In this second article of a series aiming at illustrating the impact et the contribution of technology in health care efficiency, we explore the productivity gains expected from specialized medical equipment.
Activity-based financing
Already established for several years in Quebec in targeted sectors (imaging, oncology, etc.), the activity-based financing approach aims at encouraging institutions to achieve productivity levels comparable to their peers. Some measures allow to follow the performance of institutions, notably those who are not able to produce their level of activity below the standardized cost disbursed by the MSSS. Failing to achieve these levels of efficiency leaves institutions financially penalized by a loss of income that affects their ability to provide care.
With the anticipated addition of services covered by this type of financing (LaPresse – révolution dans le financement des hôpitaux), institutions have a pressing imperative to put in place approaches, and a culture of continuous analysis and review of their performance.
Technological innovation, a guarantee of increased performance?
Many manufacturers will claim increased productivity potential achievable with their new technologies. With a data acquisition speed or an increase of the data processing capacity, the institution will be able to treat more patients, reduce its average cost and increase its productivity. In a traditional financing context (global envelope financing), the increase in activity volumes essentially always increased the total cost. In an activity-based financing, the increased productivity potential of the technology must be considered.
Better understanding the actual impact of technology
It is important, however, to understand the entire process of providing care before assuming that an increase of 5, 10 or 20 % of a device’s productivity may translate in a similar increase of clinical performance.
Most of the time, technology use represents but a portion of the total care process. The lower the time of use associated with the technology in regard to other stages of care, the less it can impact total productivity, unless the introduction of this new technology offers the opportunity to completely redesign the care process.
We must also pay attention to certain technological developments and to the new safety regulations that can harm productivity. For example, the disinfection of flexible endoscopes is abandoned in favor of low temperature sterilization. This process is longer and more damageable for the scopes, which must then be replaced more often.
The process of care is not immutable
If the institution wants to maximize the productivity contribution associated with an innovative technology, it is necessary to ensure that the clinical process of which it is a part is well understood, possibly revised or even reinvented. Wrongly, a new technology will be implemented while maintaining traditional processes in order to find that the technology has a negligible impact.
We must look at the care process as a production process. Of course, human factors are always at play, but basically, the care process and its various steps may be analyzed like any other industrial process: from the reception of a request, we move to the selection of the procedure to follow, to the data to be collected and the event programming to reach the execution of the procedure and the production of a final report.
Maximize the productivity potential associated to the technology
CIM Conseil has the technical and strategic expertise process improvement to help you maximize the productivity potential associated to the technology. We will train a multidisciplinary team of clinical experts who understand the needs of clinical practice, biomedical technology experts, and process improvement experts who will help you implement efficient clinical operations that will achieve similar cost and productivity levels, if not superior to those of your peers.
