Inside the Value Analysis Process, Part 2
Barbara Strain is an expert in Value Analysis and Management. Barbara has forty-one years of provider experience, thirty-four of them in the University of Virginia Health System where she led teams in Value Management and Supply Chain Analytics. Barbara is one of the founders of the Association of Healthcare Value Analysis Professionals (AHVAP), and a past president. She earned the Brooke Berson Founders award from AHVAP in 2019, and in 2021 was honored to enter the Bellwether League Foundation Hall of Fame for Healthcare Supply Chain Leadership. In episode 2 of a 2-part series, Barbara discusses the role of the value analysis team in making decisions, whether all products go through the same process, what makes a good supplier relationship, what the components are in a good value analysis presentation, and why you may want to become a member of AHVAP.
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Episode Transcript
This transcript was generated using an automated transcription service and is minimally edited. Please forgive the mistakes contained within it.
Patrick Kothe 00:31
Welcome. This is a second part of my conversation about the value analysis process with my guest, Barbara Strain. If you haven't listened to part one, I strongly encourage you to go back and do so as I explained before, Barbara has in depth insider knowledge in the process, because she lived it in her positions within the University of Virginia Health System. And also as founder and past president of the Association of Healthcare Value Analysis Professionals or AHVAP. In this episode, Barbara and I discussed the role of the value analysis team and making decisions, whether all products go through the same process, what makes a good supplier relationship? What are the components in a good value analysis presentation, and why you may want to become a member of a Vapp. Here's part two of our conversation. Barbara is as you explained, I mean, there's a lot of internal analysis that goes into the financial side, the clinical side, the supplier audit, call it that side. And you're getting all this information back. And some some team members are responsible for doing this. And it could be analysts could be yourself could be Rn, could be a lot of different people that are pulling this information together. And then then all of a sudden, it's it's there. And now you've got the decision. Who's making the decision. Because you've got the clinical person who may have one opinion, the value analysis, people may have a second and the purchasing people may have a third who's making the call.
Barbara Strain 02:14
So first, our value analysis doesn't participate in the decision and have a vote. value analysis is your hunters gatherers organization. We're doing the analysis so that we make sure we're not leaving something or someone out or any Are you like
Patrick Kothe 02:33
Are you making Are you making a recommendation?
Barbara Strain 02:36
bring forth all of the information, the key opinion leaders. So if it's already teams that are established, so let's just say I'm going to go back to my lab roots, there's a lab team, and they would meet every month, and they would have representatives from the different parts of the lab sections and things. But if we had a particular piece of equipment, or blood decisions and blood bank equipment, whatever it was, we'd have those key folks, whether it was the pathologist, the lab administrator, the key technical people, and then we'd have their finance person at these meetings, we'd have a biomed person that might have to take care of a piece of equipment or have input on service contracts, we'd have the contracting agent, and they're usually divided up by the particular departments. And then we'd have even the purchasing agent for the labs, and we'd all be together. But we'd have sort of this executive summary. So you'd have a format of here's what sort of the statement is we're looking to improve x by contracting with this company for this particular piece of equipment, or we might have three different companies, same sort of product type or equipment type. And they made presentations, they gave us all the information and now we've got a side by side comparison, we might just throw up a weighted point system. And what's going to be the most important things would get higher points and weights and the things that were critical but not as important in this particular thing and then we'd go down the line. So we might come out at the end with this particular supplier got 110 points this one got 90 points and this one got 50 then wait exam and why did this one get 50 maybe someone forgot to vote or whatever but you go Okay, is everybody Do you agree? We won't consider this supplier? We agree, then of these two, what were the really deciding factors, and we needed to make sure that they're not based on. I know, Fred, that works at this company. And I really like him. They don't kind of say that. But you can tell by things. You have to make it as data and agnostic as possible and looking at your key things. Because if you do the process, right, you'll make the right decision 99.9% of the time. So if things aren't that convoluted, or whatever, it might not necessarily be a point process. It could be those key folks in the room who are the voting members of a team, and it could be like head of service, the director of sterile processing, whoever those key people are, is there any reason why we should not? You know, after everything was presented us this particular product, some of them might say, I don't think we still have enough information to make a decision today. And does everybody agree with that? And you know, you might get a few dissenters, but everybody agrees it's the consensus in the room? What else do you need? And they go, you know, now that we heard all this together, and we thought we knew about how this was going to be, you know, even leased, or how this was going to be executed? I now have questions about that, could we have more information just about that part. Sometimes this is a place where we asked the suppliers to actually come to a meeting and each present on those particular factors, because we're not all the experts on the products the suppliers are. So it could be that they didn't explain a nuance correctly, or whatever. So there are instances in which suppliers can present to a committee, but usually not throughout the whole process and things so we can be very open about all of the factors that we're putting together, not just bits and pieces.
