Features
Five Good Ideas
Now that the winter freeze has gone (at least for the northern hemisphere) and flowers are beginning to appear, bees and other insects are busy collecting food from the flowers. When the insects do their work, we know that pollen sticks to their legs and gets transported to other flowers, where it starts the reproduction process.
In at least one way, consultants are like the bees. Even though they may wish to be thought of as incredibly creative and able to develop cool, original ideas to help their clients, the fact is that consultants get some cool ideas from the companies they have contact with and transport those ideas to other companies.
While at Medtrade Spring last month, I asked providers if their net profit margin had increased in the last year. Those who declared improvement were asked if they would share what contributed to their success. Following are some of the responses I got. These five ideas can help good companies be better — and they came from other providers.
- Convert delivery trucks to run on propane
For this company, the fuel is cheaper (how could it not be?), and the gasoline engine does not require modification. Propane is alleged to burn cleaner, thus adding to engine life. The conversion is a low-cost proposition. And in the state of California, vehicles using this alternative fuel get the added benefit of using the lanes reserved for carpools and high occupancy vehicles. This, of course, reduces the travel time from one delivery to the next, and also reduces the fuel that would be wasted while drivers are sitting in a traffic jam.
- Pay attention to details
One provider improved efficiency by paying attention to the details, especially in intake and billing. Other than the obvious, like getting correct diagnosis information, it was helpful to learn the details of using the billing system. When employees learned how to get the details in and out of the system, they reduced traffic to the file room.
Efficiency is impacted by throughput and quality. Quality is about the useful output of an effort. Paying attention to the details makes more of the output useful.
