Reduction in Service Level Agreement Turnaround time for Bridge Routines ( aka Programable requests)

Business Case:

Bridge Routine Cases for the ‘Product’ were 22% of its inventory and new bridge routines were 46.9% of those cases.

Problem Statement:

Between May and Dec 2019, there were 2050 Bridge Routine cases. 266 of those cases, or 13%, did not meet the turnaround time dictated by the service level agreement of 30 days. Missed turnaround times cause dissatisfaction with the clients. We need to improve our service level agreement percentage to satisfy our customers and colleagues.

Analysis:

Tools Used:

Process Maps

SIPOC

Fishbone

Root Cause Analysis (5why)

FMEA

Implementation Plan

Control Plan

Solution:

•Fully Integrated Bridge Routine Requirements Form: Client Facing form with criteria requirements for case submission. Accessible for all colleagues/clients within the case

•Fully Integrated Bridge Routine Handbook: Internal handbook for colleagues with step-by-step instructions for scoping, creating, and testing bridge routine cases. Also includes documented exception-based considerations. Accessible for all colleagues within the case

Results & Value

•2.97-day average reduction in turnaround time. 

•Increase in Service Level Agreement met from 87% to 95%

•Reduced case touches by avg of 3 per case

•Annualized client financial impact of 992k/year of cost avoidance.

What clients are saying:

I shared your Bridge Routine Request Form with my Revenue Cycle Operations team here at Dignity Health – Yavapai Regional Medical Center and we collectively agreed that the form is fantastic. It is exactly what we needed to capture the proper data elements to request a bridge routine or custom warning which makes all of our jobs easier and the creation of BRs/warnings more efficient. We sincerely appreciate you.

   -Cassandra Smith (Dignity Health – Yavapai Regional Medical Center)