Patrick Kothe 07:23
So that supplier has the opportunity to get in front, that's great. But sometimes you don't have the opportunity to get in front of the people. So how do you assure that the information is getting through the proper information that puts your product all your product attributes out there so that they can see what the benefits are? How do we assure that that gets trans so
Barbara Strain 07:42
we meaning value analysis is meeting with the supplier all along the way. And it could be that we need their chief quality person to be on a call, or we need their production manager from the floor to be on the call. So we tried to get all of the information as correct, accurate as possible, and then review that with the supplier by saying, you know, we're going to be taking this to the committee in two weeks. And here's all the information we've put together that you've provided to us, we want to make sure we get this correct. And we might say we're still not clear about how this particular you know, accessory. It does or does not play a part with the product all the time, some of the time. Sometimes, you know, acronyms and things are flying around so fast that you might think that this accessory goes every single time but maybe it's only on certain circumstances. So you don't want to over inflate dollars, because now you've associated this. So we're always communicating with the supplier and making new meetings or exchanging PowerPoints or having these sorts of conversations virtually. I mean, we had stuff virtually before 2020, believe it or not, but I really like the virtual aspect because you can get in, can you have Charlie join the call at 1015. And let's go over this particular part. We don't have to keep Charlie and fly him in and he has to get a hotel room and all his meals and everything he can just come in to a meeting at a certain point in time and that sort of thing.
Patrick Kothe 09:39
So Barbara, you talk a lot about about process and process allows us all to do things and not drop any balls through. So I think process is really important. However, there are certain more important projects and there are certain that may be less important. Do you have different processes for something that is A major change or something that's a minor change.
Barbara Strain 10:05
So I'm taking a deep breath, because I'm sure a lot of my colleagues would say we always do the same process for everything, it probably isn't feasible. One of like, hundreds of things we've learned in the last two years, is that there are certain products, that as long as you know, what the key few characteristics are, that you need to make sure that product has, you don't have to go through all these processes or things because one, you don't even know if you can even get that substitute product, the next time you have that interaction, or even in the next hour, because it would have been gone to somebody else or whatever. So even before, from to 2019, back, we would do these, like more quick value analysis on certain things. So that's why it's really good to have folks with clinical and different clinical backgrounds in value analysis, because you can actually do your own little experiments, right in like your office, or send a few products to a few key people and say, by email, say, Tell me, is this the same, and we tell them some basic characteristics. So we say it's still two and a half by four, it still has this many layers, it still has no latex, it still is not like like, what do you think, and maybe we drop off a sample or something. And people would say, within a day they go, Well, we you know, we tried to break it, we you, you know tried to do it, this looks the same, they're fine. So we might not go through everything. And there are some times where we have spent more time on something that cost less than $1. And less time on something that might have cost $20,000. And it just is one of those. It's either a touchy feely, and oh my god, if you change this, it upsets so many Apple carts. versus if you change this, you're only looking at one department. So how do you work with that department to make sure that they haven't gone, they don't need to go outside their box, because these other three departments do interface with whatever that is, for an example is somebody might bring something in an interventional department or the O R. And we know, where do those patients go today? Do they go home? Do we need to bring in home health? Do they go to back to a clinic only? And does the clinic staff need to be involved? Or do they go to an inpatient unit first and ICU then a step down? Do we need those people involved? Because they might have adjunct things that they do with the patient? That now this new thing? Someone may go? What's this? I've not seen it before? Do I still do it this way or that way. So we're also risk managers, we're safety managers, we're really trying to protect the patient, and let the staff perform. And you've heard it more than one times at the top of their license or the top of their education or abilities.
