Unlocking savings through preference card management

The four-month collaborative engaged participants in education around leading practices and offered networking opportunities for healthcare leaders to connect directly with peers. Procedural analytics were leveraged to help participants understand their cost-per-case and identify individualized improvement efforts.

Beyond realizing the financial savings from adopting effective preference card management practices, health systems also found it helped:

• Assist with accurate cost per case analysis

• Boost surgeon and staff satisfaction

• Contribute to faster OR turnover

• Decrease supply variation

• Identify potential OR supply savings

• Improve patient charge capture

• Increase staff productivity and efficiency

• Prevent overstock and reduction of supply waste

• Support increased supply optimization/utilization

• Improve patient care

For health systems seeking to right-size their preference card library, here’s how you can start.

1. Include the right stakeholders: When it comes to managing your preference card library, it’s necessary to include members from internal and external teams:

   • Executive sponsor (director and above); physician champion (chief of surgery/chief medical officer or similar role)

   • Service line leader/coordinator, nurse, surgical technician, preference card operations specialist/business manager, central or sterile processing department

   • Supply chain and/or value analysis representative

   • Education or a change management liaison

   Including these teams together helps foster trust and collaboration and ensures all stakeholders are engaged with the effort. You’ll also want to try to ensure this group doesn’t get too large as it could make coming to a consensus with decisions more challenging. Make sure to also identify who will oversee the process to ensure its success. Questions to consider when launching this initiative:

   • Are we leveraging the right data to identify preference card savings (i.e., procedure, physician and supply spend)?

   • Does our organization have a preference card management improvement process and policy to govern practices?

   • Are we doing everything we can to provide dedicated resources to manage the preference card process to enhance patient safety?

   • Are we strategically partnering internally to access the right data to effectively track and monitor our preference card improvement?

2. Streamline processes: When preference cards are standardized across providers and procedures, it leads to greater consistency in how cases are prepared and executed. Begin with understanding the scope of the problem by identifying inconsistencies, outdated items or variations in physician preference items (PPIs) and then archive inactive preference cards to reduce the total number of cards in the preference card library. From there, use the data you’ve collected to deploy a customized preference card improvement plan that outlines the right strategy for your health system — one that ensures supplies are listed accurately and reflect what is actually used during procedures.

3. Review regularly: Establishing a process of continuous review and optimization of your preference card library is essential to achieving lasting success within a health system. Create a policy or governance structure that outlines the new workflow and process and includes measures for accountability. Continuous review not only supports ongoing cost savings but also enhances operational efficiency, reduces waste and ensures clinical teams have exactly what they need when they need it — leading to more consistent surgical outcomes, improved patient care and a more financially sustainable health system.

Reviewing your preference card library is crucial to operating a successful hospital or health system as it supports a more predictable case setup, enhances throughput, reduces waste and improves operating room turnover times. Most importantly, it enables clinical staff to spend less time managing supplies and more time focusing on direct patient care. By engaging in regular review of your preference card library, healthcare leaders can unlock meaningful savings and foster a more streamlined, patient-centered clinical environment.

For more information, contact LaTammy Marks or visit the Optimizing surgical preference cards webpage.