St. Joseph's Health Care, London Standardizes On Workbrain ERM 3.0; Implementation Highlights Value of Employee Relationship Management to the Health Care Industry

Business Wire, April 1, 2002

Business/Technology Editors and Medical Writers

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 1, 2002

Workbrain, Inc., the industry-standard for Employee Relationship Management (ERM) solutions, today announced that St. Joseph's Health Care, London, a major patient care, teaching and research centre, has chosen Workbrain ERM 3.0 to automate and transform complex employee processes. St. Joseph's Health Care, London will enhance cost-effective patient care with Workbrain ERM 3.0 by deploying employees more efficiently, improving its analytical and reporting capabilities, and reducing operating costs. Workbrain ERM 3.0 gives St. Joseph's Health Care, London the capability to provide self-service access and integrated messaging to each employee in order to increase workplace satisfaction and productivity.

Before selecting Workbrain ERM 3.0, acuity-driven deployment of professional staffing was a significant challenge because St. Joseph's Health Care, London leaders had limited access to real-time workforce information. With Workbrain ERM 3.0, St. Joseph's Health Care, London will benefit from a uniform scheduling and people management solution across its five separate health care sites.

St. Joseph's Health Care, London needed a fully integrated, pure Internet solution to manage scheduling and other workforce interactions for over 5,000 full-time, part-time and casual staff. The solution needed to handle the highly complex work environment found in a major health care organization: St. Joseph's Health Care, London has over 600 departments, 300 job classifications, and must comply with the rules of four separate unions. With Workbrain ERM 3.0, SJHC management has a single source to view all workplace and employee information - such as drivers of labor costs, allocation of skilled labor, and scheduling discrepancies. Using real-time information from Workbrain ERM 3.0, SJHC leaders can ensure staff scheduling is driven by current patient census data. In addition, Workbrain ERM 3.0's architecture, based on the J2EE(TM) standard, ensures that it easily integrates with all of St. Joseph's Health Care, London's current and future financial, database, payroll, and PeopleSoft(R) HRMS products.

"Workbrain was the only ERM solution provider that could handle the complexity of St. Joseph's Health Care, London's pay rules and scheduling, as well as integrate with our infrastructure and PeopleSoft HRMS systems. More importantly, their solution provides a platform to transform a broad variety of employee workplace process," said Karen Sessions, St. Joseph's business systems consultant. "Workbrain ERM 3.0 offers our employees value-added services, such as shift trading and on-line vacation requesting, that reduce their administrative burden, help them achieve a better work/life balance, and allow them to focus on patient care. The solution also gives our managers comprehensive analytical and reporting tools to help them make sound decisions to manage and support our entire workforce."

Workbrain ERM 3.0 enables SJHC to administer employee-centric processes including workforce and attendance management, employee scheduling, overtime equalization, balance entitlements, shift trading, and vacation requesting. The easy-to-use solution also includes electronic messaging for every employee in the organization.

St. Joseph's Health Care, London can now more efficiently schedule its employees by analyzing detailed information on patient census and acuity, overtime spending, union rules, and employee skill sets. The system proactively reports exceptions in real-time to leaders and flags discrepancies. This real-time capability makes it easier to optimize scheduling when employees have different jobs that span multiple unions and business units.

"The St. Joseph's Health Care, London ERM solution is a good example of how the health care industry can take advantage of employee relationship management, and it showcases the power and flexibility of the Workbrain ERM 3.0 platform," added Steve DeBacco, vice president of sales at Workbrain. "The ability of our solution to simplify their workforce management processes enables St. Joseph's Health Care, London to make more informed decisions that reduce costs and boost employee productivity. Workbrain ERM 3.0's flexibility makes it possible for St. Joseph's Health Care, London to change system business rules on-the-fly to match changing business conditions, as well as transform additional employee processes in the future."

About St. Joseph's Health Care, London

Since its founding by the Sisters of St. Joseph in 1888, St. Joseph's Health Care, London has grown into a major patient care, teaching and research centre. Owned and operated by the St. Joseph's Health Care Society, St. Joseph's Health Care, London is incorporated and governed by an appointed board of directors from our community. St. Joseph's Health Care, London includes the following facilities: St. Joseph's Hospital, Parkwood Hospital, Mount Hope Centre for Long Term Care, The Lawson Health Research Institute, and Regional Mental Health Care London and St. Thomas.