For years here at Policy Medical, we have talked about how our policy management technology will save your hospital money and generate an enterprise-wide ROI. As you might imagine, everyone else in the healthcare policy management space does this. But a recent conversation I had with a long-term client made me take a serious look at this subject of “ROI”. Here are her thoughts, and they are quite telling: “Listen. I want to keep using your company’s policy management system, but I need to justify not just your policy management software but I need to justify just having any policy management system. They are thinking of going the Microsoft SharePoint route and I don’t want that at all. To be honest with you I have been all over the internet to see what the return on investment is for policy management software and I can’t find anything. All I find are marketing brochures and sales collateral that are masked as healthcare ROI white papers, healthcare policy management analyses and healthcare policy management ROI calculators. I need something that paints the picture of the ROI of a healthcare policy management system from our side of the table.”

1. THE BENEFITS OF
HEALTHCARE POLICY
MANAGEMENT
SOFTWARE AND HOW
THAT IMPACTS ROI
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2. We have seen many hospitals try to calculate
basic and highly subjective figures to determine
how much time is wasted looking for policies and
procedures. Examples of typical calculations
include:
 “If your facility has 100 employees searching for policies,
and each employee searches for 5 policies per month,
with each policy taking 50 secs to find, then the amount
of time your organization as a whole spends searching for
policies is 6 hours & 57 mins each month.”
 “If you have about 35 departments, with an average of 7
binders per department & an average of 250 pages in
each binder, you will have around 61,250 pieces of
paper.”
OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY
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3. It is this type of data that is essentially
sales fluff in a slick PDF with the word
“whitepaper” or “calculator” bolded at
the top of the page. Here is an unbiased
look at the ROI of healthcare policy
management software.
OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY
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4.  Hospital staff can reduce their effort by 25-50% per
employee in the time it takes to manage and retrieve
policies and procedures.
 Saved resources can be applied to other functions such as
patient care or generating additional revenue.
 An electronic policy management system includes enhanced
workflow management to address regulatory and procedural
compliance. This is an additional 15-25% reduction in effort for
updating documentation.
REDUCE OPERATIONAL COSTS BY
IMPROVING STAFF EFFICIENCY
There is no doubt that a significant return on investment can be found in the
operational efficiency of your healthcare and corporate staff through time
savings, resources and materials. Here are some general rules of thumb for
you to use to determine your own operational efficiency savings:
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5. Hospitals can reduce direct operational
costs for producing printed policies and
procedures by over 90% by reducing the
cost of:
Materials and shipping costs for updates to
policies and procedures.
Materials and shipping costs for binder
“reorders”.
REDUCE OPERATIONAL COSTS BY
IMPROVING STAFF EFFICIENCY
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6. Hospitals can reduce indirect operational
costs by streamlining processes
Policies and Procedures Management
Compliance
Legal Contracts
… and more
REDUCE OPERATIONAL COSTS BY
IMPROVING STAFF EFFICIENCY
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7. Hospitals can add to their policy management
ROI by proactively mitigating risk and reducing
exposure during accreditation surveys by
demonstrating employee adherence to
regulations and standards. This will
significantly reduce the cost of survey citations.
Here are the general savings that can be
achieved by the following risk mitigation steps
that are possible with an electronic policy
management system:
REDUCE INSURANCE COST BY
REDUCING YOUR RISK EXPOSURE
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8. Limiting your risk exposure will allow you to
reduce your hospital’s risk reserve funds by
10-20%. Every year hospitals set aside funds
for legal action based on their risk exposure.
If a hospital can immediately prove that the
policy in question was up-to-date, available,
and read by the employee, the risk and cost of
legal action is significantly reduced, thereby
reducing the need for reserve funds.
REDUCE INSURANCE COST BY
REDUCING YOUR RISK EXPOSURE
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9. Maintain a continued state of readiness.
The most current policies and procedures
are readily accessible and available to
staff, therefore reducing risk of patient
safety and abiding by federal and payor
regulations and standards.
REDUCE INSURANCE COST BY
REDUCING YOUR RISK EXPOSURE
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10. Reduce the risk of exposure to survey
citations. Learning from the knowledge
of prior citations will help hospitals
prevent surveyors from imposing fines on
citations that have not been mitigated
and preventing new citations for the
same observation.
REDUCE INSURANCE COST BY
REDUCING YOUR RISK EXPOSURE
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11. Greater control and management for
team members allows everyone to
stay on top of the latest policies
which reduces risk exposure.
REDUCE INSURANCE COST BY
REDUCING YOUR RISK EXPOSURE
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12. Improve intangible items such as
surveyor satisfaction, hospital brand
protection, your reputation, and your
credit rating and protection.