Patrick Kothe 13:40
So Barbara, earlier, you mentioned that not everybody can know everything about every product. But when you go through a detailed value analysis of of certain product, technology, whatever, do you ever share that with any of your colleagues,
Barbara Strain 13:58
um, we're very careful about it. We can talk in sort of a secret society way, in that we're not doing it in a real public forum, so that we don't really bring up and say anything that might be detrimental to a anyone's process that they use be any one particular supplier, or whatever. But if we've got a small group of us and say that there's a disruption and getting a product, and so we might call a few value analysis friends in our chain that we know so like, if you're a children's hospital, you might have you know, 20 other colleagues and a children's hospital. One, you want to make sure that they know that something may be backordered or you're looking at something Do you have variance was something else. And if you do, could you give me just some general information? We don't want to throw anyone or any organization or any supplier under any sort of a bus? We're just basically seeing what good fit Do we have, we do ask suppliers for reference accounts. So if you're coming to us, and it's something that's very population specific, or, on the other hand, it's very general, but a lot of people are going to touch it, give us your top three reference accounts, somebody that might have been using, you know, a competitive product and made a conversion. One of your, you know, oldest, long lasting companies that you still have been buying your product today, or someone you know, brand new, you know, onboarding it or whatever. So we go talk privately to these organizations and things and ask them Frank questions, here's what we're looking at, here's what our populations looking at. And we know how to ask questions so that you don't ask them to say, Now, they said that you did. We don't do those sorts of things. We try to make it did it last three years, you know, did you have to do a new contract, did it work with this kind of pieces of equipment and things. So we try to be very aboveboard and professional about it. Because as we've said, more than once, you can't, you know, sort of destroy any bridges, because you never know when you're going to need to reach out because things in health care do change very fast. And you want to be able to be sure to have a full complement of knowledge in front of you, to your point, we may work with 10 companies on just one project. Because there's either one company has a really broad product range in what you're looking at, and others may have a couple of gap fillers. Some may have a few things here or there. And you've just got to put all this together. So so we do keep all that in mind.
Patrick Kothe 17:25
So you I'm sure you've worked with hundreds and 1000s of different companies through the years. And some have done some have been great partners, and some probably not so great. So what is the difference between somebody who's a really great partner? What do they do right in the value analysis process.
Barbara Strain 17:49
So this may sound very simple. However, a lot of projects usually boil down to communication. So a good on either side, but a good supplier is one that's going to listen and respond to what they're hearing, not just the canned presentation that you're going to give every provider regardless. So what is that customer's story? So it's the voice of the customer? What's their story? What's the real need, don't lead off with I know that you're suffering from, you know, Connie's clubs, these falls, you know, whatever it is, and I've got what convicts whatever. So, we would say things like, well, we realize that, and we've been working very diligently on, say, kotti. And we've been able to reduce our comedies from this level to this level, doing a variety of things. So can you do something that's going to get us from this small level to zero? And if they can say yes, without any hesitation, will tell us how that would happen is your gap may be related to X, Y and Z. And then we go, Whoa, we didn't even know that could be a gap. So we're always educating each other, but it's listening. And then what does my product or service do that could close that gap? or help you identify that cap help you to collect information about that gap? Or if you look at and we've had companies do this, if you look at your specific Dr. g code or ICD nine code, or your hickspicks code or whatever, and see if you have any of those. Because if you do that means you have been doing this or you have not been doing that, depending on whether you have data or not. So it can also help you to close gaps that you didn't realize you might have had or had a big a better conversation about it. So it's listening and to be able just to have a conversation. And maybe it's not even about product, maybe it's just learning and asking questions about what's your outcomes lately in this particular area. You know, and I represent a company that has been able to solve some of those in certain organizations. And you might be a good candidate if, and so it prompt, it prompts you as a provider to get that information together. And then the person on the other end of the conversation said how, you know, well, let me call you back in a couple of weeks, see what your inflammation looks like. And then maybe we can still talk more about this, because I think we might be able to help you. Rather than have a static conversation that you have with everybody.
Patrick Kothe 21:19
I think what you're going to learn then is you're going to learn not only what impact your device can have, within a certain period of time, but look at it from the clinician standpoint, from the IDN standpoint to say this is how we are measuring success or not success of this type of patient. What does that mean, in terms of follow up visits? What does that mean, in terms of return? return for other procedures? What does it mean for patient satisfaction, all of these things that are kind of outside of the, you know, the immediate, you know, how does my product doing surgery?
