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In The News

WRX announces its 2010 Hospital Scholarship Program

Posted on: August 16th, 2010 at 3:54 pm EST

HUDSON, Fla., August. 16, 2010 -- Workforce Prescriptions ("WRX") announced on Monday the opening of their annual Audit Scholarship Program to commence Tuesday, August 17th. 

Every year, WRX invites organizations who, based on unique and extraordinary circumstances, find themselves in challenging financial situations and provides a comprehensive labor and productivity audit with 2 years of free implementation at a nearly 60% reduction from Tier I pricing!
 
In 2010, WRX has selected 5 hospitals that qualify and will be sending scholarship invitations to them this week. Facilities not specifically invited, but who have compelling stories of extraordinary hardship, are encouraged to apply directly for the scholarship at: http://www.workforcerx.org/scholarship_signup.php
 
Organizations awarded the scholarship will receive a detailed audit that evaluates their labor standing utilizing data gathered through onsite interviews, online surveys and private portal driven data requests of over 1500 data items.  At the culmination of the audit, 3 reports will be generated and specific findings and recommendations for change presented.  Should the organization decide to pursue any of the recommendations, WRX travels onsite to facilitate change, design or provide software development for a period of up to two years at no cost.
 
WRX’s Labor Utilization Audits are focused on assisting organizations to reduce labor expense without reducing staff and have produced an average of nearly $7,000,000 in annual bottom line savings in nearly 170 health systems.
 
About the Labor Utilization Audit
Information on the Labor Utilization Audit can be found at: http://www.workforcerx.org/services_lua.php
 
About Workforce Prescriptions
Workforce Prescriptions is an "evidence based" consulting firm headquartered in Hudson, FL that provides assistance to hospitals desiring to: enhance their revenue opportunities, reduce their cost of labor & length of stay or to improve their human capital practices. Workforce Prescriptions focuses primarily in the not-for-profit sector of healthcare in order to "assist those organizations whose own mission requires them to take extraordinary risks in order to ensure access to quality healthcare for the neediest of American's."
 
Workforce Prescriptions can be contacted at (888) 343-8403 or online at http://www.workforcerx.org
 
 
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WRX Launches Healthcare Productivity Benchmarking Initiative

Posted on: May 27th, 2010 at 8:27 pm EST

HUDSON, Fla., May. 27, 2010/ -- Workforce Prescriptions ("WRX") announced on Wednesday an open invitation to participate in a research based productivity benchmarking initiative for adult acute hospitals. 

"Our goal in establishing this initiative is to provide adult acute hospitals access to high-quality, externally valid, comparative productivity data based on reasonable workload parameters reflective of the actual work that drives individual department labor dependency . . . and to do so at no cost. After all, it is their data – why should they pay to compare it", states Dean Kristiniak, COO of the company.
 
Long term evaluations of hundreds of hospitals post “benchmarking site visit” validates that many of the current measures and methodologies of hospital productivity benchmarking fail to capture either the actual work driving labor utilization or the unique operating circumstances that can create a huge diversity of work requirements from seemingly similar volumes. Specifically, the company believes that failing to consider levels of automation, the intrusion of collective bargaining, facility size and volume variability/volatility is a guaranteed way of ensuring the comparison of apples to oranges.
 
Charlie Dawson, President of Workforce Prescriptions claims, “It is neither valid nor accurate to use the oversimplified measure of, Patient Days as THE GOLD STANDARD MEASURE of productivity for a majority of departments in a hospital even if that hospital happened to be identical in every other way to all other hospitals in the benchmarking study group. Even for inpatient nursing departments, “adjusted patient days” provides a more valid dataset for comparison than simple Patient Days. With an adjusted patient day measure, at least some attempt has been made to accommodate variances in acuity & type of care provided. 
 
