es of care.
When the consultants were first hired, they talked to the program's
stakeholders, made recommendations on how to organize the manage-
ment structure and outlined how information should be disseminated
to the clinical care team. Over the course of 6 months, the consultants
establish policies and procedures, assisted in the hiring of a program
coordinator and consulted with leadership as the program got up and
running. Now every team member is accountable and responsible for a
specific element of the patient care pathway.
"If you don't have a system in place that ensures everyone under-
stands how their role impacts overall patient care, your program will
fail, no matter how intelligent you are or how hard you work," says
Dr. Hungerford.
Implant companies that have gotten into the consulting business can
provide proprietary implant systems to the facilities with which they
work. There's clear self-interest involved in that arrangement, but
receiving customized procedure kits reduces the (often significant)
number of instrument trays you'll need to perform joint replacement
procedures. That eliminates dedicating valuable shelf space to storing
the tools and takes some burden off of your reprocessing team.
5. Smart shopping
The company Dr. Hungerford works with is not involved in the facili-
ty's daily operations, but does provide analysis support, which
includes benchmarking data and quarterly updates about the pro-
gram's financials, operation performance, patient satisfaction scores
and quality indicators.
"Whenever we trial a new product or process, we plug it into the
established matrix for a couple months to see how it impacts the
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