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Cut Overtime Costs by One Half Million Dollars Harnessing Workforce Analytics West Georgia Health Case Study

Harnessing Workforce Analytics - Centricity Solutions for ... · Harnessing Workforce Analytics West Georgia Health Case Study. ... Facing progressively challenging market factors,

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Page 1: Harnessing Workforce Analytics - Centricity Solutions for ... · Harnessing Workforce Analytics West Georgia Health Case Study. ... Facing progressively challenging market factors,

Cut Overtime Costs by One Half Million Dollars

Harnessing Workforce Analytics

West Georgia Health Case Study

Page 2: Harnessing Workforce Analytics - Centricity Solutions for ... · Harnessing Workforce Analytics West Georgia Health Case Study. ... Facing progressively challenging market factors,

Optimizing the Workforce to Reduce Operating CostsA decrease in overall admissions coupled with

their investment in Electronic Health Record (EHR)

technology was taking a toll on the financial health

of the organization. West Georgia Health looked at

their labor pool as a way to reduce costs and meet

their financial objectives without compromising

the organization’s commitment to patient safety.

“About half of our operating budget is spent

on labor, making it an ideal starting point for

us,” said Sonya Christian-Avery, West Georgia

Health CIO. “API Healthcare’s solutions enable

us to operate more efficiently and reduce our

spend on things like premium labor, which

was costing the organization heavily.”

With the goal of reaching an overtime maximum

of 2.8%, West Georgia Health looked to API

Healthcare Time and Attendance, Staffing and

Scheduling and Business Analytics solutions.

However, success would not come easily as there

were challenges with getting employees engaged

and using the solutions to their full capabilities.

“Our employees were not using the integration

“API Healthcare’s business analytics tools let us pull productivity reports in real- time, allowing managers to make immediate adjustments that result in a more effective and cost-efficient use of the workforce.”– Deborah Burton, CNO, West Georgia Health

ProblemFacing progressively challenging market factors, West Georgia Health needed a plan that would enable them to reduce expenses and remain financially viable. Specific challenges having an impact on West Georgia Health include: • A recent investment in EHR technology• A decrease in patient admissions• Mandatory cost controls for care

SolutionWest Georgia Health turned their focus towards optimizing the labor pool as a way to reduce expenses. • Staffing and Scheduling• Time and Attendance• Business Analytics

Among the first 5% of U.S. hospitals to implement an EHR, West Georgia Health is the premier healthcare provider for the community in and around LaGrange and Troup County. West Georgia Health employs 1350 FTEs and averages $150M in net patient revenue each year.

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between the Business Analytics Solution and

the Staffing and Scheduling Solution to their

fullest extent on a regular basis,” said Christian-

Avery. “API Healthcare provided us a real-time

productivity system to help control our labor costs

more effectively, but without full participation

we weren’t getting the level of accuracy

necessary to successfully measure our goals.”

Reducing premium labor costs begins with

effective staffing and scheduling. Managers were

good at publishing schedules but had difficulty

with making last minute changes. Additionally,

by not using the integrated business analytics

tool on a daily basis, they were not seeing

where the potential to incur overtime existed.

Focusing on OvertimeBeing able to document measurable cost savings

was critical to the success of West Georgia Health’s

plan. To create the 2.8% overtime benchmark,

West Georgia Health developed a 10-month

baseline of spend for labor and overtime.

“The reports we were able to pull allowed us to

see that we were averaging about 3% overtime

across the organization,” said Christian-Avery.

“The reports also allowed us to see that we had

the potential to save close to $500,000 over a

12-month period if we were able to reach our

goal of bringing overtime down by just .2%.”

To ensure they were measuring results accurately,

West Georgia Health broke their overtime goals

down into three categories: departments that

were over 3% were asked to bring their number

down to 3%; departments that were under 3%

were asked to bring their number down by an

Results• Surpassing the baseline overtime

goal of 2.8% by more than .7% • $500,700 in overtime saved over

a 12-month period• 75% of employees engaging with

analytics tool on a regular basis, with 90% using the system correctly

“We have been able to save over ½ million dollars in overtime costs and achieve near perfect compliance because API Healthcare collaborated closely with us to configure our solutions in a way that resulted in an intuitive end-user experience.”– Sonya Christian-Avery, CIO, West Georgia Health

“We have been able to save over ½ million dollars in overtime costs and achieve near perfect compliance because API Healthcare collaborated closely with us to “We have been able to save over ½ million dollars in overtime costs and achieve

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additional 25%; and everyone was asked to

eliminate incidental overtime completely.

“Incidental overtime, where an employee clocks in

a few minutes early or clocks out a few minutes late

is detrimental to our goals,” said Christian-Avery.

“API Healthcare’s business analytics enables our

managers to easily monitor incidental overtime and

take whatever preventative action necessary.”

Saving $500,000 with Near Perfect ComplianceInitially getting employees on board with the

new system was difficult. At first only 2% of

managers were actually using the new system

and among those, as many as 20% were not

using it correctly. Employees were intimidated by

the technology and it would take some adjusting

to create a more user-friendly experience.

By dividing the business analytics panel into

three areas, overtime, incidental overtime and

productivity, it became much simpler for managers

to understand. With a view into only their respective

department, managers could track progress through

a color-coded system that would show how well

they were performing against goals, and make it

easy to know where adjustments were needed.

To encourage compliance, West Georgia Health

also updated their time and attendance policies,

set expectations for daily schedule updates and

increased the number of departments using Staffing

and Scheduling. “We published the new policies

and made sure that all employees were properly

educated,” said Christian-Avery. “We also worked

with managers so they were clear about what was

expected, and we issued emails reminding them to

check compliance rates. We were able to achieve

complete buy-in from the top of the organization,

which gave us a considerable amount of leverage in

achieving compliance across the whole enterprise.”

Following these adjustments, everyone has

become more engaged with business analytics

and is effectively using the tool to achieve the

organization’s cost savings goals. Enterprise-wide,

75% of managers are logging into the system to

check their statistics on a regular basis. Among

those users, about 90% are using the tool correctly.

“Now that we have the majority of our managers

using the system properly we are able to accurately

measure where we stand in terms of meeting our

cost-savings goals,” said Christian-Avery. “Across

the organization we are averaging anywhere from

1.8% to 2.1% in overtime, which is a good half-a-

percent better than where we wanted to be.”

That half-a-percent has yielded West

Georgia Health approximately $500,700 in

overtime savings over a 12-month period.

“Complete integration between Staffing and Scheduling and Business Analytics has given us a real-time productivity system to more effectively manage our labor costs, enabling us to meet our cost savings goals without compromising our commitment to quality care and patient safety.” – Deborah Burton, CNO, West Georgia Health

P H O N E W E B262.673.6815 apihealthcare.com

© 2015 API Healthcare Corporation, a GE Healthcare Company. All rights reserved.

West Georgia Health has been rewarded for participation in this case study and is an active participant in the API Healthcare STAR client reference program that rewards clients for sharing their outcomes, expertise and opinions.