University Health Care

Kronos^® for Healthcare Improves Workforce Productivity for Regional Healthcare Provider

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University Health Care is an integrated healthcare provider, anchored by its 551-bed University Hospital campus in Augusta, GA. Founded in 1818, the hospital is now one of the largest healthcare providers in Georgia. It employs 3,400 people, serves 25 counties in Georgia and South Carolina, and is known for its cardiovascular, oncology, and women's services.

Until recently University Health Care used multiple systems to track employee time and attendance, administer employee benefits, and process payroll. As a result, the organization wrestled with several ongoing issues — staffers who approved worked hours could not easily run necessary reports; timecard editing was difficult and inefficient; and human resources needed easier access to employee information. In addition, the hospital wanted to bring payroll processing for its executive staff in house.

University Health Care decided it needed an integrated workforce management system from a single provider. After investigating available solutions, the hospital turned to the Kronos for Healthcare suite, which eliminated time-consuming, outdated processes, increasing productivity. "Now our organization accomplishes much more with the same number of people," says Ed Boniewicz, the hospital's manager of financial and business systems.

Improving administrative, payroll, and human resources productivity

Before switching to Kronos for Healthcare, administrative staffers managing employee timecards were frustrated by applications and processes that made it difficult to approve and edit timecards or create historical reports. Using the Workforce Timekeeper™ application, staffers display employee information on a single screen to easily make time edits and reports, improving productivity of these tasks.

The Workforce Payroll™ program also improves payroll processing productivity. Instead of outsourcing payroll for its executive staff, University Health Care pulled the process in-house. "The whole process is much faster and easier since the information we need is at our fingertips," says Rhea Morgan, manager general business services. "It's very simple to print wage verifications and W2s directly from the system. We can also easily complete our quarterly tax forms, which we couldn’t do before."

University Health Care's human resources department had similar inefficiencies. "We kept all of our employees' historical data in paper files," says HR operations manager Helen Arthur-Webb. "Current information was in several systems that were not in sync." Using the Workforce HR™ application, University Health Care's human resources department now has easy access to employee information pulled from a central database. "Having current and historical benefits information in one integrated system is a big plus," she says.

Before implementing Kronos for Healthcare, data had to be entered into separate applications for each task, which increased the likelihood of errors. "Now when changes are made to employees' healthcare coverage, deductions are automatically applied to their paychecks," explains Arthur-Webb.

Engaging employees, empowering managers

Kronos self-service capabilities further improve productivity. Self-service features in the Workforce Employee™ program eliminate the need for payroll to provide past-earnings statements to employees who request wage verifications for loan applications. Before, a payroll employee had to walk to a separate area in the hospital to access microfilm-based records to produce documents on a special microfilm printer. W2s from previous years were created on a typewriter.

Employee self-service paid off during the hospital's recent benefits open enrollment. Over 1,400 employees used the web-enabled Kronos solution to participate. Some employees signed up for benefits online, others printed electronic forms, and then filled out and submitted them. "It was our best open enrollment ever," says Arthur-Webb. "It took much less time to enter data — and it was much easier to get approvals because we knew we had current information. Previously, when we used printed forms we'd often get duplicates, and didn't know which was the latest version." The hospital plans to implement a completely electronic process for future open enrollments, Boniewicz adds.

High-quality information enhances visibility and control

More productive benefits administration is a boon, but the major benefit of Kronos for Healthcare has been easier access to information. "Managers and employees used go to HR or payroll to get the data; now information is readily available," Boniewicz says.

For department heads, the self-service capabilities in the Workforce Manager™ application simplify administrative tasks. "Manager self-service provides useful information, like when employee evaluation forms are due," Boniewicz adds, "as well as information about our organizational structure."

Easy access to labor-related information helps decision-making. For example, payroll data is used to create monthly reports, which department heads and vice presidents use to analyze and manage various metrics, such as the number of worked hours and budget variances. "It's very helpful because we can statistically identify if departments are on track," Boniewicz says.

Human resources is also happy with the improved reporting. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reports are easier to generate, and the department uses Workforce HR to easily track employees' licenses and certifications for compliance with The Joint Commission standards.

A Kronos phone-based timekeeping system tracks patient visits and mileage logged by private-duty nurses working for the hospital's home healthcare agency. Besides eliminating tedious recordkeeping, the system will soon track specific healthcare activities performed by agency nurses.

Looking ahead

Today, Kronos for Healthcare enables University Health Care to work smarter, not harder. Administrators and managers at all levels can now focus on strategic activities related to recruiting, retaining, and rewarding employees to improve patient care while controlling labor costs. "We have the same number of people, but we're busier than ever," says Arthur-Webb. "Now we're tracking so much data and we have the analysis and reporting tools to continuously improve."

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