Barbara Strain 21:54
Right, right? Yes, it's an overall real look at things. And so to have that more holistic look of health care, is extremely important. It always has been. But today, and in future, it really is because there's so many moving walls, there is so much going on. And you really need to get a handle on especially now as people eventually coming out of the latest surge and people that have moved on that aren't caught up and maybe some of the surge in various things is they're now looking at, maybe I don't need all these clinic days and clinic hours. And and maybe we're going to do telehealth for 40% of this, well, maybe that means something to you know, two products or two types of services or whatever you were providing. So if you're not going to need it anymore, provider, and then the supplier, just find out by the fact that somebody doesn't renew a contract or whatever they've got, I always say the tail that wags the dog, right, they've got people that are staffing phones, or people that are monitoring, you know, certain aspects or things that are coming off manufacturing lines. And so we have to do a much better job of communicating any of those signals of what's going on globally. raw materials, what's in our factories, what is available to be sent, you know, and if you're making wholesale changes, provider, we're gonna also need to know about it so we can all adjust, because that all affects either pricing, or quality or availability, anything in healthcare. So we have a long way to go yet, but I think we've learned a lot and can use a lot of the data that was generated to make all this better on behalf of our consumers. And then patients.
Patrick Kothe 24:03
Barbara, I want to go back to something that you you mentioned earlier, just to clarify it, you mentioned, you know, what can companies can provide? And you said it could be a one pager could be a PowerPoint, slide that slide deck? What should companies provide? Is it a one pager? I mean, is? Or is it the 30 page PowerPoint there?
Barbara Strain 24:24
First of all, if it's 30 pages, here's we're going to be sitting there as value analysis. You know, we've had the deck dealing, somebody would start to talk, you know, it all started in a factory in 1843. You know, and we're actually physically going through the presentation. And finally, if someone's brave enough, and usually a lot, a lot of my value analysis colleagues and things are Can we start on page 10 and start there. And then the person giving the presentation is Oh, yeah, yeah, we can do that. And then they go like that. You can tell us about your company in a few sentences, you can tell us why we should be looking at your company in a few sentences. But get after, what does your product and service? What is it? What does it really made for? Why did you really discover it? Why did you really make it? Why did you buy it from another company and enhance it? Why? Why are you in this business? And what is the business you're in so we can fine tune very quickly, that, Oh, this is our ophthalmology, or this is my general surgery that does only open procedures, you know, we have to know where it sits, and then start providing that clinical based evidence, percentages of things, or how many cases were done. And we saw an improvement from x to y, but be able to have the data to back it up, you can't just say, We are the most innovative company. Those are what I call empty words. But you're gonna have to tell me, we're innovative, because the other products that were before me, never did x, but ours does x. And when we had it in the hands of some clinical folks, when we did some trials, it did exactly what X was designed to do. And here's some of that data. But don't overwhelm us with the acronyms and start talking companies speak and all that sort of stuff, we need to make sure that it's digestible by everyone there. And whether it's visual, even good x rays, a little video that you can just click on. And we can see during a virtual, and we'll actually put you in a procedure or anything like that. But everything has to be short. We already talked about how many procedures and initiatives are we balancing at any one given time. So we don't have a lot of time. So we need to get to the bottom line, a 10 or 12 page PowerPoint that we know will have an introductory slide or two and a follow up slide or two to make your point. But if we add a few testimonials in there from actual customers, and then it needs to have How do I acquire the product? You can only get it directly from us? Well, if our model is a prime distributor model, and we can't do it through prime distribution, that's a big red X. That means more processes for us to keep up with, you know, various things like that GPO contracts, yes or no, if so what GPOs, you know, and then very little about, if it's very size dependent, then include a sell sheet, that you can turn over and says, oh, here's where all of our sizes are. So when we ask about sizes, we can tell. And if we know we have a two by three, a four by six and a eight round. And you've got a one by two and a two by four and a half. And you got a rectangle? Can I work with that? Right? So some things are deal breakers that may seem super small, but to an organization, it can be make a lot of difference.
Patrick Kothe 28:53
So you've given us some great insights into what companies do, right, and also some insights into some of the things that companies do wrong. Or there's some there's some some real things that take you off about what companies do.
