Streamlining the Business Process
The Challenge
The facilities operations team for Northwestern Memorial Hospital (NMH), one of the country’s premier academic medical centers, wanted to improve service delivery and efficiencies within their department. The facility group employed 130 craft mechanics to maintain over 4 million square feet of space, including 744 beds, professional office space and residential housing. A growing campus environment gave way to multiple service request entry points for the facilities department: incoming calls, email, “shoulder taps”, hand written notes and rounds. As a result, NMH was capturing only a fraction of the total amount of requests entering their department, limiting their ability to efficiently manage labor resources, account for staff time and ensure superior service delivery. Further, with a campus comprised of multiple buildings and managed by multiple teams and individuals, standardization was necessary for the request-to-resolution process and documentation.
In addition to printed work order requests, personnel were dispatched via radio and pager, creating more service challenges. Many times not all of the specifics of the request were disclosed, forcing staff to respond to dispatch for additional information or expend additional effort to track down hospital staff. Second, lack of documentation (found to take place in 20% of the instances) left no room for accountability for the work orders that were reported over radio or pager. Without the ability to trace requests, it was often found that work orders were either lost or no communication was given back to the requestor to let them know if any additional information was needed or if the problem had been resolved.
The client needed a module that would allow them to better document their activity, streamline processes across multiple departments and improve communication among staff, employees and patients as part of a hospital-wide customer service focus.
The Solution
Northwestern Memorial Hospital selected Viasant’s Sentact XM service management platform. The solution was implemented within four weeks, and all craft mechanics, management, dispatch and department leaders began utilizing the platform immediately. Leveraging Sentact’s toolset, NMH consolidated business operations and began capturing and accounting for all service activity. And by utilizing Sentact’s real-time data and reporting tools, up-to-the-minute alerts were created to ensure accurate documentation and guaranteed service response. With Sentact, Northwestern Memorial Hospital found that:
- Business processes were refined and standards were established
- Service requests were consolidated and captured in an easy to use, customized format
- Requestors were given the ability to submit and check status of pending submissions on-line, without dispatcher assistance
- Staff and management were extended a complete view of all relevant activity in their environment, 24/7, from any internet enabled device
- Dispatch and escalation procedures were automated using Sentact’s smart routing and auto paging features
- Departmental leaders customized reports utilizing “My Reports” to track service and staff activity specific to their responsibilities
- Broadcast messages relating important facility issues to hospital staff were integrated into Sentact’s Newsflash tool
The Results
- One-hundred fifty users track and manage their service delivery
- Documentation increased five-fold, while resolution time decreased
- Time consuming and administrative processes were eliminated
- Staff accountability and responsiveness increased
- Service calls to the facilities department were reduced
- Dispatch costs dropped 22% by utilizing lower cost staff to administer workflow