February is the month of love, and now is the perfect time to evaluate your organization’s relationship with productivity. Is it one-sided? Does your bottom line give and give without much support from leadership? Productivity is a partnership requiring constant attention. If you are not willing to put in the work and make a long-term commitment, you could be headed for an expensive break-up!
Effective productivity management is a consistent balancing act. Healthcare leaders need to routinely monitor performance to ensure that staffing levels do not outpace volume growth or, in reverse, that resources do not remain stagnant when volume declines. Maintaining proper alignment is critical to sustainability in today’s environment. The biggest challenge, however, is overcoming complacency.
Healthcare organizations that neglect productivity or are resistant to change flirt with disaster. Not choosing or doing nothing is still a choice, one that can have damaging consequences to both financial and operational performance. Strong leaders recognize that having reasonable goals and a system in place to manage improvement strategies is essential to continued success.
If you have not already, now is the time to spread productivity love throughout your hospital or health system. Productivity provides a structure for sustained cost-improvement, instills accountability, and properly aligns staffing levels with fiscal objectives.
All relationships are different and while there is no fail-proof formula for luck in love, there is a proven approach to productivity that can be applied to any organization’s current operations or financial standing. To learn more about ALTIUS’ customized performance improvement and workforce optimization solutions, reach out directly at [email protected] or visit our website at www.altiushcg.com.