How the Cloud can help you meet today’s opportunities more rapidly

OK. So what is “the cloud?” In general, cloud computing refers to anything that involves delivering hosted services over the Internet. Because the cloud symbol has been used for a long time in flowcharts and diagrams to represent the Internet, the use of the term, “cloud computing,” is logical. So what’s the recent buzz about cloud computing - especially for health care providers?

To the point, virtualization, distributed computing, and improved access to high-speed Internet have accelerated interest in cloud computing. Indeed, but what’s the benefit?

Cloud computing technologies enable companies to access and pay for only the needed capacity and increase capacity as soon as required. This means that cloud computing is efficient, flexible, and scalable. Because cloud computing usually is a subscription-based model that extends a company’s IT capacity, it’s very affordable. Companies who leverage the cloud can increase their IT infrastructure and computing capacity without having to invest in new infrastructure, e.g. the hardware; hiring, training, and retaining new personnel; administrative overhead; and licensing issues.

How the Cloud can help you meet today’s challenges and opportunities

The path of cloud computing is probably the most direct route for any company to reach its IT goals to empower growth and to stay competitive. It avoids the roadblocks and difficult-to-surmount obstacles of:

• Capital investment, including purchasing, maintaining, upgrading, and replacing hardware, such as servers,
• Additional IT staffing,
• Burdensome administrative overhead, and
• Potential risks to on-premise resources are exposed by offering redundancy, high availability, and disaster recovery provided at a significantly lower cost. 

Cloud computing can be deployed rapidly and frees up a company’s internal resources to focus on strategic issues while leaving the day-to-day IT operations to service providers who have superior technology, experience, support, expertise, best practices (including security with UTM and VDOM technologies), interoperability, and economies of scale.

Example: Health care, ACOs, and the Cloud

Let’s look at health care and ACOs, for example. ACOs (Accountable Care Organizations) can represent an opportunity, a threat, or something to be ignored. If you are a health care provider, I will assume you understand ACOs and what they mean to your organization. The real question is, if you view ACOs as an opportunity, are you ready to work together with other providers to coordinate patient care and share in the savings and risks of doing so? For ACOs to succeed, they need IT across the entire continuum of their membership. At a minimum, your organization must be ready to:

• Identify the patients/residents you care for
• Be able to measure, analyze, and assign costs to the care you deliver
• Input, store, retrieve, and compile the data into useful information for all members of the ACO and CMS
• Produce periodic aggregated reports
• Conduct patient/resident satisfaction surveys
• Have EHR in place
• Alter the way you deliver the care to improve outcomes while reducing costs
• Be able to monitor all of the above in real time.

This takes information automation to a new level of IT capacity and functionality which many providers do not posses and cannot see how to afford let alone implement quickly.

Conclusion

The “cloud” can help businesses acquire the IT infrastructure and tools in a relatively short period of time. As an ACO member, health care providers can focus their internal resources on identifying ways to reduce costs and improve quality as the cloud works behind the scenes to retrieve, protect, deliver, and report the metrics needed.

My questions for you:

Is your organization entertaining the idea of participating as a member of an ACO?

What IT challenges is your organization facing and how are you planning to meet those challenges?

Introduction

An operator of over 35 facilities in four states has been using its digital dashboard to effectively manage census, labor, collections, and MDS information. The company’s BI/digital dashboard project manager cited three reasons that it has become an increasingly successful day-to-day management tool.

Reason #1 - Who needs to see what?

Through planning and coordination with its dashboard developer, in this case – PCT’s primeVIEW, this provider has carefully identified who needs to see what. Senior management, together with key corporate department heads, regional VPs, and the IT team, compared the information displayed by the dashboard with roles and responsibilities throughout the organization. From senior management to corporate departments to regional staff to facility administration, the real-time reports were aligned with accountability and action. For example, while senior management may want a global view of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), such as census, labor, collections, MDS-driven information, critical to them, they did not necessarily need the granularity that the drill-down function afforded to regional staff or corporate department heads. Accordingly, management is able to review reports from primeVIEW which give them the ability to globally assess and address trends, practices, and policies

Historically, view of the dashboard at the facility level had been limited to the administrators and executive directors. However, recently, the company granted permission to department heads to view their specific department KPIs, particularly labor. This gives them the ability to scrutinize such issues as overtime or who may be “milking the clock.” For example, are some employees adding 15 minutes to their punch time in non-productive activities (or malingering)? Because the system refreshes the clocked-in and clock-out times by employee, department heads can identify such issues as they happen. 

Reason #2 – Personal Training

Training is critical in two major areas:

• How to access and use the tool and
• How to apply critical thinking to day-to-day tactical and long-term strategic problem solving

Because the system is intuitive and easy to use, most follow-up training takes place on a case-by-case basis after the initial orientation and training. Their BI project manager views the dashboard throughout the day and can tell over time who may need additional support and training tailored to the individual’s needs.