Barbara Strain 29:06
They don't follow instructions. So we try to say here's how the meeting should go. And here's the type of things we want to look at. And here's the type of people it would be good for us to hear from. And none of that happens because the company is dictating Nope, this is how we always do it. We always bring in these people. They don't really understand our stuff, we have to really present it like this. So let's have a discussion about that before the actual meeting takes place. We've actually had to just cancel a meeting because we didn't have the right people at the table because we thought we were discussing this. When everybody got together we go well, we're missing four of our key people if this is what we're going to discuss, we're gonna have to reschedule much easier virtually because we can call a few people and you know like call lifeline. You Call a few people and they might be able to pop in for a little bit and stuff like that. So it's that listening and communicating, that's so crucial, and not be so set and rigid, and how you're going to present the materials. So sometimes the PowerPoint is effective videos are effective. And a few weeks ago, I was looking at material for one of my clients. And they had the best two pager I think I've ever seen in my entire career. They nailed it. And that's all they needed. Everything a value analysis person needed was on the two pager. So you didn't need any other sort of things and stuff. And so it was very easy to go through.
Patrick Kothe 30:47
What made it so good. They really put
Barbara Strain 30:49
the information I was saying, on there. But it was like in, laid out in in certain boxes in a certain way with key points highlighted bolded it just made it flow so that you understood everything. And it flowed in a way that it went from how our minds are thinking of how am I going to put an Executive Report together? How am I going to present this to the the key opinion leaders or the the team? How am I going to do that? And what am I missing? So it was in a very visual appealing, but also the information was right on not very many, what I call those empty words, we've got the most revolutionary, you know, it's very
Patrick Kothe 31:47
leader in the industry. Yeah,
Barbara Strain 31:48
and I go, Okay, so, but it was perfect. And the only thing I basically said was, you know, make the picture a little bit smaller and add a couple more things here and you've got it, you've already done it. The other thing I have noticed in the manufacturer net device world is if the sales and the marketing are a more cohesive team, because marketing needs to know a lot about the product, but they also need to know how to help the either the clinical specialists, the the representatives, the district managers, whatever the titles are, that are coming to call on folks, they have to understand what their audience is and how they are going to digest things. And they have to understand and the two of them working very well together makes a lot of different than keeping them in silos. I have actually heard sales people come to a meeting and say, I don't know, this is just what marketing gave me. I you know, things slip out of mouths at meetings that I'm sure that suppliers are going you really said that you know, but yeah, a lot of things kind of slip out during meetings. So that that's a little bit other sort of advice that I would give.
Patrick Kothe 33:21
So Barbara, there's there's two more as the first of all, thank you so much. This has been just a fantastic discussion. There's two things that I'd like to kind of get to one is Barbara strain consulting, and what you're doing and who you're who you're working with right now. And the second thing is the society so we'll let's talk about Barbara string consulting real quick.
Barbara Strain 33:40
Well, when Barbara strain retired, her husband said your retirement isn't going to look like mine is it mango? Um, because my whole premise and I said it way at the beginning is I want to help healthcare be better as good at health care as we can do in the US. We're spending far too much money, we have a lot of waste in our systems. There's a lot of miscommunication, various things. So I'm not out to boil the ocean, I'm not going to fix absolutely everything. But I wanted an opportunity to use the knowledge I've gained over a long experience arc to help resonate with manufacturers, new med techs, especially disruptive technology, truly innovative technology, and how can they position themselves so they can truly help providers and it's helping them to increase that total value we cross talked about at the beginning. But in a way that's not six months, one year out, whatever these processes really don't have to take as long as either they happen or they're perceived to happen because As I know, we're juggling so many things. But right now, especially with all of the losses, a lot of the IDI ends and individual hospitals have had over the last two years financially, because procedures had to be shut down or tailored back. And then their backlog and all those sorts of things is if you can bring and show immediate value, that is, in terms that would hit the bottom line, but also getting to that quadruple aim that's out there, you know, as more than we can get to some sort of value based care rather than fee for service, then just keep piling on more volume, right. So I know, enough of those things to try to help at the manufacturer side. But there's also still providers out there who may not be at a level of assessment, where do you have an executive group? You know, are your messages being heard? How are you making decisions and things? So that's how, you know, barber strain consulting was developed, I still do a lot of volunteer work, I can do pro bono work. But what I have to do is I only work on projects I truly believe in. And you have to believe not only in the people that have whatever, organization provider or manufacturer, but what are their values? And how are they positioning themselves? And why are they doing what they're doing? And how does that resonate with the product or service, and back to that whole continuum with our consumers and our patients.
Patrick Kothe 36:57
So for those of you who want to contact Barbara, I'll have the links to her Consulting Group in the show notes. So Barbara, the last thing I want to talk about is the Association of healthcare value analysis professionals. So you were one of the founders there and past president. So tell us about the group, how it got started and what it is today.
