Kronos releases employee rostering solution for healthcare industry
Announcement posted by Kronos 04 Mar 2004
Heightened need for improved productivity in healthcare industry drives Kronos employee rostering initiative
In today's highly competitive marketplace, healthcare providers are experiencing increased strain to deliver high quality patient care while managing escalating labour costs and fluctuating volume.
To meet these demands, Kronos has developed an automated, enterprise-wide rostering solution, Workforce Central 5, to help healthcare organisations balance high patient care and reduce labour costs by optimising the use of in-house staff.
Kronos is a longtime provider of employee-centric applications to more than 4,000 healthcare organisations around the world, and it developed the rostering functionality within Workforce Central 5 in conjunction with a panel of expert users from the healthcare industry.
By implementing Workforce Central 5, a centralised, Web-based scheduling solution, healthcare organisations will be able to:
control labour costs by reducing overtime and the use of agency workers;
improve employee retention by increasing employee satisfaction;
minimise accreditation liability by ensuring scheduling of qualified staff; and avoid labour cost overruns with easy access to staffing and budget information.
To better understand the issues that hospitals face in balancing patient care, labour expenses and profitability, Kronos Australia recently commissioned ACA Research to conduct a survey of 131 of the largest private and not-for-profit healthcare facilities in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland. (Detailed results of survey available.)
Despite the challenges of the nurses shortage and the fact that labour is a hospital's largest controllable cost, over three-quarters of those surveyed revealed they still rely primarily on manual systems, Excel spreadsheets or home-grown applications for staff rostering and management."In most hospitals and healthcare facilities, executive nursing staff spend hours each week drafting a roster, only to spend as much time again accommodating staff changes or filling absences caused by sickness or other leave entitlements," said Peter Harte, Managing Director, Kronos Australia Pty Ltd.
"Effective rostering can make the difference between profitability and losses. Our strategy is to deliver solutions that allow customers to maximise their existing investment in technology, services, and training. Customers will benefit by reducing their cost of ownership and risk as well as focusing on automating processes and optimising the workforce."
The healthcare industry heavily depends upon hourly workers, a dynamic that adds a layer of complexity to the staffing process and detracts from a manager's core responsibilities. Although many industries struggle with staffing as a core business problem, healthcare faces unique challenges. Maintaining a superior level of patient care while controlling labour costs is one of the challenges. Labour costs can account for the largest share of spending growth for hospital services with up to 75 percent of hospital costs going to wages and benefits of caregivers. An advanced rostering solution in the healthcare industry will increase productivity by delivering superior patient care at minimum costs.
Apart from reducing payroll error, cutting costs and providing other business efficiencies, automated rostering also takes away the administrative pain of rostering from nursing staff. This means they can get back to caring for patients, rather than spending hours every week creating and amending rosters.
Sisters of Charity and Holy Spirit Health Service in Brisbane has reduced payroll errors and labour costs while improving productivity and employee satisfaction by installing the Kronos Workforce Central integrated rostering solution.
The solution has not only reduced the load on the payroll department, but also payroll errors have fallen from around 20 per cent to less than three per cent.
Because of Australia's nursing shortage, the Sisters of Charity and Holy Spirit Health Service - like other healthcare organisations - relies on agency labour to help it through staffing shortfalls. This labour is much more expensive and at certain times, could be as much as 30 percent of its staff, therefore it needs to be planned for and tracked carefully.
Workforce Central's real-time insight into staffing and overtime levels and other key indicators has improved the Sisters of Charity and Holy Spirit Health Service's use of agency labour. "We've been able to gain a complete understanding of our agency usage and are now in a position to make substantial savings based on accurate data," said Jo Butler, Project Manager, Sisters of Charity and Holy Spirit Health Service.
With a development team of more than 70 talented employees dedicated to creating rostering products, Kronos has invested more than US$30 million in its rostering initiative. "We listened to customers discuss pain points, conducted product and industry research, and collaborated with experts to create a solution that works," continued Mr Harte. "We understand the nuances of rostering, and with more resources committed to rostering than any other vendor internationally, Kronos is poised to meet the complex needs of healthcare organisations."
About Kronos
Kronos' best-in-class Employee Relationship Management solution enables organisations to reduce costs and increase productivity, improve employee satisfaction, align employee performance with organisational objectives, and put real-time information in the hands of decision makers. More than 40,000 organisations worldwide trust Kronos to solve their employee-centric business challenges. Kronos customers in Australia include Sisters Of Charity and Holy Spirit Health Service, United Church Homes, Villa Maria, Hammond Care Group, Baxter Healthcare, Julian Farr Services, Southern Cross Healthcare, Coles Myer Limited, Franklins, United Goninan, Coca-Cola Amatil, George Weston Foods, Brisbane Convention Centre, Nestle, Woolworth's, Visy and Toll Logistics. www.kronos.com.au
To meet these demands, Kronos has developed an automated, enterprise-wide rostering solution, Workforce Central 5, to help healthcare organisations balance high patient care and reduce labour costs by optimising the use of in-house staff.