Critical thinking applied to problem solving helps managers effectively resolve problems or seize opportunities. Regional staff works closely with their facility counterparts to interpret dashboard information and create workable action plans.

Reason #3 - Refer to the dashboard regularly; make it a habit

Because the dashboard puts actionable KPIs at the fingertips of those who need it without having to go through someone else, managers can respond quickly. This requires the discipline to refer to the dashboard regularly. Those who do, benefit.

What have been the benefits?

The Project Manager reports that the corporate and regional teams can readily identify the problem facilities and can proactively respond before the issues get out of hand or opportunities are missed. This has resulted in a marked reduction in unnecessary costs and the discovery of opportunities to improve resident/patient services.

Hitting a home run with Business Intelligence and Analytics

I’m a sports fan. Yep. No doubt about it. Spring means not only hay fever, but baseball fever. I love to see a good solid swing and to feel the excitement of watching the gravity-defying flight of the ball as it soars over the outfield fence and into the bleachers. There’s nothing like a home run! Unlike baseball, however, the game of Long Term Care is not seasonal and if providers want a sporting chance, they’re going to have to step up to the plate and respond swiftly and powerfully to the curve balls of regulatory changes, the sliders of reimbursement, the change-ups of market pressures, and the fast balls of competition year around. It means split-second decision-making and lightning-fast responses. More to the point, providers must interpret real-time data, employ sound decision-making best practices, and implement solutions. The key? Business Intelligence (BI) and Analytics.

I’ve done some research on the topic of problem solving and Business Intelligence. During my search through the slurry of blogs, articles, and advertisements, I discovered a real nugget I want to share with you. In a blog published in Visual Business Intelligence, posted by Stephen Few points out that today’s problems are not “the result of missing or hidden information, but the result, in a sense, of too much information and the complicated challenge of understanding it.” Amen to that. Look at the plethora of data available through the MDS, for example, and the information it yields. What about the data demands providers will face when they have to play in the big leagues of ACOs (Accountable Care Organizations)? Clinical, operational, financial, market demands, regulatory data will all need to be assimilated, retrieved, interpreted correctly, acted on, and represented.

Mr. Few argues that “we don’t need more data, we need the means to make sense of what we have.” This requires “data sense-making tools that are needed to put data to use for decision-making.”

I agree with Mr. Few that “the pieces have finally come together that are needed to cross the threshold from the Information Age, which has produced great mounds of mostly unused information, to the Analytics Age, when we’ll finally learn how to understand it and use it to make better informed, evidence-based decisions.” To paraphrase, LTC providers must be investigators at heart with minds that are flexible and analytical. We must be critical thinkers.

With the aid of “data sense-making” digital dashboards which display such Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) as census, labor, collections, MDS, procurement, admissions/discharges, among others in real time, providers can discover “faults in (their) organization’s policies, practices, or assumptions.”

Armed with such analytics tools, providers can hit the home runs which will not only increase revenues and save money, but provide resident/patient quality of life.

Next time, I’ll share how one operator of multiple facilities in several states has leveraged analytics to score big. How’s that for a “pitch?” 

Introduction

“Oh, please! What does a man know about labor pains?” Yes, absolutely nothing, no matter how much empathy a man like me may have. But that is obviously NOT the “labor pains” implied in this blog’s title. The labor pains I am referring to apply to such agonies as overtime, being expensively above or dangerously below the daily labor budget, staffing with and paying for contract labor, such as pool or registry nurses, and any other discomforts that are related to the day-to-day staffing and operations of a long term care facility. How can providers leverage Business Intelligence (BI) to help relieve them of their “labor pains?” Let me suggest five ways.

Solution

1. Have the right tools

In today’s demanding environment of downward reimbursement pressures, increased regulatory scrutiny, and competition within the clinically-skilled labor market, having the right automated Applicant Tracking, Time & Attendance, Payroll, and Human Resources software applications is almost a necessity. Companies, such as Kronos, among others, offer innovative and easy-to-use integrated labor management packages, hardware, project management, and training to help you effectively manage your workforce.

2. Be able to input data efficiently and accurately

While time clocks have been the tried and true method for recording employee time transactions, today’s technology offers increased accuracy and accountability. These include badge and biometric terminals, telephone time entry solutions (TTE), and handheld devices which give you access to your employees no matter where they are at any time. These devices deliver direct data feeds to your time and attendance applications automatically and securely.

3. Be able to gather data intelligently

With the right software combined with the right employee time collection devices, you have the system to gather, process, house, and distribute data that not only help you with payroll, but also with Business Intelligence. The right tools will help you plan for and obtain useful information. Going beyond the traditional end-of-pay-period reports to real-time, as-it-happens information requires thorough planning and preparation. A data collection plan will help you prepare for the processing of and publication of useful information.

