The Ankota Healthcare Delivery Management Blog

Is Failure OK in Home Care Innovation?

One of the bloggers I enjoy is a guy named Seth Godin.  He has a great skill for making a compelling point in just a few words.  Often when I share an article or research with you, I try to give an executive summary or perhaps share a few of the most compelling key points, but in this case I share the full article with all credit (and links) to Seth Godin's blog.

A hierarchy of failure worth following

Home Care & Operational Excellence in Summary – 6th of 6 parts

Question -

When all is said and done what is the impact of Operational Excellence? 

Summary

Today we operate in unsettled times.  What will the impact of the Healthcare Bill be?  History tells us in period of instability positive change results.  The high-performance businesses, those that have put a premium on operational excellence, will excel and gain customers and as a result market share.  For those companies that are stumbling during these difficult times, it is an opportunity to look at business processes and put in place operational excellence initiatives.  Either way to achieve it takes management vision, commitment, and investment. 

The focus of this series has been that high performance businesses put a premium on operational excellence.  Below graphically depicts the average Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) between companies using operational excellence to excel and that of the Followers.  Investing in operational excellence has great rewards. 

The installments have been the five characteristic of operational excellence.  These characteristics are –

1^st – Identifying the “Dominant Vector.” 

Revisit this characteristic by scrolling down to the July 9th blog post.

 

2^nd – Establishing a structure to that creates an advantage. 

Revisit this characteristic by scrolling down to the July 11th blog post.

 

3^rd – Out-Executing other Home Care Providers. 

Revisit this characteristic by scrolling down to the July 12th blog post.

 

4^th – Maintaining the Balancing Act for success. 

Revisit this characteristic by scrolling down to the July 13th blog post.

 

5^th – Addressing the Journey to ensure success.  

Revisit this characteristic by scrolling down to the July 14th blog post.

 

It is time to put in place Operational Excellence Initiatives and take advantage of instability.  

 

Ankota provides software to improve the delivery of care outside the hospital.  Today Ankota services home health, private duty care, DME Delivery, RT, Physical Therapy and Home Infusion organizations, and is interested in helping to efficiently manage other forms of care.  To learn more, please visit www.ankota.com or contact Ankota.

Balancing Act to Ensure Home Care Agency Success – 4th of 6 parts

Question -

What in the balancing act you need to execute to ensure the success of your Home Care Agency?

Preface

You have your “dominant vector,” the structure to support it, and you are out-executing all your competitors.  Now comes, shall we say …, the tight rope of high performance businesses with operational excellence.  This needs to be carefully walked to maintain a competitive advantage and generate the associated cash benefits.  In today’s difficult economic times operational excellence offers the opportunity to increase quality, reliability, flexibility, speed, and customer value.  This is the fourth of six blog posts hiliting the five characteristics that facilitate operational excellence. 

 

Creating Operational Excellence

Looking at the big picture of how the business is set up to achieve the established goals, and how work is organized and executed may have the most impact on this the fourth of the five characteristic focuses.  This is the Feng Shui to facilitate operational excellence - 

 4. Balance structure and execution by identifying and articulating that “dominant vector.”  The real challenge comes in determining that balance between structure and execution.  Companies need equilibrium.  Companies that focus to heavily on execution develop processes that create quality and productivity, but sometimes not customer value.  While companies that underplay structural advantage lack agility and resource flexibility to respond to rapidly changing market opportunities. 

 

The focus of this series is that high performance businesses put a premium on operational excellence.  The installments have been –

1st - Identifying your "Dominant Vector." 

2nd - Points out the need to establish a structure to that creates an advantage. 

3rd – Out-Executing other Home Care Providers.  The link for this is http://bit.ly/9dFRw8.

This fourth installment addresses the balancing act to ensure success of your Home Care Agency.

 

Ankota provides software to improve the delivery of care outside the hospital.  Today Ankota services home health, private duty care, DME Delivery, RT, Physical Therapy and Home Infusion organizations, and is interested in helping to efficiently manage other forms of care.  To learn more, please visit www.ankota.com or contact Ankota.

