About a year and a half ago, Kalispell (Mont.) Regional Healthcare realized they needed to take a hard look at their workforce management process.
Located in Northwest Montana, Kalispell is in an area that is dramatically affected by the seasons, causing a significant influx of patients during the summer months. "We know we need to have a sustainable, readily available and high-quality workforce," said Deb Wilson, MSN, COO of Kalispell, in a recent webinar hosted by Becker's Hospital Review and sponsored by API Healthcare. "That is truly the lifeblood of our organization and that's what makes it a priority for us."
Kalispell decided to upgrade their workforce management process through a partnership with API Healthcare. The health system wants to ensure the benefits of the software can be felt across the organization. Often hospitals become caught up in the financial outcomes, for example, but forget to look downstream at how those decisions will impact quality of care or compliance outcomes, according to Karlene Kerfoot, PhD, RN, CNO of API Healthcare. "It's all about balance, balance, balance," she said.
Kalispell is using a balanced outcomes approach to ensure their new workforce management strategy is also beneficial from various vantage points beyond financial performance, including staff satisfaction, patient experience and clinical outcomes.
"A lot of times productivity is seen as a financial component. It's just a cost cutting initiative," said Chad Mack, director of productivity and performance improvement at Kalispell. "As we've been defining the clinical aspect and patient experience and staff satisfaction, [you'll see] they are all interconnected."
Here are the four steps Kalispell is taking to roll out new workforce management program with a balanced outcomes approach:
1. Start with a plan and take time to thoughtfully roll out new technology. Kalispell has spent nearly a year planning and getting ready for the rollout of its new workforce management technology. It purchased the software in December 2018, and the system is about to launch the staffing and scheduling solution as of mid-September.
"We wanted to step back and create a roadmap for ourselves," Mr. Mack said. The entire executive team has come to the table in several pre-planning meetings to discuss the five outcomes and determine objectives within each outcome. This planning process is critical to the program's success, according to Mr. Mack.
2. Create a centralized staffing office. Kalispell is creating a centralized staffing office to better leverage resources across the whole system. For example, if a department has a last-minute gap in the schedule, they can pull up a list of employees qualified to fill that gap, send out a text message to fill the shift and get the slot filled, no matter the department. Kalispell is kicking this off with acute care nursing, but as they implemented it across other departments, they have started to see "a ton of cross pollination," according to Mr. Mack.
3. Make it a program, not a project. "From the very beginning we were concerned about sustainability," Ms. Wilson said. "We recognized this was not going to be a finite endeavor. It was a commitment to our future." To ensure the entire organization remains committed to the program, Kalispell implemented a steering committee with pertinent stakeholders from the beginning. This is helping to generate excitement and buy-in at all levels, ensuring it stays true to the outcomes and helps show team members the program is not simply to cut costs.
4. Use analytics. Analytics in API Healthcare's platform will enable managers to more quickly react to needs. "We really want to start putting the analytics and data into the hands of the managers as real time as we can possibly get it," Mr. Mack said. "We're not looking at data from 14 days ago and saying, 'Oh that wasn't a good day. What happened?'" As technology becomes increasingly integrated into our lives, he sees this as a "non-negotiable."
To learn more about how Kalispell is transforming its workforce management, listen to the webinar here.