He goes on to say, “For other department types, individual workload measures have long been missing three important traits:
 
  •  that they be reflective of the actual work driving labor demand, which often isn’t patient volume
  • that they are readily comparable between facilities with different volumes, patient types and geographical/payer disparities
  • and that they are comprised of data readily available to the average institution. 
The measures established for this benchmarking effort are the result of collaboration with dozens of hospitals intent on overcoming all such issues and we look forward to sharing the joy of hospitals all over the country who realize that they will finally be able to compare meaningful data with hundreds of other hospitals and that they can do so for free!”
 
The organization expects that word of mouth, the participation of current and previous clients as well as a targeted outreach will result in a rapidly expand the pool of participating hospitals that will reach statistical significance within 90 days. But not all the executives agree on this!
 
“It will be really interesting to see how quickly hospitals sign up to participate in the initiative”, states Keith Bush, the firms CIO and creator of the custom privacy portal for the initiative. He poses some brutal questions of the industry when asking, “I wonder how many hospitals out there who have been spending $50,000, $100,000 or even $200,000 per year for productivity benchmarking data from third party vendors will hear about this new initiative and think, “It’s too good to be true”, or, “It must be junk to be offered for free”? But eventually, they will hear from a peer who has participated, that what we have built here (as a service to the industry) is actually best in breed. I think it will take until then for some of them to finally pull the trigger.”
 
Whether Mr. Bush is right or not remains to be seen, but one thing is certain . . . Workforce Prescriptions is well known for pushing the envelope of what “mission driven” means!  Says Mr. Dawson, “But isn’t that what a lifestyle/retirement company is for? . . . doing all those things that companies needing to earn a living wish they could do - but would wreck their bottom line if they tried?”
 
About WRX’s Productivity Benchmarking Initiative
 
Information on the Productivity Benchmarking Initiative can be found at:
To participate in the initiative, go to: 

 About Workforce Prescriptions

Workforce Prescriptions is an "evidence based" consulting firm headquartered in Hudson, FL that provides assistance to hospitals desiring to: enhance their revenue opportunities, reduce their cost of labor & length of stay or to improve their human capital practices. Workforce Prescriptions focuses primarily in the not-for-profit sector of healthcare in order to "assist those organizations whose own mission requires them to take extraordinary risks in order to ensure access to quality healthcare for the neediest of American's."
 
Workforce Prescriptions can be contacted at (888) 343-8403 or online at http://www.workforcerx.org

 

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The Pay Practice Audit gets a new name!

Posted on: January 8th, 2010 at 10:53 am EST

HUDSON, Fla., Jan. 8/ -- Workforce Prescriptions ("WRX") announced on Friday that it is changing the name of its premier service offering (the Pay Practice Audit). 

"It was time for a name that was more descriptive of the service", says Charlie Dawson, the company's President.  He goes on to state, "We aren't providing a compensation audit, what we are actually doing is examining the root causes and contributing factors of labor waste and determining the best way to reduce a hospital's overall labor dependence without impacting employee/patient satisfaction or quality of care.  The name of the service had itself become misleading and feedback from many customers informed our decision to make this change." 

The new name of the service is the Labor Utilization Audit, which according to company insiders is far more descriptive of the focus and intent of its efforts.

Dean Kristiniak, COO of Workforce Prescriptions says, "Labor Utilization is not about who you pay but about what they are doing and the results produced. The goal of efficiency should be improved productivity (reducing your "cost per output" while not diminishing your capacity). Unfortunately, challenges in: managing staff schedules, governing staff behavior, organizing care, creating patient synergy and optimizing work processes all contribute to unhealthy relationships between revenue and labor and ultimately undermine the sustainability of most productivity and throughput initiatives."

Mr. Dawson agrees and adds, "At Workforce Prescriptions, we strive to provide solutions that optimize rather than downsize a workforce by reconnecting labor spending with revenue! By first determining the root causes of labor misalignment and then implementing "people sensitive" changes, WRX is able to create and sustain permanent labor cost reductions that are backed by a $1,000,000 (One Million) dollar annual bottom line guarantee."

