Integrating productivity management topics and practices into planning and budgeting.

The purpose of this assignment is to further explore the concepts of productivity management and the application of operational benchmarks and how to account for operational changes.

Read the following: The Orthopedic unit you manage received a grant through your largest insurance payor which covers the cost of a care coordinator. This is expected to reduce length of stay and improve patient placement in rehab/therapy services. This initiative is expected to reduce the overall cost of care of this patient population. The care coordinator employee will be an employee of your department and their hours worked will be included in your total worked hours for productivity analysis. You have verified the current benchmark data does not include care coordinators. Non-productive time is the portion of an employees time that is paid for being away from the job (vacation, sick and education).

Current benchmark:	10.2 productive hours per patient day
Annual budgeted patient days:	5,460
Budgeted Productive FTEs	26.76
Budgeted Non-Productive FTEs	3.65
Budgeted Total FTEs	30.41

Please respond to the following questions:

1. What do you propose as a revised benchmark that would take into account the addition of the Care Coordinator position? You can assume the same productive vs. non-productive time allocation as the overall departmental budget above.
2. What would be the new productive, non-productive, and total budgeted FTEs after adding the Care Coordinator position?
3. What are some ways AMS (Applied Management Systems) identifies variances a particular client may have in operations compared to their benchmark averages.