Kaufman Hall’s Peak Software Brings Statistical Process Control to Healthcare

SKOKIE, Ill. – December 11, 2017 – Kaufman Hall, a leading provider of management consulting services and enterprise performance management and decision support software, announced today the availability of Control Charts within its Peak Software system. The new capabilities provide health system leaders with the ability to apply Statistical Process Control (SPC) methods to improving clinical performance.

With a 90-year history of helping streamline manufacturing processes, SPC has become increasingly sophisticated in its ability to identify opportunities for process improvement. By using existing data, SPC can perform real-time or historical analyses to focus on root causes of failure or trends in batch variability, allow for real-time corrective actions and measure the effectiveness of adjustments.

Peak Control Charts use similar concepts to help hospitals and health systems tackle the problem of clinical variation. Clinical variation has a major impact on the quality and cost of care, but according to recent Kaufman Hall survey data, it is being addressed by fewer than 40 percent of healthcare providers today. Lack of good data and insight is cited as a common impediment to making progress in this area.

“Before the result of a process can be reliably improved, it must be consistent,” says Jennie Dulac, vice president of Clinical Solutions for Kaufman Hall and leader of the firm’s Peak Software unit. “Peak Control Charts address this issue by developing a common understanding of the different types of variation that relate to a particular measure – Common Cause Variation and Special Cause Variation.

“Peak also takes into account a form of variation that is a reality in medicine and not traditionally addressed in SPC – External Variation – which can happen during times of crisis like a natural disaster and is not assignable to any cause that the hospital can correct,” Dulac continued. “Our goal is to help hospitals zero in on Special Cause Variation more quickly and dedicate their time and energy to improving the processes affected by it.”

Organized around clinical condition cohorts defined by CMS that are further risk adjusted using Peak methodology, SPC helps ensure a clinically homogenous set of patients for process improvement. For each cohort, Peak has defined relevant measures for control charts as well as adverse events (complications) for analysis (not traditionally part of SPC).

Peak’s SPC analytics have built-in logic that displays an appropriate control chart for each measure including severity, risk and volume adjustment specific to each measure and cohort. Relevant metrics are assigned for each cohort, with drill capabilities for further analysis.

The initial release of Peak Control Charts addresses 12 of the highest volume and highest cost cohorts, including heart failure and C-Section. Rollouts of additional cohorts will follow each quarter over the course of 2018, ultimately covering more than 70 percent of the hospitalized population.

To learn more about Kaufman Hall’s Peak Software for managing clinical performance, visit www.kaufmanhall.com/peak or stop by Booth #604 at the Institute for Health Improvement National Forum in Orlando, FL.

About Kaufman Hall

Kaufman Hall provides management consulting and software to help organizations realize sustained success amid changing market conditions. Since 1985, Kaufman Hall has been a trusted advisor to boards and executive management teams, helping them incorporate proven methods into their strategic planning and financial management processes, and quantify the financial impact of their plans and strategic decisions to consistently achieve their goals.

Kaufman Hall services use a rigorous, disciplined, and structured approach that is based on the principles of corporate finance. The breadth and integration of Kaufman Hall advisory services are unparalleled, encompassing strategy; financial and capital planning; cost transformation; treasury and capital markets management; and mergers, acquisitions, partnerships, and joint ventures.

Kaufman Hall software includes the Axiom Healthcare Suite, providing sophisticated, flexible performance management solutions that empower finance professionals to analyze results, model the future, and optimize organizational decision making. Solutions for long-range planning, budgeting and forecasting, performance reporting, capital planning, and cost accounting deliver decision support, reporting, and analytics within an integrated software platform. Kaufman Hall’s Peak Software empowers healthcare organizations with clinical benchmarks, data, and analytics to provide a higher quality of care for optimized performance and improved patient outcomes.