09.16.14
We all know the value analysis committee (VAC) is the hospital-based team judging economic benefits provided by the medical device community, but who are they? Hospital purchasing, materials management, operations and a cameo appearance by a clinician: These all are players on the VAC, but who are the real decision makers? In a 2009 survey (n=70) of hospital administrators, the hospital professionals spending the most time improving patient profitability were ranked from 1 to 11. Survey respondents were asked to identify the title of the one person at their hospital spending the most time improving the profitability of every discharged patient. The results are shown in Chart 1.
In the same report, survey respondents identified the most important reasons to evaluate new technology (Table 1, below).4