Execute on the “Dominant Vector” of Home Healthcare - 2nd of 6

Question -

Do you have the structure to execute on the “Dominant Vector” of your Home Care Agency?

Preface

The focus of the first posting was identifying your Home Care Agency’s “dominant vector.”   What do you need to do now the dominant vector has been identified in order to be that high performance business, and create the competitive advantage that generates cash?  No one needs to tell you Home Care is a highly competitive environment.  Operational excellence offers the opportunity to increase quality, reliability, flexibility, speed, and customer value.  This is the second of six blog posts hiliting the five characteristics that facilitate operational excellence. 

 

Creating Operational Excellence

To achieve operational excellence owners need to take a step back and look at how is the business set up to achieve the established goals, and how is work organized and executed.  This, the second characteristic, brings organization and execution to a more concrete level - 

2.  Establish the correct structure that creates an advantage.  This requires a clearly defined operating model, which in turn needs to describe how the company is organized to execute the “dominant vector.”  

The focus of this series is that high performance businesses put a premium on operational excellence.  The first installment was on creating operational excellence.  The link for this is http://bit.ly/cyShNI.  The third installment will ask the question, do you have the understanding, drive, and alignment to out-execute Home Care Competitors? 

Ankota provides software to improve the delivery of care outside the hospital.  Today Ankota services home health, private duty care, DME Delivery, RT, Physical Therapy and Home Infusion organizations, and is interested in helping to efficiently manage other forms of care.  To learn more, please visit www.ankota.com or contact Ankota.

Operational Excellence Home Care Agency? - 1st of 6 parts

Having worked in logistics for approximately fifteen years one of the industry rags I pick up on a regular basis is Logistics Management.  Recently there was an article titled “The Five Hallmarks of Operational Excellence.”  It was written by Mark Pearson, who is in Accenture’s Supply Chain Management.  This article applies equally as well in home healthcare including DME, Infusion Therapy, and Respiratory Therapy. 

Preface

The focus of the article is that high performance businesses put a premium on operational excellence.  Why?  It creates a source of competitive advantage and generates cash benefits.  In today’s difficult economic times operational excellence offers the opportunity to increase quality, reliability, flexibility, speed, and customer value.  Home healthcare operates in a very competitive environment.  How do you create operational excellence? 

Creating Operational Excellence

In order to achieve operational excellence owners need to step back and look at the big picture.  First, how is the business set up to achieve the established goals.  Second, how is work organized and executed.  There are five main characteristics.  This is the first characteristic that facilitates this -  

 

1. Identify your companies “dominant vector,” defined as that internal capability that creates customer value more effectively than your competitors.  To put this another way, what mechanism distinctively creates economic value for you and your customer.  This characteristic should change only when the company’s underlying value proposition changes.  

Ankota provides software to improve the delivery of care outside the hospital.  Today Ankota services home health, private duty care, DME Delivery, RT, Physical Therapy and Home Infusion organizations, and is interested in helping to efficiently manage other forms of care.  To learn more, please visit www.ankota.com or contact Ankota.

NIH Alzheimer's Care Guide: A Home Care Must Read

One of our most popular posts on this blog was "Five Tips for Providing Better Alzheimer's Care" inspired by the work of and the keynote speech delivered by Dr. Verna Carson-Benner at the NAHC 5th Annual Private Duty Conference and Exhibition (PDHCA).  In this inspiring presentation, Dr. Carson Benner explained the stages of Alzheimer's in an easy to understand manner and shared tips on providing better care using analogies from caring for children.  Her moving presentation made a great impact based on its content alone, and in addition Dr. Carson-Benner shares her own passion.  In fact, she said that she was honored to be able to present at PDHCA, but that this is a topic she's so passionate about that she'd scream it from street corners.