4. Be able to convert data into actionable information

This is where the proverbial rubber meets the road for Business Intelligence and Analytics. According to a CIO.com article entitled, Business Intelligence Definition and Solutions, “Business intelligence, or BI, is an umbrella term that refers to a variety of software applications used to analyze an organization’s raw data. BI as a discipline is made up of several related activities, including data mining, online analytical processing, querying and reporting.” The key benefit to BI is that managers and executives can monitor KPIs in real time. Where do you start? Analyze how your team makes decisions and the information needed to make and implement the best decisions possible. The decision-making discussion will drive how you structure BI. For example, one of the main advantages to BI is that it offers context. With BI you not only can discern right now what is going on, but BI can also offer budgetary, historical, and projected performance context. Trending is a valuable influencer in the decision-making process. These and other considerations can help you build a data warehouse with the flexibility to meet today’s demands and tomorrow’s possibilities.

5. Be able to communicate information

BI does not readily make your company a better one, just better informed. The key to BI being truly effective is getting the information readily to those who need it at the operational level to improve business practices. But that may require a major re-think about the sharing of information, a fundamental business practice paradigm. While good BI tools are scalable, the actual realization of the power of information must be decided at a very human level across the entire organization. Start with understanding your key business processes and determine the “who-needs-to-know” and accountability parameters.

Conclusion

Ultimately, once you start down the “BI-way” of information collection and dissemination, there’s no looking back. BI not only informs businesses, it transforms them. In what shape that transformation finds itself depends on the skills and strengths your team players.

In summary:

• Employ the labor management tools that are right for your organization.
• Be able to input data efficiently and accurately using today’s employee time-tracking technologies, such as badge and biometric terminals, TTE, and handheld devices.
• Gather data intelligently starting with a workable data collection plan.
• Convert data into actionable information, including consideration for how your team makes decisions and the informational context that BI offers.
• Communicate the information to the operational level of your organization.

For more information about PCT’s hosted Labor Management solution, click here.

Overview In our previous blog, “Discover the Wealth in Business Intelligence through Data Mining,” we discussed how data mining is indispensible in helping today's executive discover hidden patterns of vital Business Intelligence (BI). With BI, LTC executives have been able to view their organizations’ financial, operational, and marketing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in real time. BI viewed through digital dashboards delivers the granularity, flexibility, and responsiveness executives need. Given the layers of information, or analytics, that is available through BI, managers can readily peer into their organization’s performance. Jim Hoey, President of Prime Care Technologies, recently reported, “Many of the executives I visit with understand the value that such a system can offer and have even taken advantage of its availability.”

Like an onion, however, the more you peel back the informational layers, the more it may bring you to tears. Whether they are tears of joy or frustration depends on what you do with the information.

How does a BI Dashboard work?

Let’s share with you what a dashboard looks like and has done for others. You arrive at your office and log on to your computer. You then click on the dashboard icon on your desktop. After logging in using your desktop, laptop, tablet PC, a thin client, or even an iPad, the digital dashboard displays KPIs which are important to you from a corporate, division, region, or facility standpoint, depending on your security permissions. For LTC providers, these may include vital labor information (especially nursing services), census information, collections, cash summary and details, accounts receivable, RUGs, reports concerning facility risk, a MDS & QM/QI risk focus, corporate/chain survey risks, risk management/loss control, and customized risk analysis, among other KPIs.

The dashboard even cues you automatically regarding which factors should be of greatest concern and where your specific weak spots are at that moment. You have the capability of viewing the cumulative opportunities and risks for your company in the format you prefer – charts, graphs, or tables. You also have the ability to drill down to a corporate and facility level – even to a department or specific employee. You can get as granular as your data and policies allow. And because the information is in real time[1], it reflects what is happening now, based on how often you want the data refreshed. The system will even send real-time alerts when certain KPI’s exceed or drop below specified tolerances.

What’s the impact?

The following are real-world examples of those who have experienced tears of joy: one CEO reported his 22-facility company, a PCT customer, has benefitted from the labor report portion of the dashboard. Because the information is timely and available anytime from anywhere, his team was able to view and respond quickly to labor trends that were unsustainable and wasteful. “Because of our dashboard, we have saved over $80,000 per month in unnecessary labor costs,” he reported. “There is a direct correlation between the dashboard and the savings realized.” In another case, a CEO stated that the MDS feature added an average of $6,500 for the first month to the bottom line of each of his 50-plus facilities with a sustained average improvement of $1,500 per month for each facility thereafter.

The critical key to leveraging BI is whether the information presented in the dashboard is timely, readily interpretable, and actionable. But even if the BI meets those criteria, it still comes down to the most important factor, even for technology – people. People interpret the information, communicate, delegate, make decisions, plan, take action, and follow up. That’s the where real power of business intelligence resides. 

In summary:

• Business Intelligence (BI)/analytics delivers the granularity, flexibility, and responsiveness executives need.
• The BI dashboard displays graphs, charts, and tables with actionable information that can help executives at all levels effectively discover and analyze KPIs that are critical to their business.
• BI is where technology and people come together with a potentially powerful and positive impact to the quality of services delivered and the bottom line realized.