When Kronos acquired Beaverton, Ore.-based Unicru last July, it mapped out a new direction in workforce automation for the Chelmsford, Mass.-based software manufacturer.
A traditional focus on time and attendance systems has broadened considerably to encompass a new category of talent management, as well as productivity management, labor management and staffing and scheduling. Talent management – a new division of Kronos – addresses how hospitals can improve staff recruitment and retention.
Workforce acquisition is an area of particular concern for a healthcare industry frustrated by chronic worker shortages and high turnover rates, said Brian Graves, global practice leader for healthcare at Kronos. By using new talent management tools, hospitals can have applicants scientifically examined to determine which are the best fit, saving time and recruitment costs.
“This is an emerging area for organizations to look at how they can recruit and retain their staff most effectively,” Graves said. “They can now automate that process by leveraging scientific assessment, meaning that a group of scientists work through the methodology and leverage information to match applicants with the organization’s goals.”
Talent management and selection science are part of a new generation of workforce automation tools, Graves said, pointing to productivity management as another critical area.
“Hospital staff are under pressure to meet a fluctuating patient workload because patient census has become unpredictable,” he said. “With patients being so much sicker, hospitals are really large ICUs now. Workload based on acuity is challenging because sicker patients mean the staff is working harder to serve those patients appropriately.”
Integrated workforce management systems now have the capability to let managers see where fluctuations are coming from and react by assigning the right staff to meet workload challenges, Graves said.
“If you have a system to consolidate payroll, time and attendance and budget, you can see what changes you need to make and what skill mix you need to deliver quality care,” he said. “This enables managers to focus on other issues that need attention, like vacation, sick days and tardiness.”
Enterprise Resource Planning systems, or ERPs, have a reputation for being the ultimate in automated workforce management tools because they offer the most comprehensive financial integration possible for hospitals. Orem, Utah-based KLAS Enterprises compiled a 60-page ERP Market Review white paper last year, and its introduction explains why these systems are considered important for healthcare.
“There is a strong desire among provider organizations to have payroll and human resources integrated together with general ledger and to have general ledger work seamlessly with accounts payable and supply chain functionality,” the report stated. “The end objective for provider facilities is to adopt a solution that fully automates business processes and compliments workflow within the domain of resource management.”
The ERP Market Review is the result of accumulated research on the market and provides a snapshot of vendors and their systems. Paul Pitcher, KLAS’ director of financial systems, who oversaw the compilation effort, says despite growing interest in ERPs, they still represent a small percentage of hospital solutions.
“This is not a fast-moving segment,” he said. “ERPs take a long time to implement – we could be talking years. Often it will cost an inordinate amount of money to acquire, and organizations may want to bring in a consultant to help.”
Although the ERP deployment process can be arduous and costly, Pitcher says the integration benefits can be rewarding.
“It brings departments together, allowing them to get much more granular with data and get greater degrees of detail they couldn’t get manually,” he said. “They can drill down much deeper in their reporting and deeper into their data. It’s functionality that they didn’t have before.”
Pitcher doesn’t see any revolutionary advancements in ERP technology soon because it has matured.
Even so, platforms and applications will continue to improve, offering a greater degree of system optimization, he said.