Saad Allawi I., wears two hats. The first is as chairman of the board and co-founder of Performance Logic. Performance Logic provides web-based software for performance improvement in health care, working with local government and with its project management and portfolio management sections.
"We design software tools with built-in performance dash-boards, designing them specifically for the health care industry," Allawi explains, then adds, "All of us have done much work to-do with health care cost reduction and performance improvement."
The second hat he wears as President of the performance transformation division that builds cost-reduction systems. For the last three months, Allawi has been building the 3rd generation with a focus on healthcare cost reduction. He says, "I built generation one for APM in the late 1980's, and generation two for William Mercer in the 1990s, as well as generation three for NAVIS & Company," a healthcare consulting firm.
"I am the senior advisor for health care technology companies,” he said from his home. “One Hundred top hospitals study my work,” he adds, which he co-authored when he was with Mercer. “Sixteen years of publishing and I am still senior advisor of the board," he added.
"If the government can provide much less costly health care, then that's not a bad idea," he notes. "If they can't do it, then it's a lousy idea."
Allawi explained that 80% of failures occur at execution, not planning. He says, "So we are talking about a design, and it doesn't matter when it hits the ground – any plan you have will go out the window," he adds, then muses, "How you execute on it is of most importance."
He has planned and executed over forty cost reductions plans for hospitals over the last 22 years. "People can figure out a smarter way to do it at a lesser cost," he notes. "The track record says that you can pick up the cost to up to 9-10% in hospitals without having any impact."
Generally, he doesn't have much faith in government – too many mixed records. There are a few exceptions, he adds, where government excels. One such area is the Veterans Administration, which happens to be the largest system in the country with over 76 billion in spending. Government administration happens to manage that better than anything else in the country. The VA bears a lower cost than the norm and its outcomes are better, putting more doctors and nurses to work. The other sectors in government are doing terrible, he adds.
Allawi elaborates on this point by stating that, "In reality, it's based on design, and who provides the lowest cost in health care."
Among his new projects, creating cost reduction plans for the 3rd generation; the 1st one was all about the approach, the 2nd is about the solution. We take what industry has done 15 years ago and apply it now,” he says.
“I used to work for McKenzie. Before that I was an engineer, and one day a small consulting firm called APM contacted me to head up cost reduction in health care. I came in that way and got hooked into it. I’ve been doing that 22 years now.
“When the U.S. invaded Iraq back in 2003, the coalition provisional authority was running the country. I was an advisor to an individual senior on the authority in the private sector development area in Iraq. I think the only way to get the economy back on track is to let the private sector thrive,” he asserts.
“Ayad Allawi was the first prime minister of Iraq after the invasion,” he continues. “Ali Allawi has written a couple books on Iraq, and he was the minister of defense and trade and finance. The family is well known.”
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