Unit-Based Teams Help Reduce the Cost of Care Affordability Projects Jump in 2012 November 2012

Efficiency/cost reduction projects take off Number of projects Unit-based teams are built to address issues of importance to their departments, regions and, most of all, the members and patients they serve. As of the third quarter of 2012, the fastest growing focus area for UBT performance improvement projects was in efficiency and cost reduction projects. There were close to 800 such projects launched in the 12 months ending Sept. 30—that’s an 87 percent increase over the 2011 total. The second-fastest growing project area was patient safety—which grew by 72 percent in 2012, after a more than a 400 percent increase in 2011.

High-performing teams tackle affordability Twenty-one percent of all Level 4 and 5 teams have launched such projects as of Sept. 30, 2012, versus just 7 percent of Level 1 teams. That is what’s driving the overall growth of affordability projects, seen on page 1.

High-performing teams create culture of savings High-performing teams score more favorably on People Pulse items related to efficiency and cost reduction. Level 1 Levels 4 and 5 The growing number of cost savings and efficiency projects are helping build a culture of savings and waste reduction among high-performing teams across KP. Teams rated high performing (Level 4 or 5) in the UBT Path to Performance significantly outscored lower performing (Level 1) teams on two questions in the 2011 People Pulse survey regarding employee views of their department’s efficiency. Members of high-performing teams are more likely to say their departments have efficient work procedures and seek improvements to reduce costs. These findings suggest that members of high-performing teams see waste reduction and efficient work processes as part of their job and are creating a culture of savings in their work units. Source: KP Organizational Research and OLMP