REDUCE INSURANCE COST BY
REDUCING YOUR RISK EXPOSURE
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13. Reduce errors by 30-40% on
governance risk and compliance
reports.
REDUCE INSURANCE COST BY
REDUCING YOUR RISK EXPOSURE
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14. When hospitals reduce their citations,
they get a better rating from programs
like Medicare which leads to increased
reimbursements for all procedures. Policy
management systems contribute to this
ROI for all of the same reasons listed
above.
EFFECTIVE GOVERNANCE INCREASES
HOSPITAL REIMBURSEMENTS BY
MEDICARE
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15. Immediate accessibility allows
administrative departments to focus
on improving policies and
procedures and providing oversight
rather than getting caught up in
updating binders.
EFFECTIVE GOVERNANCE INCREASES
HOSPITAL REIMBURSEMENTS BY
MEDICARE
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16. Standardization of governance
and best practices across the
enterprise reduces risk exposure.
EFFECTIVE GOVERNANCE INCREASES
HOSPITAL REIMBURSEMENTS BY
MEDICARE
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17. Reduced cost of governance by
always having the right policies in
place rather than constantly
updating binders and figuring out
who needs which update.
EFFECTIVE GOVERNANCE INCREASES
HOSPITAL REIMBURSEMENTS BY
MEDICARE
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18. Increased business agility to
accelerate on-boarding of new clinics
and partners.
EFFECTIVE GOVERNANCE INCREASES
HOSPITAL REIMBURSEMENTS BY
MEDICARE
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19. Compliance agility to react more
proactively to emerging risks and
changes in regulatory compliance.
EFFECTIVE GOVERNANCE INCREASES
HOSPITAL REIMBURSEMENTS BY
MEDICARE
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20. There are many benefits to always being in a
state of ready compliance. Not only do your
hospital employees benefit from the knowledge
they gain by always having the latest
information, but whenever you are “tested” by
either governing agencies or risk assessments,
you will pass with flying colors. Some hospitals
now welcome the opportunity to shine in the
eyes of their surveyors. The cost savings
associated with a state of continued readiness
include:
THE VALUE OF A STATE OF READY
COMPLIANCE
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21. Reduce consultant costs to maintain
regulatory compliance by more than
50%.
THE VALUE OF A STATE OF READY
COMPLIANCE
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22. Reduce compliance citations by a
minimum of 20%.
THE VALUE OF A STATE OF READY
COMPLIANCE
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23. Decrease in the overall cost of surveys
and spot checks by federal and state
agencies because it doesn’t take as long
to complete with an electronic policy
management system as it does for a
paper-driven system.
THE VALUE OF A STATE OF READY
COMPLIANCE
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24. Automatic policy crosswalk of practices across
regulatory standards as it relates to each
policy and procedure provides proven
compliance to reduce risk exposure.
THE VALUE OF A STATE OF READY
COMPLIANCE
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25. Intangible benefits of an enriched
environment for collaboration and
sharing of knowledge amongst peers.
The financial impact of this benefit is
keeping good employees longer and
reducing the cost of staff turnover.
THE VALUE OF A STATE OF READY
COMPLIANCE
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26. Reduce man-hour costs for
compliance reporting by 15-25%.
THE VALUE OF A STATE OF READY
COMPLIANCE
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27. Reduce the cost of audits by 10-
20%
THE VALUE OF A STATE OF READY
COMPLIANCE
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28. Increasing the knowledge and satisfaction of
team members within your hospital does more
than create a great working environment. It
also creates a collaborative environment that
fosters patient safety. There is no argument
about the cost savings of patient safety, but
here are a few things to consider when
evaluating how a policy management system
could improve both patient safety and costs at
the same time.
THE ROI OF PATIENT SAFETY
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29. Ensure staff awareness to mitigate safeguards
that enhance patient safety or prevent
grievous or fatal patient harm. While the
human factor alone should be enough to
implement policy management software,
nobody can argue with the value of reducing
the cost of legal action.
THE ROI OF PATIENT SAFETY
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30. Health teams that have easy access to
instructional videos, links, and tests are better
equipped to serve their patients and ensure
their safety. There is no better mitigating
factor than a highly educated hospital staff.
THE ROI OF PATIENT SAFETY
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31. In summary, I hope this presentation has given you
enough guidance to articulate and start compiling your
own hospital’s return on investment for deploying
policy management software. Use these general
estimates to determine your own operational savings
and you will have a much more accurate picture of the
return on investment at your hospital for policy
management software.
CALCULATE THE ROI FOR YOUR
HOSPITAL
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32. If you would like to find out more, or would like
to request a demo, please don’t hesitate to
contact our team here at Policy Medical who
are always here to help with any questions you
may have.
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FOR MORE

33. THANK YOU
policymedical.com
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