The challenge of delivering cost-effective, quality care

Healthcare Financial Management, July, 2005

The rising cost of healthcare has placed enormous demands on hospital administrators. According to a recent study by the American Hospital Association, nearly 60% of all hospital costs go toward wages and benefits for caregivers. The combination of growing labor costs and a nationwide nursing shortage has led to increased dependency on expensive agency workers, higher overtime costs, and frequent understating. The result has lowered employee morale and patient satisfaction, and threatens the quality of care.

Best practices healthcare organizations are using workforce management solutions to deliver cost-effective, quality care, even in the face of rising costs. Hospitals are finding that these workforce tools allow them to improve patient care by matching labor to patient volume, increasing employee and patient satisfaction, and controlling labor costs.

Improving workforce performance

Delivering optimal care in this environment requires that you focus on your most important resource: your workforce. With a comprehensive workforce management solution, you can balance patient care, labor costs, and employee satisfaction. By making your employees agents of change you'll control costs and improve the quality of care. And a well-staffed hospital unit with skilled and satisfied employees will deliver the care your patients demand.

Kronos for Healthcare gives managers the ability to:

* Deliver high-quality care by balancing costs, demand, and compliance

* Improve productivity with real-time visibility

* Increase employee satisfaction by allowing employees to manage their information and preferences

The balancing act

No one doubts the skills and commitment of your employees--or anyone who chooses to enter the healthcare profession. But the labor issues inherent in operating a healthcare facility can make it more difficult for your staff to do their jobs, adversely affecting patient care. Kronos for Healthcare helps you address the three key balls you have to keep in the air in order to ensure quality patient care: matching labor to patient volume, increasing employee and patient satisfaction, and controlling labor costs.

Matching labor to patient volume

Workforce management provides workforce visibility and demand metrics to better match labor to patient volume--even during sharp, sudden fluctuations in demand.

Increasing employee and patient satisfaction

Workforce management increases employee satisfaction with self-service capabilities that let staff manage personal information, set scheduling preferences (even swap shifts), and check allowances.

Controlling labor costs

Workforce management helps you control labor costs with better scheduling that plans for high and low volume. You can ensure equitable pay for actual hours worked--rather than scheduled--and look inside your organization for replacement workers, rather than relying on a costlier outside agency.

Conclusion

Implementing a workforce management system in order to reduce labor costs and increase the quality of patient care can be an effective solution for healthcare organizations. With a clearer picture of labor availability and needed services, you can better match resources with patient volume. In this optimal working environment, employee productivity, satisfaction, and retention will rise, leading to lower operating costs and higher rates of patient satisfaction and quality care. Successful organizations such as Banner Health, Intermountain Health Care, and Sun Health are using Kronos for Healthcare today to meet these challenges and deliver the highest quality patient care.

The Four Phases of Workforce Management

Effective workforce management should automate and help you manage all four phases of the workforce management cycle:

Plan--Identify the required work and match stating levels to workload.

Allocate--Schedule based on workload, skills, certifications, qualifications or preferences.

Execute--Monitor workforce, identifying and resolving schedule gaps, understating, and compliance.

Analyze--Identify trends, set benchmarks, and monitor productivity, care, and work patterns.