Workforce Timekeeper Helps Kindred Healthcare Optimize Quality Care
The mission of Kindred Healthcare, one of the country’s largest healthcare companies, is to be the nation’s leading provider of skilled nursing and long-term hospital services. The Louisville, Kentucky-based Fortune 500 company operates long-term acute care hospitals and skilled nursing centers and provides contract rehabilitation services in 560 locations in 39 states. With a workforce of 51,000 employees, Kindred Healthcare is focused on delivering high-quality patient care, an effort that is reflected in the company’s having received the most American Health Care Association Quality Awards for four consecutive years.
Creating an environment that allows Kindred Healthcare staff at all levels — from managers to supervisors to floor nurses — to maximize time spent providing quality care to patients, as well as other value-added services, is vitally important. To achieve this goal, the company implemented Kronos® Workforce Timekeeper™ and recently upgraded to take advantage of its expanded functionality.
“One of the reasons we went with Kronos for Healthcare’s Workforce Timekeeper is it gives end users a very elegant, simple-to-use product where they can view and manage their people’s time and labor very easily and in a short amount of time,” says Charles Cox, corporate manager of HR applications. “For every minute we save, that goes directly back to quality care or adding value to some other process.”
Tight system integration streamlines processes
Some of the time savings have been a result of the high level of integration between Workforce Timekeeper and SAP leveraging a single data repository. Whenever a job, department, or payroll is changed in Workforce Timekeeper, that information flows easily and continuously between the two systems, notes Cox.
This integration functionality has been extremely valuable in shortening the time required to enter new employee information into the system. The fluid exchange of data between the applications has assisted Kindred Healthcare in achieving its goal of completing service level agreements with new hires within 15 minutes, allowing them to join the workforce more quickly.
“We have been building a better model and better efficiencies and at the same time leveraging one of the best facets of Kronos’ Workforce Central® suite with this new
interface,” says Cox. “We can get in the application, make changes in a timely fashion, and then get out to do whatever other job we have to do.”
Leveraging the interfaces between Kindred Healthcare’s enterprise resource planning system and Kronos’ workforce management solutions to create a centralized, integrated system has made work life far easier and more productive for end users and corporate staff who manage and maintain the system. Cox says that with the integration there are no errors or redundant data entry, and data changes require only minutes to make. “The really tight integration allows us to deliver service much faster and so much better,” he adds. “And because it happens in an automated fashion, we’re not constantly having to track down issues.”
Flexible system easily segments workforce data
In some regions of the country, Kindred Healthcare operates 30 facilities within a 50-mile radius and requires several models of workforce data security or access based on the region. The company has found using the centralized Kronos solution to create access control files — which determine a manager’s access to the system — and build segmented employee groups for review to be especially beneficial. A CFO, for example, can view information on specific nursing departments at selected facilities, instead of viewing all staff at a facility, and make comparisons among these departments.
“When managers go into Workforce Timekeeper, they may want to report against one thing and can see it very quickly,” explains Cox. “There is a lot of flexibility in the system. If you’re looking for a system that is agile and nimble in terms of its configuration, this is. Workforce Timekeeper has been a simple system not only to manage, but also for end users to get in and utilize.”
As a case in point, he says that Kindred Healthcare has payroll benefit coordinators in some regions who each process payroll for five facilities. Utilizing features such as Workforce Genies®, HyperFinds™, and employee groups, the coordinators can see a summary of their assigned facilities, as well as look discreetly at specific employee groups facility by facility.
“This brings a lot of power to the corporate business office to manage even ten facilities, or it can be a one-on-one relationship with one timekeeper for every facility,” Cox adds. “This model has let us do some things that we couldn’t have done with a distributed model.”
Partnering enhances workforce management solutions
The path to increased functionality and product enhancements has been a mutual effort between Kronos and Kindred Healthcare, reports Cox, something that he appreciates. “The ability to take feedback and act on it to make a product better is representative of why Kronos is best in the business. Kronos comes to the table not as a vendor, but as a partner who listens to our concerns and strives to make the product
better for us.”
As a Kronos Platinum Plus member, Kindred Healthcare has direct access to a technical account manager for support with technical issues. Cox notes that often within 30 minutes of discussing an issue with a Kronos technical account manager
a solution is found.
“It’s about what Kronos brings to the table as a whole,” he says. “The product works well, but a company is only as good as its people. We have been fortunate to have some really good consultants, from sales to support to engineering. Kronos has listened and listened well, and you don’t always get that from a vendor. We couldn’t be successful without people like this.”
To capitalize further on the benefits that Kindred Healthcare has derived from Kronos workforce management solutions, the company is considering adding additional modules, such as scheduling, in the future.
“All in all, our relationship with Kronos has provided everything that we’ve asked of it,” says Cox, “and as we have new needs, the company works to meet them.”
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