Controlling Variation
How do you control variation to improve outcomes? How might health care administration leaders implement approaches to control for variation for their health services organization?
Within a health services organization different processes and workflows contribute to the overall aim of delivering health services. Not surprisingly, when resources become constrained—for example, with influxes of new patients or even changes in health care policy and law—these changes may result in differences, that is, variation in how these workflows and processes are executed for health care delivery. As a current or future health care administration leader, you may encounter the need to control for variation to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of health care delivery for your health services organization.’
For this Discussion, reflect on the approaches health care administration leaders may use to control for variation. Then, select a health process or outcome that might benefit from variance reduction and consider how you might measure the effectiveness of variation reduction for this health process or outcome. Reflect on the McWilliams, Chernew, Landon, & Schwartz (2015) article and consider how accountable care organizations (ACOs) may compare in relation to non-ACOs.
Sample Solution
Controlling Variation
In health care, quality improvement is the framework used to systematically improve the way care is delivered to patients. Quality improvement entails continuous efforts to achieve stable and predictable process results, that is, to reduce process variation and improve the outcomes of these processes both for patients and the health care organization and system. Reducing unnecessary variation continues to be a hot topic in healthcare. Knowing where and how your organization plans to address variation is key to measurable, sustainable improvement. Steps to successfully reducing clinical variation include: identify opportunity – understand which areas are not meeting benchmarks, and dive into what actions and procedures are driving the variation outcomes; align initiatives; change behavior; and assess outcomes.
