financial impact of this benefit is keeping good employees longer and reducing the cost of staff turnover.



Reduce man-hour costs for compliance reporting by 15-25%.



Reduce the cost of audits by 10-20%



Increasing the knowledge and satisfaction of team members within your hospital does more than create a great working environment. It also creates a collaborative environment that fosters patient safety. There is no argument about the cost savings of patient safety, but here are a few things to consider when evaluating how a policy management system could improve both patient safety and costs at the same time.

THE ROI OF PATIENT SAFETY


Ensure staff awareness to mitigate safeguards that enhance patient safety or prevent grievous or fatal patient harm. While the human factor alone should be enough to implement policy management software, nobody can argue with the value of reducing the cost of legal action.



Health teams that have easy access to instructional videos, links, and tests are better equipped to serve their patients and ensure their safety. There is no better mitigating factor than a highly educated hospital staff.



In summary, I hope this presentation has given you enough guidance to articulate and start

compiling your own hospital’s return on investment for deploying policy management

software. Use these general estimates to determine your own operational savings and

you will have a much more accurate picture of the return on investment at your hospital for

policy management software.

CALCULATE THE ROI FOR YOUR HOSPITAL


If you would like to find out more, or would like to request a demo, please

don’t hesitate to contact our team here at Policy Medical who are always here to help with any questions you may have.

FOR MORE


THANK YOU

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the benefits of healthcare policy management software and how that impacts roi

Healthcare