For those of you who haven't been able to take advantage of one of Dr. Carson-Benner's classes on "How to Become an Alzheimer's Whisperer", the NIH has released a wonderful resource for providing care to a person with Alzheimer's.  It's easy to read, beautifully photographed and free.  In fact, you can download the PDF version by clicking here and you can order free print copies online at this link.  If you have further questions, you can call the NIH toll free and they can answer your questions in English or Spanish on 800-438-4380.

Ankota provides software to improve the delivery of care outside the hospital.  Today Ankota services home health, private duty care, DME Delivery, RT, Physical Therapy and Home Infusion organizations, and is interested in helping to efficiently manage other forms of care.  To learn more, please visit www.ankota.com or contact Ankota.

 

 

Home Health Leadership: Difficult Conversations & Improving Trust

Your staff gets along well, they work together, and they have solid relationships with your clients and their families. You treat them well, pay them accordingly and respect the jobs that they do. You treat your clients in superior fashion.

Even so, conflicts happen and people have to face difficult conversations from time to time.  This is an environment that can become emotionally charged, especially when clients or their family members are distressed or jobs are at risk. Home care executives, managers and staff must prepare to handle these conversations better.

A great deal has been written on the subject of difficult conversations and I will suggest two of my favorites below. Some of the keys include understanding your own tendencies in these situations as well as those of others you encounter, and devising a plan to communicate proactively now to build greater trust for later. I encourage executive management to read these, as well as agency staff in areas such as Home Health Care, Private Duty Home care, Infusion Nursing, and any specialty where you will interact with employees, clients and their families.

Here is an example of how Ankota helps agencies institute a proactive approach to communicating: If you are familiar with Ankota's FamilyConnect, you know that it automates much of the repetitive communications between home care agencies and clients' families. If you are not familiar with it, click here for a 60 second overview -Family Connect

Aside from ensuring consistent and timely communications with family members, this regular approach to keeping them informed serves to continually "bank" trust with clients' families. This proactive approach reduces anxiety and eliminates many common misunderstandings that might later become obstacles when circumstances are more difficult.

Summary:

When stress builds, trust erodes and communications shut down. Do not wait until things become difficult, prepare yourself for these situations now with any of these resources. And, think about implementing a simple, proactive family communications strategy for your agency.

 

Home Care Leadership: Forbes.com on Planning Time Away

Today's entry is somewhat different from previous posts on the Healthcare Delivery Management Blog, but it is certainly in keeping with the theme of helping our clients to operate their businesses more effectively. Whether your company delivers Medical Equipment (HME/DME), Home Infusion or Respiratory Therapy services, Private Duty Home Care, or Home Health Care, you may also struggle to find time to take time off for yourself. Knowing how to plan your own vacation, while assuring that your company continues to thrive in your absence, can be done.

According to psychologist Randy Kamen-Gredinger in a recent article on Forbes.com, "Taking an uninterrupted break from work is one of the best things anyone can do for their personal and professional life. Constant work with no down time can lead to decreased productivity, perspective and creativity. Going away gives you an opportunity to recharge and be missed on the job."

Easier said than done, right?

The article goes on to offer 11 tips for planning an extended time away from work. I found a few of them useful-maybe you will too. All 11 are in bullets below, and you can read the entire article here http://bit.ly/cLz5Yi

Feel free to comment if you have some ideas to share on the topic-

• 1) Prepare and delegate
• 2) Explore the area
• 3) Hire a freelance assistant
• 4) Get it down on paper
• 5) Take exercise breaks
• 6) Mix business and pleasure (hey, I didn't say I agree with everything...)
• 7) Join the club
• 8) Turn it off
• 9) Barter to play
• 10) Take a vacation during a slow period
• 11) Swap homes

There is also a good slideshow you can flip through quickly and which gives you some good supporting comments http://bit.ly/bunu0P

Now, I'll conclude by encouraging you to plan some time off to recharge your batteries. It will make you a better and more effective leader and you just might have some fun, too.