About the Labor Utilization Audit

Information on the Labor Utilization Audit can be found at: http://www.workforcerx.org/services_lua.php

About Workforce Prescriptions

Workforce Prescriptions is an "evidence based" consulting firm headquartered in Hudson, FL that provides assistance to hospitals desiring to: enhance their revenue opportunities, reduce their cost of labor & length of stay or to improve their human capital practices. Workforce Prescriptions focuses primarily in the not-for-profit sector of healthcare in order to "assist those organizations whose own mission requires them to take extraordinary risks in order to ensure access to quality healthcare for the neediest of American's."

Workforce Prescriptions can be contacted at (888) 343-8403 or online at http://www.workforcerx.org

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WRX Launches National Labor Efficiency Quality Award

Posted on: September 9th, 2009 at 6:23 pm EST

WRX Launches National Labor Efficiency Quality Award

HUDSON, Fla., Sept. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Workforce Prescriptions ("WRX") announced on Tuesday the launch of the Paradigm Award. The Paradigm Award is a national quality award, funded by a private endowment, developed to honor hospitals that have gone above and beyond in their efforts to foster efficient labor practices without resorting to workforce reductions or dramatic top-down mandates.
 
"It's not an easy thing to make the paradigm shift in understanding required to see that the number of staff or hours worked are NOT the primary culprits of labor dependency," states Charlie Dawson, President of Workforce Prescriptions. He goes on to say, "It took us 3 years of gathering over 1500 data points on hundreds of hospitals just to determine what the root causes of labor waste actually were. It is no wonder that many healthcare leaders believe that downsizing and wholesale program cutting are the best ways to attack labor expense."
 
Workforce Prescriptions, the award sponsor, defines itself with a single philosophy: While it may be quicker and easier to cut jobs or mandate program changes, the only long term sustainable way of reducing labor expense is to first identify the root causes of the waste . . . the broken & legacy processes, missed communications, mathematical difficulties of staff scheduling, outdated measurements & policies that fail to address expensive behaviors.
 
Dean Kristiniak, COO of Workforce Prescriptions comments, "The Paradigm Award is an extremely significant achievement! Based on initial benchmarking, only a very few select organizations are performing (in labor management) at a level that will qualify them for the award. Their successes in creating measurable improvements in labor efficiency without unduly burdening staff or requiring artificial accountability define them as organizations with exemplary leadership teams and cultures of care!"
 
As a result of the difficulty of sustaining labor excellence, the award will be conferred during a press conference where: the organization's accomplishments are detailed, a national press release & white paper are launched, the statue is conferred, celebration support material bearing the Paradigm logo are provided and a cash award of $10,000 is presented to the hospital.
 
There is no fee for application and any adult acute hospital can begin the process by signing up for and completing an online self assessment. The self assessment requires "C" level staff to rate their institution in 84 dimensions of labor competence. The sponsoring organization is very encouraging of hospitals that want to apply but aren't sure if their performance level is high enough to win.
 
According to Keith Bush, CIO at WRX, "When applying, hospitals shouldn't worry about whether they are already efficient with labor. We have automated the self assessment, allowing them to move through the application process at their own pace, and we don't charge an application fee, encouraging every hospital to participate. One of the great things we've been able to produce is a Pay IQ report for most US hospitals which can be found on our website at http://www.workforcerx.org. This report will give a hospital a quick view of their labor efficiency and allow them to more effectively determine their standing. Completing the self assessment will allow them to further identify areas of opportunities as the gap report it produces is designed to allow them to begin making improvements without the need to hire consultants or file a formal application!"
 
Those who do achieve qualifying scores on the self assessment will be contacted directly and will be invited to complete a formal application, reviewed by the award committee that requests key documents, reports, interviews and other information necessary to validate the results of the self assessment.
 