Barbara Strain 37:20
It's one of my passion projects. So this was in the early 2000s. And I went back to a lot of emails at time to help put together history and things but it was literally like 2000 2000 2001. And Brooke, person at Dooku. Does value analysis, Melanie Miller, who was at Cedars Sinai at the time, Cindy crystal finale who was in Ohio at the time, and a few of us, Terry Nelson at Mayo, that we all started hearing about each other that had similar positions. And so it started out as two way conversations, four way conversations, in that, that realm that I told you about, you know, we had you know, somebody who went to a meeting and they brought back this, you know, great stent or this catheter. And have you ever heard of it? And have you seen something like this? And are you doing any procedures like this? These are the conversations it started. Pretty soon there's eight of us, you know, it was like dribbles. So it was like 16 of us and things until we got to a point that it was like really bad spam distribution group, if you will. And it really got to be big. It was like 60, some people or so and we tried to keep track of it and things. But we set somebody said in that 2003 sort of timeframe. Let's just make an organization. I think the hardest thing we did was trying to pick out the name just like anything else, but we had about eight or 10 of us who sat down from a lot of different organizations. Some of us had previous nonprofit professional board experience. I was on a board when I was a lab person. So I had some experience doing that. Other folks were so we did the whole incorporation things we did the bylaws and the articles of incorporation and who could be a member and what were the dues and all that sort of stuff, and then announced ourselves and that was in 2004. We had our first meeting which I was privileged enough to go to there was about 30 of us. Show you how small we were, I think for cars to everybody the dinner that first night. We met at UNC our first president was from UNC and so I could drive I'm in Virginia and I could drive down there and stuff It was great. I mean, I get so energized networking with folks who have done things. And I said, you know, you think you're doing things, but you're not doing things. So this is how you learn to sort of spread from those small little Orbitz, and then pretty soon, you're spreading more and more. So we are now having our 17th annual conference, we did have a lapse in there over for a live meeting over 2020 and things but we kept on we had virtual we do programs throughout the year, I do podcasts as well. I call on people all across the US I have, we have candidate members as well. And we have a mixture of folks, and it's only 30 minutes, it's live. We talk about what's really going on today. It's called value analysis right now. But we're basically an education organization, that's what we do. So we have regular members. And the criteria is you have to be actively doing value analysis, either in a provider organization, you can be in a supplier organization, but it's got to be strictly non sales, you're doing value analysis work in organizations, then there's an affiliate we put in in 2018. This is suppliers who aren't doing value analysis, then we have retired as one of the categories because people might like to still keep involved, and can be very helpful on committees and things but are no longer working. And we're going to put in a brand new member category that we'll be announcing shortly. So that's a teaser, we really want to make an impact across health care. So we don't just want to be okay, where you know, 332 value analysis people, we want to be suppliers, we want to be other nonprofit organization, Mo use with them, like wound care, and respiratory and cardiology, and, you know, hfma, and a variety of things, because everybody needs that sort of mutual, understand value analysis, understand how we can get more information about what you're doing, what are those technical things we need to do, because it's, it's all about knowledge being power, and the more you can associate, so we have a mo you with arm and Mo, you with other organizations, and also Media Services, so various different outlets like that. So we can help do articles, we do white papers, we do surveys, we just try to get out there as much as we can. So we can have this cross sort of pollination of education to really enhance what's going on.
Patrick Kothe 43:22
So most of our listeners are affiliates or could be eligible to be affiliates with it. What can affiliates help with? And what can affiliates get in return?
