Regional Hospital is a 500-bed hospital and several associated clinics in a major East Coast metropolitan area. It has been an aggressive adopter of computing technologies in efforts to decrease costs and improve operational efficiencies. A critical challenge facing the hospital is meeting its ongoing challenges to staff the hospital and allied clinics effectively, given the ongoing shortage of nurses; uncertainty in health care legislation; emphasis on shortening hospital stays to reduce costs, which causes the daily census (numbers of patients in various departments) to vary dramatically from day to day and shift to shift; the continued aging of the population in its primary care area; and the unending competition for employees with key skill sets.
Employee expenses represent more than 80% of the overall costs of operation for the hospital, so identifying ways to match optimal skills and numbers of employees to the appropriate shifts is critical to achieving consistent success.
However, individual shift managers struggle to make effective staffing decisions, resulting in consistent overstaffing or understaffing of shifts and departments. These staffing problems potentially increase the high costs of varied levels of patient care and satisfaction and potentially increase the risk that staff turnover may escalate because of dissatisfaction with the continuing inability of managers to match staffing needs to demand.
Company managers recognize the potential that HR metrics and analytics might have for their organization, and they have come to you for help. They are hearing from their peers in other hospitals that metrics can help in this area but are not quite sure where to start. They are looking for you to offer guidance on how to do HR metrics and workforce analytics.
Case Study Questions
1. Do you believe that a program of HR metrics and workforce analytics might be useful in Regional Hospital? If so, why?
2. What opportunities do you see regarding where and how metrics and analytics might be applied in this organization?
3. Identify three analyses and associated metrics you think might be useful for Regional Hospital to consider.
4. How might Regional Hospital utilize benchmarking as a part of its metrics and analytics effort, if at all?
5. What advice would you offer to the managers at Regional Hospital about developing a program of HR metrics and workforce analytics?
6. What potential problems might occur in the establishment of an HR metrics and workforce analytics program for Regional Hospital managers about which you would want to alert them prior to beginning this project?