Fairview Range Regional Health Services and Kronos for Healthcare Continue the Mission of Improving Quality Patient Care

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Fairview Range Regional Health Services is a network of healthcare facilities providing the most comprehensive medical care available in the northeast Minnesota region. There are more than 1,000 employees at Fairview Range Regional with the mission of providing quality services while maintaining a caring and positive environment.

Fairview Range Regional Health Services fulfills their mission of delivering quality patient care by using the Kronos^® Workforce Central^® suite. Fairview Range Regional is a longtime Kronos customer and currently uses a solution that consists of Workforce Timekeeper™, Workforce HR™, and Workforce Payroll™. After achieving time and cost savings with Workforce Timekeeper, Fairview Range Regional chose to add Workforce HR and Workforce Payroll to their integrated suite of applications. As a result, they could streamline their time and attendance, payroll, and human resource processes under a single, automated solution.

"Our Kronos solution is a huge step above what we had before. It’s hard to imagine not having it," says Joe Wivoda, Fairview Range Regional’s Vice President and Chief Information Officer. Wivoda also recalls the difficulty experienced from the previous HR and payroll processes. Manual spreadsheets, duplicate entries, and inefficient processes characterized their previous system. "The prior vendor couldn’t make their system do what we needed — even simple things — so we chose Kronos for our payroll and human resources solution."

Kronos solution saves time and reduces duplicate work

With five different union contracts, Fairview Range Regional’s payroll department faced an overwhelming task processing payroll accurately and efficiently. In the past, it would take Fairview Range Regional’s payroll department up to six weeks to post this information on employee paychecks. "Accruals used to be such an ugly process," Wivoda mentions. "Our payroll person had to manually attach accrual information to employee paychecks. With our Kronos solution, this information is calculated and printed automatically on employee paychecks, saving countless hours of payroll administration. Accruals are no longer an issue." This capability also helped resolve union grievances from employees who wanted to see their accrual information on their paychecks.

Workforce Payroll not only streamlined Fairview Range Regional’s payroll administration, it reduced the workload of the organization’s busy IT department. When processing payroll under the old system, IT administrators had to interrupt normal server operations to perform a backup, run a special script to initiate payroll processing, and then perform post-processing archival. "Almost all of that work is gone now," Wivoda adds.

Fairview Range Regional has been able to expedite the on-boarding process for new employees as well because they can send employee information collected during the hiring process to departments such as security for ID badge creation, the pharmacy, and other areas. "This feature increases productivity because all employee information is in place when they start," Wivoda says. With real-time employee information being shared between departments, this eliminated the practice of each department making duplicate entries of employee information, saving time and increasing productivity.

Management and Reporting Streamlined

Fairview Range Regional is able to access important employee information instantly to help with compliance on other union contract provisions, internal policies, and labor laws. Human resource personnel bring laptops to union contract negotiations and access any employee information they need in real time through the Kronos for Healthcare self-service function. "We have had three or four union contract re-negotiations since we implemented our Kronos solution. The negotiations are so much easier now because of the information we have available to us. We can also make any necessary changes from these negotiations quickly and easily," Wivoda says.

The comprehensive reporting capabilities of Workforce Central has allowed Fairview Range Regional management staff to manage and reduce overtime, resulting in lower costs. "We now know in advance if overtime is going to be an issue," Wivoda says. "With our previous system, we did not have any real time information on work hours. Our Kronos solution has really helped us manage overtime better." Fairview Range Regional also uses the reporting capabilities to determine if there is a need to allocate employees across department lines. As a result, this provides better quality care across all areas of the facilities.

In addition to quickly generating reports and monitoring compliance with Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and other external regulations.

Fairview Range Regional is able to closely monitor and comply with it’s internal absenteeism policies. This is important for Fairview Range Regional not only because it allows them to track attendance, but they also pay out a portion of any allotted sick time not used during the year. Through self-service, payroll can also verify if managers are approving employee time in accordance with union contracts.

With the employee handbook available on the self-service portal, Fairview Range Regional is also able to provide employees information about patient care and privacy laws to help the organization comply with HIPAA and JCAHO. Workforce HR also plays a role in helping to manage compliance with HIPAA regulations if an employee leaves or transfers departments. The IT department receives an automatic alert from the system if the employee’s status changes so they can change that person’s level of access to protect private patient information.

Self-Service functionality embraced by all

The self-service features have proven to be one of the biggest successes for Fairview Range Regional. In addition to viewing timecards, employee handbooks, and union contracts, employees can access and view their insurance benefits, leave accruals, and other job related data. They can also update personal information, initiate time-off requests, and modify direct-deposit accounts virtually eliminating paper-driven processes for benefits administration. "We show-off the self-service feature at our new employee orientation," Wivoda says. "Managers and HR personnel spend less time answering questions on benefits, timecards, payroll changes, and other inquiries. We can direct them to the self-service portal." The employee directory has also been a popular resource on the self-service portal. "It has become a great way for employees to get to know each other," Wivoda mentions.

"One of the best things about our Kronos solution, and particularly the self-service feature, is the acceptance throughout our organization," Wivoda mentions. Employees also access third party applications such as charge accounts to the coffee shop, pharmacy, and clinic through the self-service feature.

Plans to expand current Kronos solution

Fairview Range Regional looks to continue their mutually beneficial relationship with Kronos long into the future. Plans to implement applicant tracking, training, and open enrollment within Workforce Central 6 is being discussed. Fairview Range Regional also has plans to add Kronos staffing and scheduling software, and Workforce Analytics™ as part of their integrated Kronos solution. Kronos Workforce Central has eliminated many labor intensive practices for Fairview Range Regional, and has cut down a considerable number of hours for their payroll administrator. "Our Kronos solution does exactly what we need," Wivoda says. "With our payroll, HR, and time and attendance processes integrated under one solution; it has made so many tasks easier for us."

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