variation

How do you control variation to improve outcomes? How might health care administration leaders implement approaches to control for variation for their health services organization?

Within a health services organization different processes and workflows contribute to the overall aim of delivering health services. Not surprisingly, when resources become constrained—for example, with influxes of new patients or even changes in health care policy and law—these changes may result in differences, that is, variation in how these workflows and processes are executed for health care delivery. As a current or future health care administration leader, you may encounter the need to control for variation to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of health care delivery for your health services organization.

For this Discussion, review the resources for this week and reflect on the approaches health care administration leaders may use to control for variation. Then, select a health process or outcome that might benefit from variance reduction and consider how you might measure the effectiveness of variation reduction for this health process or outcome. Reflect on the McWilliams, Chernew, Landon, & Schwartz (2015) article in this week’s resources and consider how accountable care organizations (ACOs) may compare in relation to non-ACOs.