Reducing costs is not a new priority for CV leaders. But as hospital margins face increasing pressure in today’s health care environment, CV leaders are expected to make dramatic reductions in operational as well as clinical expenses.

That’s why we’ve created the CV Leader’s Cost Control Toolkit: a one-stop destination for strategies that will help you address the top drivers of avoidable CV cost.

Explore our top resources on controlling CV costs in the steps below.

Step 1: Learn where your executives are focusing their cost efforts

Your C-suite is feeling the pressure to maximize margins, and will rely on CV leaders to develop a plan that aligns with the institution's cost-cutting goals. Read the briefings below to see where your CEO and CFO will be looking to reduce cost from the system so you can align your strategy.

The New Cost Mandate: Strategies to contain future cost growth for hospital and health system executives.

The Finance Leader's Resource Guide: Tactics that CFO and finance teams can use to operate in the current health care environment.

Step 2: Identify your best opportunities to reduce cost

Make sure you’re devoting your attention to cost drivers with the greatest ROI. Use our tools to benchmark current financial performance (both acute and episodic) against your peers to pinpoint cost reduction opportunities.

Hospital Benchmark Generator: See how your hospital is performing on key financial metrics down to the DRG level compared to a self-selected peer cohort.

Step 3: Tackle low-hanging fruit by controlling supply costs

Managing supply costs is often a first target of CV cost reduction initiatives, and for good reasons—programs can find significant gains from improving their sourcing and utilization strategies for supplies. Use the practices below to enhance sourcing strategies, reduce variation in physician preference items, and maximize vendor relationships.

"Rebase External Spending" (page 28-52 of the New Cost Mandate): Get proven strategies to control spending on supplies, pharmaceuticals, and purchased services.

Cost Opportunities 3 and 4 ' "Supply Waste" and "Unfavorable Contract Terms" (pages 59-92 of Untapped Opportunities for Saving Millions): Learn how nursing leaders can reduce supply waste and address unfavorable service and supply contracts to save significant costs.

Step 4: Improve operational efficiency

Access proven strategies to streamline patient care and reduce time in acute care—whether inpatient or hospital-based outpatient—to maximize margin-per-case.

The Highly-Productive Cardiovascular Enterprise: Reduce inpatient LOS and maximize capacity.

Perfect CV Short-Stay Patient Management: Improve patient triage in the ED to reduce unnecessary readmissions, increase efficiency, and rightsize utilization.

Optimize Same-Day Discharge for CV Procedures: Increase same-day discharge for low-risk procedural patients to improve patient experience, finances, and throughput.

Step 5: Reduce unnecessary care variation leading to avoidable operational and clinical costs

Reducing care variation is emerging as a top cost reduction opportunity for hospital and CV service line executives alike. But building a foundation to prioritize sources of variation, develop usable care standards, and embed them in practice can’t happen overnight. Access our comprehensive playbook to develop a sustainable CV care variation reduction strategy.

Playbook for Reducing CV Care Variation: Step-by-step guidance for creating easy-to-use care standards that can reduce variation and positively impact CV program operations.

Step 6: Build a top-of-license care team to maximize staffing investments

A skilled clinical team is essential to delivering the ever-increasing care management needs of your CV program, yet most programs aren’t using their care team members to the top-of-license. Ensure your physicians, advanced practitioners, and nurses are working to the top of their ability to improve care value while mitigating staffing cost growth.

Building the High-Value CV Care Team: Optimize CV program staffing and top-of-license care delivery.

Step 7: Extend your focus across the continuum

Public and private payers alike are pushing programs to think beyond the four walls of the hospital when managing costs of care. With BPCI Advanced, MACRA, and value-based purchasing all increasing the timeframe and conditions under scrutiny, CV programs must develop a platform to manage costs and reduce unnecessary utilization across the continuum.

Playbook for CV Episodic Cost Management: Partner across the continuum to manage episodic costs.

Cardiovascular Price Shift Calculator: Assess the potential impact of outpatient price changes on CV revenue.