 

Book Review: Reengineering Health Care: A Good Primer

Last week I attended a seminar on the subject of Patient-Centered Design, which included a key note address by Jim Champy, the author of the new book Reengineering Health Care: A Manifesto for Radically Rethinking Health Care Delivery (available on Amazon June 17th).  His co-author is Harry Greenspun, M.D., the Chief Medical Officer at Dell Inc. Jim is also the best selling auther of the New York Times Best Seller Reengineering the Corporation, which has sold over 3 million copies. 

Listening to Jim talk, it was clear that he knows a lot about reengineering.  He knows and conveys well that we need to stop thinking in silos, and instead that we need to think about end-to-end processes from the patient's perspective.  He also brings a clear agenda for reforming health care, and talks about how it's necessary to find ways that delivery better care at lower cost, and that by doing so that access to care can be increased.  While these were the strengths in his presentation, his health care knowledge and the examples that he used were a little bit "light" so that was the negative.  But I'm sure that as he works on his presentation, he'll be able to beef this up (maybe by reading some of the other great books profiled in this blog - click for links).

      

Although I was underwhelmed by Jim's command of how healthcare is actually delivered, I realize that the healthcare industry is really at its infancy when it comes to re-engineering, and there's a lot we can learn from Jim.  So if you'd like a good primer on how to improve the quality and efficiency of your home health care or private duty organization, you might give this book a gander.

Ankota provides software to improve the delivery of care outside the hospital.  Today Ankota services home health, private duty care, DME Delivery, RT, Physical Therapy and Home Infusion organizations, and is interested in helping to efficiently manage other forms of care.  To learn more, please visit www.ankota.com or contact Ankota.

Relationship and Results Oriented Health Care is a Win/Win

One thing that we've really enjoyed as we've launched and grown Ankota is that home care people are willing to share their needs, their best practices, their frustrations and their ideas on how to make care better.  We're also proud of our reputation for listening and innovating in response to what we learn. 

One of the home care and private duty care "luminaries" who I like to talk to every few months is Ginny Kenyon, who runs Kenyon HomeCare Consulting.  Our discussions always start around a certain topic such as breaking down the silos to improve transitional care, or how to better connect agencies and family members, and Ginny always provides crisp input from her experience and the agencies she supports.  But the part of our calls that I like the most is when Ginny tells a story that she's really passionate about.  Today she shared a story from her experience as a respiratory nurse, which I'll paraphrase below"

Back when nursing was more personalized and the goal was to do whatever you could to yield the best possible outcome, I was working as a respiratory nurse with some of the toughest patients you can imagine [many of whom suffered from end stage COPD].  There was a treatment plan and course of care that I had to deliver, but what I would always do is to find out what was important to the patient.  I'd very simply ask them "How can I help you?" and "What would you dream to be able to do that's not possible for you?"  The result was a patient-centered vision and goal, which often proved very powerful.

One of my patients [who we'll call Bob] told me that he dreamed to get back into his wood shop so he could build flower boxes and planters.  Once he shared this, we were on a mission, and we were able to work together over the course of a few months to get back into that wood shop.  Integrating the required treatment elements was easy as part of attaining the goal.  And a few short months later, Bob rewarded me with some planter boxes he had built for me.  The boxes were wonderful, but the improvement of Bob's life plus my own personal satisfaction as a caregiver was priceless.

Ginny shared that one of her friends and colleagues, Ruth Hansten, has built a care delivery methodology around these best practices, which she calls Relationship and Results Oriented Health Care* (RROHC), which is pronounced like "rock".  I have a link below to Ruth's site where you can learn more.  Ginny also shared that there will be some forthcoming webinars about RROHC that you won't want to miss.  We'll follow up with more from Ginny and Ruth in upcoming posts.

*RROHC is a registered trademark

Ankota provides software to improve the delivery of care outside the hospital.  Today Ankota services home health, private duty care, DME Delivery, RT, Physical Therapy and Home Infusion organizations, and is interested in helping to efficiently manage other forms of care.  To learn more, please visit www.ankota.com or contact Ankota.