EXECUTIVE BRIEF | CONTRACT MANAGEMENT EXCELLENCE

Established in 2001 by the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act 2000, District Health Boards (DHB) have a common goal: to improve the health of their populations by delivering high quality and accessible health care.

Responsible for funding, planning and provision of services, it’s critical that DHBs effectively manage their contracts and agreements with organisations that provide the health services such as GPs and practice nurses required to meet the needs of the DHB’s population.

The challenge DHBs face is managing the variety and volume of contracts that require regular review, endorsement and approval. To ensure relevance, accuracy and assurance of terms, DHBs require a structure that not only manages but streamlines their contract processes.

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

CONTRACT MANAGEMENT EXCELLENCEFor quality health services

The success of procurement depends on managing the contract

to ensure that the required supplies and services

are delivered at the right quality and for the

contracted prices Office of the Auditor General NZ ^

EXECUTIVE BRIEF | CONTRACT MANAGEMENT EXCELLENCE

CONTRACT MANAGEMENT - ENSURING QUALITY SERVICES

Driven by evolving technologies, citizens and constituents have come to expect the convenience and rapid service delivery afforded them by the private sector, expecting no less from government departments.

For DHBs the role of ensuring quality health care services is critical to the community they serve and with a growing and aging population DHBs must be more agile and responsive then ever before to ensure they remain in pace with expectations of their service providers and community. DHBs must efficiently manage:

Provider Collaboration: Securely collaborate with relevant DHBs, service providers, the community and other stakeholders to plan the strategic direction for health and disability services within their respective districts and promote the integration of health services.

Funding & Provisions: Appropriately and within agreed terms manage the funding and provision of health and disability services provided to their district through service contracts with health and disability providers and non-governmental organisations.

Review Services: Provide hospital based services with access to specialist or highly complex services for people who are referred from other DHBs.

Promote, Protect and Improve: The health of their district’s population through the provision of health promotion, health education and evidence based public health initiatives.

Contract Management is built around a relationship between the DHB’s who manage and administer the contracts and the providers of services. The process of contract management is broken into three pillars:

The Three Pillars of Contract Management Contract Administration: The key to effective contract management, contract administration ensures all contracts are up-to-date, relevant, and effective. Poor contract administration can impact the relationship between the parties and the delivery of services.

Relationship Management: Ensuring the appropriate level of communication, openness, trust and commitment between contract stakeholders is a vital element to delivering and retaining quality service levels as stipulated in the contract.

Service Delivery Management: Continually monitor provider performance, including working with them to make sure contractually agreed services are being delivered, intended outcomes achieved and disputes resolved with minimal impact to the parties.

DELIVERING ON HEALTHCARE SERVICES IN THE MODERN ERA

SIGNIFICANT SERVICE CONTRACTS

Significant service contracts are those contracts that are critical to business objectives, and pose a significant risk or impact in the event of supplier failure. Good contract management is especially important for these contracts,

to mitigate risks and avoid damaging results.

DHBs must be able to easily identify and regularly report on their significant service contracts, ensuring effective

management, transparency and accountability. This provides assurance that contracts will achieve their

intended outcomes, giving confidence to both government and the public in the delivery of important services.

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EXECUTIVE BRIEF | CONTRACT MANAGEMENT EXCELLENCE

EFFICIENCY

• Drive productivity and proficiency to reduce review and approval times.

• Locate contracts, variations supporting information.

• Expedite urgent cases and resolve disputes.

QUALITY

• Ensure accuracy and payments are timely.

• Provide search and discovery to ensure contract terms.

• Minimise review and approval times.

TRANSPARENCY

• Provide visibility and auditability over approvals.

• Identify and remove bottlenecks.

• Highlight opportunities to streamline or improve processes.

COLLABORATION

• Safely share information between providers.

• Ensure your EDRMS information governance rules.

• Maintain contract versions between parties with full audit trails.

CONTRACT ADMINISTRATION: THE KEY TO SUCCESS

PROCESS GOVERNANCE FOR CONTRACT ADMINISTRATION

Of the 3 pillars of Contract Management it’s the elements within Contract Administration that most adversely impact the contract management process and cause concerns for DHBs. Poor contract administration can have a negative impact on the relationship between the various parties which can result in late payments of invoices and disputes, creating unnecessary pressure on providers which can impact the delivery of services.

Critical Elements of Contract AdministrationManage Documentation: In the absence of efficient document management, contracts and supporting materials become difficult to locate, track variations and remedy plans. Without records of communications, meetings, reviews and any resulting actions; disputes become difficult to resolve.

Manage Payments: Late payments threaten service delivery, the relationship between the agency and the provider and increase reputational risk. This places pressure on the contract administrator responsible for monitoring charges and costs against funding. They need to review invoices and contracts to ensure that providers have met preconditions, and follow up to ensure approvals have been given and payments made.

Manage Contract Variations: During a long term contract variations are almost inevitable, particularly if the provider and agency are committed to evolving the service to achieve better outcomes. Poor management results in increased disputes and risk, impacting agency moral.

Process governance is a proven approach to improving core contract administration processes by linking information governance to process automation. It allows DHBs to eliminate paper processes and streamline approval times. Executives can securely review and approve contracts from any location or device.

Authorised staff can quickly access the information they need and rapidly turn around edits, contract updates or variations as required. This ensures high quality documentation and supports DHBs to manage service delivery.

It can be challenging to identify the current status of contracts. Dashboard reports empower managers with transparency, to track and monitor contract approvals or payments in progress, and reassign or escalate if necessary.

DHBs often need to safely share contract information between teams in different locations, with service providers and other stakeholders. Secure cloud based workspaces support collaboration and build relationships.

By actively managing the contract,

you support success

NZ Government Procurement ^^

^ Source: Report - Spending on supplies and services by district health boards: Learning from examples

^^ Source: NZ Government Procurement Website

EXECUTIVE BRIEF | CONTRACT MANAGEMENT EXCELLENCE

Objective Perform transforms content-driven processes into digital reality, with good governance built-in.

Extend your existing information governance platform to provide efficiency, transparency and accountability across one or all business processes.

Objective Perform adds value to, and works seamlessly with, Micro Focus Content Manager (TRIM), Microsoft SharePoint and Objective ECM.

Easy to deploy, intuitive and robust, Objective Perform meets the everyday needs of both business users and information professionals, with out-of-the-box automation for your most common processes.

Give knowledge workers the time and information they need to deliver high quality advice, policy and services.

Objective Perform encapsulates over 25 years’ experience providing best-practice solutions for the public sector and regulated industries, helping you reduce risk and deliver better outcomes to stakeholders and the community.

Digital process applications for government business

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CASE STUDY Counties Manukau District Health Board

We digitally transformed our funding contracts approval

process. The result improved collaboration, enhanced

efficiency, reduced approval times, eliminated paper handling

and provided visibility.

Steve MurrayFinance Manager, Counties Manukau DHB

Counties Manukau District Health Board (CMDHB), manages over 600 major Funder Contracts releasing hundreds of millions of dollars for the provision of health and community care services in the Counties Manukau District, a process which could take 5 months to complete.

Implementing an electronic workflow process to automate their Funder Contracts approval process, CMDHB has reduced the time taken for approval by more than 60% per contract; some reduced from 91 to 11 days (87%).

APPROVAL PROCESS

REDUCEDBY OVER 60%