Kronos is a longtime provider of employee-centric applications to more than 4,000 healthcare organisations around the world, and it developed the rostering functionality within Workforce Central 5 in conjunction with a panel of expert users from the healthcare industry.
By implementing Workforce Central 5, a centralised, Web-based scheduling solution, healthcare organisations will be able to:
control labour costs by reducing overtime and the use of agency workers;
improve employee retention by increasing employee satisfaction;
minimise accreditation liability by ensuring scheduling of qualified staff; and avoid labour cost overruns with easy access to staffing and budget information.
To better understand the issues that hospitals face in balancing patient care, labour expenses and profitability, Kronos Australia recently commissioned ACA Research to conduct a survey of 131 of the largest private and not-for-profit healthcare facilities in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland. (Detailed results of survey available.)
Despite the challenges of the nurses shortage and the fact that labour is a hospital's largest controllable cost, over three-quarters of those surveyed revealed they still rely primarily on manual systems, Excel spreadsheets or home-grown applications for staff rostering and management."In most hospitals and healthcare facilities, executive nursing staff spend hours each week drafting a roster, only to spend as much time again accommodating staff changes or filling absences caused by sickness or other leave entitlements," said Peter Harte, Managing Director, Kronos Australia Pty Ltd.
"Effective rostering can make the difference between profitability and losses. Our strategy is to deliver solutions that allow customers to maximise their existing investment in technology, services, and training. Customers will benefit by reducing their cost of ownership and risk as well as focusing on automating processes and optimising the workforce."
The healthcare industry heavily depends upon hourly workers, a dynamic that adds a layer of complexity to the staffing process and detracts from a manager's core responsibilities. Although many industries struggle with staffing as a core business problem, healthcare faces unique challenges. Maintaining a superior level of patient care while controlling labour costs is one of the challenges. Labour costs can account for the largest share of spending growth for hospital services with up to 75 percent of hospital costs going to wages and benefits of caregivers. An advanced rostering solution in the healthcare industry will increase productivity by delivering superior patient care at minimum costs.
Apart from reducing payroll error, cutting costs and providing other business efficiencies, automated rostering also takes away the administrative pain of rostering from nursing staff. This means they can get back to caring for patients, rather than spending hours every week creating and amending rosters.
Sisters of Charity and Holy Spirit Health Service in Brisbane has reduced payroll errors and labour costs while improving productivity and employee satisfaction by installing the Kronos Workforce Central integrated rostering solution.
The solution has not only reduced the load on the payroll department, but also payroll errors have fallen from around 20 per cent to less than three per cent.
Because of Australia's nursing shortage, the Sisters of Charity and Holy Spirit Health Service - like other healthcare organisations - relies on agency labour to help it through staffing shortfalls. This labour is much more expensive and at certain times, could be as much as 30 percent of its staff, therefore it needs to be planned for and tracked carefully.
Workforce Central's real-time insight into staffing and overtime levels and other key indicators has improved the Sisters of Charity and Holy Spirit Health Service's use of agency labour. "We've been able to gain a complete understanding of our agency usage and are now in a position to make substantial savings based on accurate data," said Jo Butler, Project Manager, Sisters of Charity and Holy Spirit Health Service.
With a development team of more than 70 talented employees dedicated to creating rostering products, Kronos has invested more than US$30 million in its rostering initiative. "We listened to customers discuss pain points, conducted product and industry research, and collaborated with experts to create a solution that works," continued Mr Harte. "We understand the nuances of rostering, and with more resources committed to rostering than any other vendor internationally, Kronos is poised to meet the complex needs of healthcare organisations."
About Kronos
Kronos' best-in-class Employee Relationship Management solution enables organisations to reduce costs and increase productivity, improve employee satisfaction, align employee performance with organisational objectives, and put real-time information in the hands of decision makers. More than 40,000 organisations worldwide trust Kronos to solve their employee-centric business challenges. Kronos customers in Australia include Sisters Of Charity and Holy Spirit Health Service, United Church Homes, Villa Maria, Hammond Care Group, Baxter Healthcare, Julian Farr Services, Southern Cross Healthcare, Coles Myer Limited, Franklins, United Goninan, Coca-Cola Amatil, George Weston Foods, Brisbane Convention Centre, Nestle, Woolworth's, Visy and Toll Logistics. www.kronos.com.au