Driving value through healthy thinking

Sweden is already a global leader in making health decisions based on value. The government sets evidence-based treatment guidelines, provides oversight to ensure quality and adherence to treatment standards, and is moving gradually toward a system of outcome-based reimbursement for specialty care.

The Karolinska University Hospital is one of Sweden’s largest medical and research institutions and its new 330,000 square meter Nya Karolinska Solna (NKS) hospital facility is due to be completed in 2019. The question it faced was how to radically overhaul the way it made decisions, approached its finances and thought about leadership. 

During the planning and construction phase, led by Linda Andersson, Partner of Consulting Services at Ernst & Young in Sweden, we helped the hospital consider efficient, effective care pathways and reinvent its operations infrastructure to encourage continuous improvement from the ground up.

Take medical imaging as an example. Before purchasing a single imaging machine, workshops were held with radiologists, radiology nurses, medical technicians, medical physicists, other medical specialists, and controllers to identify optimal patient care pathways. The groups were asked to map out the flow of care; think through the handoff points; and brainstorm logistic, process and operational ideas to achieve better outcomes for patients.

This resulted in concrete ideas for process improvement such as placing machines on specific patient floors colocated with areas of highest and most urgent patient need, or better locating heavy machines such as magnetic resonance imagers. Suppliers were then challenged to make this a reality, identifying the machines, locations and processes needed to make these pathways more efficient and support the desired patient results.

Our focus was on delivering a desirable patient experience and optimal outcomes.

“Karolinska University is one of the first hospitals in the world to focus on value-based health care during the procurement process when designing a new hospital, considering the care itself as they make technology purchasing decisions,” Andersson says. “It has been exciting and rewarding for EY to be part of this new solution.”