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