GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Quality initiatives are not a financial drain for Spectrum Health. Rather, they’ve added to the system’s bottom line.
In fact, aside from saving money on medical mistakes, the seven-hospital system regularly uses its quality focus to gain a competitive advantage in its market.
In all, Spectrum estimates that quality initiatives will lead directly to $10 million in increased revenue, while cutting costs by $15 million. On top of that, the system has been able to engage physicians in the push for quality and extend the initiative to its primary care physician offices.
The data-driven effort didn’t have to look far for the information needed to improve operations, said John Byrnes, MD, senior vice president of system quality. Much of what it needed was in its financial systems – which is true for most other hospitals, too, he said.
“Hospitals are sitting on a gold mine of clinical information that can drive quality improvement for the next 10 years,” he said. “Whether it’s the finance or cost accounting systems, that’s the key to driving quality improvement.”
With that data, Spectrum is specifically working to improve care for 47 conditions, which typically represents the medical needs of more than 70 percent of its patient population. It can show eight quarters of improving quality measurements; by contrast, its competitors may only offer promises that they’re working on a handful of conditions.
The breadth of its quality initiative and supporting data gives Spectrum a competitive advantage when it gives presentations before employers or health plans. It also posts its quality data on its Web site, Byrnes noted.
Spectrum was able to use specialized programming to link financial and clinical data to provide comparisons that enable it to do quality reporting.
“Everything I want to know is either charged or coded for. That means it ends up in the database,” Byrnes said. “If I can design the right report, I can start driving change immediately. Any hospital can have 10 dashboards set up in two months.”
The system’s charge toward quality has been led by its physician executives, which has made physician buy-in easier, Byrnes said. Spectrum was able to convince physicians on the quality of the data in its financial systems, and it first presented results on the hospital level, which was less threatening to physicians. After initial quality efforts showed results, physician-level data helped drive other improvements.
“One of the things that got doctors enthused was that they got other support with the data,” said Byrnes, adding that Spectrum supplied clinicians with project managers, data analysts and quality improvement teams. “Physicians saw this as a physician-led initiative coming out of the medical staff,” he said.
Positive publicity surrounding the system’s high quality brings its own momentum, Byrnes said.
“Physicians start improving dramatically. They see the progress and improvements you’re making over time,” he said. “And what do you think happens to staff satisfaction? We often put quality team pictures in our reports to acknowledge their efforts.”