Case Study

Jefferson Health Saves $10M in 2 Years with Comprehensive Patient Blood Management

Key takeaways

Results:

$10 million+ in comprehensive patient blood management savings in only 2 years

  • 18 Hospitals
  • 42,000+ Employees
  • 5 Urgent Care Centers and 50+ Outpatient Centers
  • 4 Magnet Designations

Project Background:

With a mission to improve lives, Jefferson Health is reimagining healthcare through its service-minded and diverse community of providers and specialists, and this health system focuses on its patients, always putting their
health and safety first.

Today, Jefferson Health has a robust network of 18 hospitals and is one of the fastest growing health systems in the country.  Jefferson has more than 42,000 employees, making them the second largest employer in Philadelphia and the largest health system in the Philadelphia region by total licensed beds.

Innovation to improve outcomes, reduce costs, and enhance stewardship

Like many fast-growing health systems navigating the unique clinical and financial challenges resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, Jefferson Health was determined to take intelligent risks and meaningful action. Decreasing revenues, increasing hospital costs, resource (blood product) constraints, and an increasingly complex patient population were the new reality.

As leadership explored various initiatives to mitigate these challenges, they identified one very compelling quality initiative that would have an impact on new hospital revenue, cost savings, stewardship, and better patient outcomes: comprehensive Patient Blood Management (cPBM). These factors created a sense of urgency for Jefferson Health to take swift action in implementing a cPBM program.

After completing a robust blood utilization benchmark and anemia management opportunity assessment with hc1, Jefferson Health was convinced it could save over $2,600,000 in blood acquisition costs and create new hospital revenue and savings. As a complex, rapid growing health system, Jefferson Health believed it could implement a cPBM program more cost-effectively, more efficiently, and faster with the right partner. The organization identified hc1 as the most experienced partner, with the most robust program and delivery model, and proven success implementing cPBM programs across more than 400+ U.S. hospitals.

 

Proven Methodology

After completing a powerful assessment and gap analysis, hc1 customized its proven cPBM program methodology for Jefferson Health, including the same process hc1 has implemented successfully in over 400 U.S. hospitals. hc1’s value proposition is focused on helping hospitals implement or expand PBM across the organization faster, more efficiently and more cost-effectively than they can on their own.

Components Included:

  1. Established system wide, multidisciplinary PBM program infrastructure –
    hc1 provided dedicated physician, nursing, project management, and data
    analyst resources.
  2. Developed useful PBM scorecards and reports, with benchmarking –
    Reflecting clinical performance at the hospital/specialty/provider level to engaged clinicians and drive ownership and accountability.
  3. Implemented evidence-based transfusion guidelines –
    to support effective computerized physician order entry of blood components with clinical decision support.
  4. Rollout of ongoing, customized clinical education and awareness campaigns –
    Focused on the most significant opportunities for improvement and sustainability
  5. Implemented clinical strategies to improve the recognition and management of anemia and minimize bleeding and blood loss –
    MyBloodHealth®, an anemia management program software that ensures centralized, standardized, and automated program implementation and management.

We made our aggressive goals very visible to senior leadership at all divisions, we had a competitive nature about the project; no division wanted to be in the bottom percentiles during our big report outs. We put names to paper in each service line, so people knew where they stood compared with peers.

Chris Tomlinson Former Enterprise Vice President, Jefferson Health

Proven Results, Improved Quality

As a result of its cPBM program, the Jefferson Health and hc1 partnership have delivered millions of dollars in cost savings and new hospital revenue ahead of schedule in under two years. More importantly, these efforts have positively impacted patient outcomes through the avoidance of blood product exposure and optimized recognition and management of anemia in surgical patients.

Jefferson Health continues expanding the scope of its cPBM program with efforts to further optimize platelet and plasma utilization, as well robust efforts to improve coagulation management and minimize blood loss.  Jefferson Health’s preoperative anemia management program is also rapidly expanding throughout the health system.

Additional Resources

On-Demand Webinar: hc1 Clinical Excellence – Connecting Diagnostic Medicine to Patient Outcomes

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The Importance of Anemia Management

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Blood Health™ – The New Disrupter: Your Organization’s Health Depends on Your Strategy

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