5 Key Performance Indicators for Outreach Labs

At HIMSS 2018, Charles V. Wilson, Vice President of Operations at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital (RWJUH) presented a session with XiFin Executive Vice President and General Manager of Diagnostic Services on “Building an Analytics-Driven Laboratory Outreach Business”.

In the session, Charles showcased how their laboratory team at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital pursued an aggressive outreach program and employed innovative strategies, technologies, and analytics to build a service model that drives profitability and value.

He also revealed how they implemented a revenue performance management and analytics platform to achieve visibility into operational performance and detailed the financial analytics and key performance indicators needed to evaluate laboratory reimbursement and financial success. For Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital visibility is crucial, in Wilson’s words “People cannot improve what they cannot see. Don’t hide your metrics.”

Kyle started off by discussing the latest trends, challenges, and opportunities for outreach labs. He spoke about the need to have access to the data and analytics to understand and demonstrate the cost effectiveness and revenue contribution of an outreach lab.

Both Kyle and Charles touched on the importance of outreach-specific Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), including:

• Operating margin (one of the most important indicators of a lab’s performance)
• Percentage of unbilled claims
• Percentage of error/denial by client
• Average time from requisition to payment
• Average and median price per accession compared to average and median payment received per accession

Charles went on to describe that in their lab there is a bulletin board where anyone can see how they are tracking against the fifty (50) indicators that they monitor, such as turnaround time and error rates, which tell them how well their lab is operating.

At HIMSS, XiFin also announced their participation with Siemens Healthineers to assist in developing innovations that support better patient outcomes with greater efficiencies, giving providers the confidence they need to meet the clinical, operational and financial challenges of a changing healthcare landscape. The XiFin and Siemens Healthineers partnership is designed to foster growth in an ecosystem which will connect healthcare and solution providers in a single environment where they can then access and share data, applications and services shedding insights on the importance of diagnostic data.