Barbara Strain 43:36
So affiliates can be part of committees, they can attend all of our functions. We have webinars, the podcast, we also have 10 districts around the US and Canada. And so those are where we try to put where members sort of live in work. So it's not just one annual meeting and everybody's kind of congregate in some city. A that's interesting, those meetings will start to morph for everybody. But we want to provide every avenue possible. So including affiliates. They have local representatives, they have regional representatives. We want everybody to get together and to be able to talk amongst themselves because it's a way to learn up close and personal about products about what manufacturers can provide. When you get a few of those people together with providers, you always hear I didn't know you could also do that. You really have coding assistance, not asking the right questions or not knowing those things and then the manufacturer can find out from You know, for hospitals are all in the same sort of city or locality. And maybe they're all doing the same thing and using the same product, well, could we all get together and have a collaborative contracting thing? Or could we do something. So it's a way of learning about it, there will be educational content, there'll be a lot of time for discussion. We do a lot of regional like webinars and different tell us all about what's going on in your region. And then we have annual conferences, we have webinars throughout the year, we try to do at least two a month. But it's what else that affiliates can do is we have a brand new group, we started called the health care industry Advisory Council. And what we're going to use affiliates for and things are like focus groups, surveys, so you know, what problems are you trying to solve? And how can a vet put content together or programs together or events together, there's going to help. And so it's a variety of things. So it's all part of our strategic plan. We're not just very narrowly focused, we have our processes that you've heard me go through during this time we've spent together, we have ways in which we like to make sure that people are collaborating internally. And externally, we have the context within our organizations and everything. But we want to be able to broaden and have input from all these other parts of the health care industry. So we can really work better together.
Patrick Kothe 46:55
And Barbara, do companies join or do individuals join,
Barbara Strain 46:57
it's an individual organization. So it's, it's for your own individual. Now, what we do is, if five or more individuals from your company are going to join, we'll give them a discount, because they're coming from the same company. Because we also make the assumption that the company may be paying for their membership, even though it's an individual organization. Now, that's not to say that if we get, you know, a preponderance of various companies, or nonprofits and things, and they want to bring up some sort of, you know, a program, we're very astute, and we don't just say no, that's not the way we do it. There's things that we have to do to bylaws and things. But we do talk about all these things. I'm currently what's called the strategic board liaison to the Board of a Vapp. And when that is, I still attend board meetings and special leadership meetings. But I sit on every committee of a Vapp to help them as well as I'm doing a lot of the reaching out to different organizations and bringing in the key people from certain EVAP committees, or leaders and things to help do those collaborations. So we have a lot of programs ahead, we're going to try to start getting education out to many, many more people to infuse value analysis and those principles, way back into either high school, community college, college, all of those sorts of things along the way, and bring in all sorts of different groups from industry.
Patrick Kothe 48:53
Well, Barbara, thank you so much for sharing so much knowledge today. Really appreciate it some great information for our listeners. Is there any message that you'd like to leave everyone with today?
Barbara Strain 49:09
I really do think, and this is my advocacy sort of thing is and I mentioned that we have a lot of waste in healthcare. We have a lot of different messaging, we have a lot of different variations and things going on, is how can we all work better together to take a lot of that waste and variation out so we can have really great outcomes to match the dollars that we're spending on health care. So we can sort of improve ourselves up that long list of countries that have good outcomes and are doing it in a very effective The way and not just spending so much money, but we're really not getting the true value that we need out of this. So it's listening to one another. Really watching what we're doing internally within organizations, whether you're a provider, or a manufacturer, getting more involved with payers ensures, really looking at what are some of those trends. And then using data to really be the equalizer in conversations, it really does sort of promote what we're all trying to do.
Patrick Kothe 50:45
While such a big thank you to Barbara, she's got so much knowledge of the value analysis process. And quite frankly, we're we're lucky that she shares it freely based on our mission to make healthcare better, a few of my takeaways, first, value analysis is heavy on the analysis, but may not be the decision maker in Barbara's eyes. value analysis isn't involved in the decision. But I think we need to take a look at who we're talking about, because we've got a value analysis team. And that's what that what their job would be in analyzing it. Then there's the value analysis committee. Now the committee may be making the decision. But we really need to understand who you're talking to, and how you can best serve that group, whether it's the value analysis piece, people who are, as Barbara said, The hunters and gatherers and the information, or the committee who's going to get together to review it and make the decision. So make sure you understand the process. The second thing is understanding what the value analysis team wants. Barbara made it really clear that if you don't listen, and you just give your can talk, that's not a good recipes for success. You really need to listen and then tailor your presentation, and also who you have involved in your presentation to what their true needs are. And then the last thing is keep an eye out for changes as a result of the pandemic. Now, it may not be tied directly to your product. But some changes to the patient care continuum may actually impact you. So it's really something to keep an eye on. It's not just your product, but how it is the patient that your product is treating, how are they going to be treated in the full continuum of care. Thank you for listening, make sure you get episodes downloaded to your device automatically by liking or subscribing to the mastering medical device, podcast and Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. Also, please spread the word and tell a friend or two to listen to the mastering medical device podcast as interviews like today's can help you become a more effective medical device leader. Work hard. Be kind