More information about the Paradigm Award as well as step-by-step instructions for applying can be found at: http://www.paradigmaward.org/
 
About Workforce Prescriptions

Workforce Prescriptions is an evidence-based consulting firm headquartered in Hudson, FL that provides assistance to hospitals desiring to: enhance revenues, reduce their cost of labor & length of stay or to improve their work practices/processes. Workforce Prescriptions focuses primarily in the not-for-profit sector of healthcare in order to "assist those organizations whose own mission requires them to take extraordinary risks in order to ensure access to quality healthcare for the neediest of Americans." Workforce Prescriptions can be found online at: http://www.workforcerx.org

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WRX Launches Hospital Labor Waste Calculator

Posted on: April 16th, 2009 at 6:02 pm EST

(Hospitals target the disease, not the symptoms)

 HUDSON, Fla., April 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Workforce Prescriptions ("WRX") announced on Friday the launch of a no-cost online tool developed to allow hospitals to estimate their unique labor waste derived from 7 sources:

  • Overtime utilization
  • Agency utilization
  • Other "Premium Pay" utilization
  • Excessive length of stay driven by avoidable days
  • Process labor waste
  • Productivity labor waste
  • General labor waste 

 "The tool was developed by analyzing data provided by over 140 adult acute hospitals who have participated in detailed labor efficiency audits over the last 3 years," states Dean Kristiniak, Vice President of Key Service Lines. He goes on to state, "It took some work to clarify linkages in order to distinguish between root causes and correlating factors in order to produce reasonably accurate estimates based on just a few key data points."

 "Our goal in providing this tool to the marketplace is to elevate the discussion of alternatives to traditional methods of reducing labor expense. We'd like to move the industry past conversations of FTE (full time employee) or workforce reductions into conversations about the practices and processes that are at the root of unnecessary labor dependence and ultimately labor waste," states Charlie Dawson, President. He continues, "While we know that this tool produces only a remedial analysis of cause & effect, we've discovered it provides a valuable touch-point for senior leadership teams wanting to explore alternatives to optimizing labor without reducing staff."

 WRX speaks and writes frequently about a single paradigm, "To assume that the most effective manner of reducing labor expense is to reduce the availability of labor" is to consciously choose to jeopardize:

  • employee engagement
  • workforce flexibility
  • & physician willingness to refer

"When you lower employee engagement, lower access to labor, reduce workforce flexibility and risk the revenue that physician referrals represent, you have just created the perfect storm for yourself," states Keith Bush, CIO/Vice President of Analytics.

 WRX audits illustrate that any financial benefit derived from a reduction in staff is nearly always lost over the following 30 months. Data further validates that RIF's (reduction in force) can engender circumstances where higher paid staff are required to assume the duties of downsized lower paid staff resulting in a raised cost-per-hour of labor within the organization. "Over time, this creates the opposite result of what was intended," states Mr. Dawson. "We now see hospitals paying a $25-40/hr RN to complete the tasks that were previously provided by an $8-12/hr unit secretary. Not only does this take the RN out of direct patient care for a larger amount of time, but it requires that the organization find a way to back-fill the clinical expertise the RN can no longer provide."

  John Delaney, Sr. VP of Client services comments, "We have all heard the mantra: No money - no mission, but we'd like healthcare to begin embracing some of the core productivity, process and business competencies that have become the cornerstone of bottom line performance in other industries. In a market rife with staff shortages, access to labor (having enough of the right kind of staff at the right time) must be preserved."

 "In the final tally, healthcare isn't like a manufacturing business and patients can't be managed like an assembly line. The only product involved is the productive labor of staff (and staffing benchmarks don't tell that part of the story). What our industry struggles with is identifying the work processes, automation levels or unique operational pressures that drive human behavior and force labor waste," states Mr. Kristiniak. "We are hoping this tool is able to provide a low-touch/high impact insight into some of these mitigating factors to enable more robust decision making, so that as an industry, we can target the disease and not just the symptoms."

 The tool can be found at: http://www.workforcerx.org/recaptureCalculator.php

  About Workforce Prescriptions

Workforce Prescriptions is an "evidence based" consulting firm headquartered in Hudson, FL that provides assistance to hospitals desiring to: enhance revenues, reduce their cost of labor & length of stay or to improve their work practices/processes. Workforce Prescriptions focuses primarily in the not-for-profit sector of healthcare in order to "assist those organizations whose own mission requires them to take extraordinary risks in order to ensure access to quality healthcare for the neediest of American's."

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