N.C. hospital center saves $3.6+M in six months with LaborConnectTM
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Full service not-for-profit Haywood Regional Medical Center is the only hospital in Haywood County and serves Maggie Valley, Waynesville, Canton and Clyde. Services include home care, diabetes education, rehabilitation, emergency care, and women’s care. It is accredited by The Joint Commission. The Health and Fitness Center offers recreational amenities and serves rehabilitating patients. www.haymed.org.
Situation:
As a rural hospital, 185-bed Haywood Regional Medical Center in Clyde, N.C., just west of Asheville, faces many challenges. In February 2008 it was decertified for Medicare and Medicaid; certification was restored in May 2008 but not before the hospital had drained reserves and top executives as well as the board chair resigned. President and CEO Mike Poore came on board Oct. 1, 2008 and set out to put the hospital back on track.
Solution:
- Chose LaborConnectTM, Premier’s comprehensive labor management program with the OperationsAdvisorTM tool that integrates productivity and benchmarking with comparative data analysis and part-time onsite Performance Partner who works with leadership and managers to improve operational performance and productivity.
- The Performance Partner worked with managers to build the labor management program from the ground up; along the way he introduced them to concepts such as flexing staffing to volumes and other management techniques.
- The Performance Partner
- Conducted educational sessions about how to use OperationsAdvisor
- Held individual department manager meetings and assessments to develop targeted worked hours per unit
- Helped build trust among managers about the transparency of data and decision-making based on research, data and experience to ensure they manage productivity effectively
- Worked individually with managers to find data-driven solutions to staffing issues; for example, helped a department head identify an opportunity to reduce full-time staffing from three to two FTEs
Result:
- With strong support from leadership, in six months the hospital saved $3.62 million in labor costs
- Reduced FTEs by 85 – 42 as a result of FTE reductions and 43 as a result of volume-based flex staffing
- Return on investment of Performance Partner: 74 to 1.
"We are very pleased with the Premier Performance Partner’s work in helping
us establish a comprehensive labor management program from scratch. The key to
our success was the engagement of leadership and department heads from day one
to customize a unique program based on our needs. This helped build trust in our
processes that had been lacking because of their recent experiences. The
partnership that resulted gave us the structure, accountability and confidence
to implement a successful labor expense reduction program."
Mike Poore
President and Chief Executive Officer
Haywood Regional Medical Center