Pursuing clinical and operational improvement in an academic medical center

An academic medical center in an increasingly competitive market, the University of California-Davis Medical Center in Sacramento started working with a consulting firm in 1995 to reduce overall operational costs and costs for the clinical processes involved in treating patients with specific conditions.

Twelve operational efficiency (OE) teams and five clinical teams were commissioned, with a combined total of nearly one-half of the target cost reduction. The second wave of six clinical teams was simultaneously initiated in late spring 1996.

The quality improvement process for clinical improvement teams included the review and inquiry method, which enables many pilot experiments to be conducted in parallel by work groups and coordinated by the main task team.

Within six weeks of launching, the 12 OE teams achieved their goals and identified savings opportunities of more than $27 million. One OE team, medical records, had set a goal of $514,000 in cost reduction for a three-year period and achieved the first-year goal of $190,000. For a clinical team on interventional cardiology, the clinical benchmark data revealed that the cost per case of providing cardiac catheterization was greater than for all three benchmark groups. These patients, including 270 patients per year, showed a possible savings through process improvement of nearly $1.4 million. From January 1996 through March 1997, the rate of occurrence of complications decreased from 5.5% to 3%.

Physicians gradually accepted more responsibility and accountability for controlling and reducing costs, while maintaining their traditional role as advocates for improved patient care.