Contact: Phyllis Levine at 845.896.6934 X3001 or by Email

Innovation In Hudson Valley's Medical Arena By Thomas Dee

HVTDC Helps Benedictine Hospital Streamline for Better Patient Care
& Accelerated Cash Flow

Like most medical facilities, Benedictine Hospital continually struggles to operate more productively, efficiently and profitably. Since May of last year, that struggle has dissipated in the administrative process of billing patients for chemotherapy treatments. One year later, we are applying similar changes to effectively treat patients while efficiently processing them through our Fast Track emergency room, as well as in our hiring process, and in fulfillment of our physician’s orders by our nursing staff. Our nurses are already reporting being able to provide safer, more-attentive patient care because they are less labored by taxing paperwork and can now devote more time to patients. These notable changes are all coming from a cost- and time-efficiency methodology introduced to our hospital by the Hudson Valley Technology Development Center (HVTDC) in Fishkill.

HVTDC is the not-for-profit business resource center that over the last two decades has worked primarily with manufacturing and technology-based companies. Their ambition is to help companies adopt new business practices in order to grow, and to work more efficiently, effectively and profitably by streamlining daily operations. In recent years, HVTDC has innovatively chosen to introduce the long established and widely proven Principles of Lean manufacturing to medical facilities. HVTDC has creatively chosen to “break out” of their “box” of applying Lean Principles primarily to the diminishing manufacturing arena, and to introduce those Principles to hospitals and medical groups throughout the Valley. Bendictine and HVTDC are on the cusp of what is becoming significantly clear – medical facilities must streamline their processes if they want to maintain quality care while reducing costs.

By coming in and observing Benedictine Hospital’s chemotherapy division’s administrative billing process, HVTDC’s knowledgeable, respectful and encouraging team of consultants helped our staff reduce the number of days needed to send bills to insurance companies or directly to patients. The result is cash flow acceleration due to a decrease in billing time and an increase in payment rate. By streamlining our billing process, we have decreased the time the patient registers into the hospital to the time the bill is sent out from 23 to 13 days. This equates to a 41% decrease in the time it takes our staff to drop the bill, which has had a great impact on our cash flow.

Our pharmacy’s director reports that our hospital’s drug inventory has also been impacted by the application of HVTDC’s Lean Principles. Because the staff is better able to plan less inventory is required. Perhaps most importantly, patient care has also improved. Processing an incoming patient into the hospital is more streamlined and our nurses now have more time to spend with each patient. We are now able to provide more patient-centered, safer care because our staff has the time to pay closer attention to our patients. 
 
With HVTDC’s guidance, Benedictine has also begun applying the Lean Principles in our Fast Track Emergency Room operations. We are working to decrease the time it takes for a patient to be effectively treated by a physician and the paperwork efficiently processed. Our ambition is for quick in and out, treat and release. Having seen how readily our chemotherapy group took to HVTDC’s instruction and the Lean Principles, we believe our Fast Track staff will quickly adapt to streamlining the operations of this vitally critical unit.

Benedictine Hospital was introduced to Lean Principles by HVTDC’s Executive Director, Thomas G. Phillips, Sr. Tom explained to me that, “Lean principles are designed to meet the daily operational demands of a business while increasing that business’ productivity, capacity and profitability. At HVTDC, we firmly believe that other business entities such as hospitals, doctor’s offices and schools can reap the benefits of profitability and efficiency that manufacturers have enjoyed for decades.”

Utilizing the Lean Principles, HVTDC works with companies to assess and analyze their daily operations. Through Lean Principles’ Value Stream Mapping methodology, HVTDC identifies “Value Added” aspects of a business operation that equate to steps needed to put actual value into producing a product or service. “Non Value Added Time” is the time devoted to activities that diminish the operations of a business and productivity. In most businesses, the Value Added activities are actually a small percentage of the process time. Their objective is to understand how a business operates, then create and implement activities specifically designed to improve that business’ performance.
           
HVTDC is aware that doctor’s offices, hospitals, nursing homes and most medical facilities are experiencing considerable pressures around escalating expenses and a considerable squeeze on operating margins. They also understand that these pressures are compounded by insurance coverage, reimbursement amounts, and delays in receiving payments. Their goal is to help medical facilities by assessing their operations for greater profitability through value streamlining their operations. It’s a goal Benedictine Hospital began to realize when we saw how readily our chemotherapy administrative staff took to learning and applying the Lean Principles. How the ease of that initial change has multiplied into change in several different areas of our hospital. In one year’s time, the results have all been very positive. We are looking forward to continued ease in administering our care compassionately, effectively and efficiently.

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