Measuring Compliance Program Effectiveness

In a recent post, we said we’d explore our Top 3 Priorities for 2022 in detail. Today, we start with our first priority: Efficiency/Simplicity.

As noted in our last post, compliance professionals must design compliance programs that meet the requirements of an ever-growing body of state and federal laws, regulations, agency guidance, and enforcement actions. The additional compliance requirements have caused compliance programs to also grow and, unfortunately, become increasingly complex. But before we discuss compliance programs, let’s first take a quick break and play with toy bricks: we promise it will be both fun and beneficial.

Take a look at this post’s picture: you’ll see a puppy with a 5-lb weight plate precariously balanced over its head. If you are asked to balance an additional 20 pounds of weight plates above the puppy using only the bricks shown in the picture, how would you do it?

We’ll give you a minute…Did you decide to add the extra yellow bricks to provide better support for the unstable green platform? If so, congratulations: your solution works well! But there is a more efficient/simpler solution: simply remove the single yellow brick that makes the green platform so unstable.

By removing only 1 brick (instead of adding several bricks), you minimize your effort, reduce the height of the tower, and provide a much more stable surface for the green platform (and you have extra bricks that you can use for other projects).You might be surprised to learn that most people, when presented this toy brick experiment, add bricks: few think to remove them. Most simply aren’t wired to think that the best improvements and solutions might be achieved by subtraction rather than addition. If you have a few minutes, check out the publication/video from the scientists who designed this fascinating toy brick experiment: https://lnkd.in/gXBhUff.Now, back to compliance programs. If the tower/bricks represent a compliance program (e.g., policies, procedures, trainings, monitoring, auditing, etc.), and the additional 20lbs represents the ever-growing body of compliance requirements that must be supported, do you want to add or subtract bricks? More bricks means more time and money, and doesn’t necessarily make the tower any better: to the contrary, a higher tower will be less stable.

In our experience, the most effective compliance programs are also the simplest, and the simplest compliance programs are the most efficient (and affordable). So instead of adding more bricks, we prioritize using our bricks more efficiently to ensure that our solutions are both simple and effective.

If you are looking to stabilize your tower and simplify compliance, please contact us and we’ll be happy to assist.

In our next post, we’ll share metrics for measuring Efficiency/Simplicity. Stay tuned!#compliance #simplicity #complianceprofessionals #compliancesolutions #healthcarecompliance