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In The News

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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WRX Expands Nationally to Provide Help & Hope to Nation's Hospitals

Posted on: March 5th, 2009 at 5:16 pm EST

HUDSON, Fla., March 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Workforce Prescriptions ("WRX") announced on Friday that it would be expanding its services nationwide in a move targeted to bring relief to thousands of hospitals previously not served.

 WRX, a mission driven firm headquartered in Hudson, FL has spent the last 3 years working primarily with faith-based hospitals, assisting them in reducing labor costs without having to resort to reductions in staff or services.

 Through the auspices of their "Pay Practice Audit(TM)," Workforce Prescriptions analyzes hospital labor waste derived from a variety of sources such as; agency and premium pay use, challenges in staffing/scheduling, avoidable delays in care/discharge that drive up length-of-stay, workforce productivity and the governance of key workplace policies/processes. WRX then makes specific recommendations designed to reduce expense without reducing people. "Since labor expense represents as much as 50% of all the costs of operating a hospital, becoming more efficient with labor can have nearly a dollar-for-dollar impact on profitability," states John Delaney, Senior Vice-President of Client Services.

 "Unique to our firm is an evidence based approach that seeks not just correlation but the 'root causes' of labor waste and then stays in the game with customers through implementation to guarantee a return to the bottom line," says company President Charlie Dawson. He goes on to state, "This is why we offer a $1,000,000.00 annual recapture guarantee. We get to know the people, processes and pressures that foster waste and work with the organization to solve problems in a non-judgmental, results focused manner that returns millions of dollars to the bottom line."

 WRX's phone rings steadily with requests for assistance from traditional not-for-profit and for-profit hospitals all of whom are bearing an increased burden from diminishing reimbursements/uncompensated care compounded by rising labor costs. Company leaders reached the decision to make their services available to non faith-based hospitals during a planning meeting held in 2008. "It was just getting too difficult to keep saying NO to all the hospitals that were seeking our help. So we made our expansion plans and automated some key aspects of our services to allow us to help any organization who reached out to us," stated Dean Kristiniak, Vice President of Key Service lines. "It was time our mission expanded to encompass all of healthcare and not just the faith-based segments. With the changes we have made, we are now able to successfully help hundreds rather than dozens of hospitals each year."

 Workforce prescriptions charges a nominal fee for their audit, guarantees results and then provides onsite implementation support that includes facilitation, change management and even software (when needed) to drive the results required to reach and sustain profitability. In 2008, WRX identified an average of $6.38M in annual bottom-line returns for each customer (at a cost of less than 1% of the return).

 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 Changes "Pay Practice Optimization" to "Pay Practice Audit"

Posted on: April 30th, 2007 at 6:42 pm EST

HUDSON, Fla., April 30, 2007/ --  In a move designed to reduce dependence and expense, WRX announced today that it will be phasing out its “Pay Practice Optimization” service line in favor of its more scalable “Pay Practice Audit”.

“This move is the final step in aligning our own business practices with our mission”, states Dean Kristiniak, VP of Client Services, ”it allows us to spend less time in up-front auditing and more time as volunteers actually guiding our clients through the often challenging and scary process of change”.
 
“Knowing that we spend an inordinate of our time supporting inner-city not-for-profit health systems who truly shouldn’t afford the extraordinary costs associated with fully custom consulting has driven us to design an automated front end to our services that allows our time and attention to be focused on ensuring the best possible results for our clients”, says Charlie Dawson, President of Workforce Prescriptions.   He continues, “The Pay Practice audit will costs only 30% of the original service offering and with our new focus on implementation (supported at this time at no expense) will allow us to guarantee a bottom line savings”!
 
The organization frequently articulates a deep disapproval of consulting firms who charge little for a diagnosis but who then “load up” the back-end costs of implementation. “It’s kind of like paying a physician $25 for proof that you have a debilitation disease. That’s not the bad part, you already knew something was very wrong. The bad part is when he guarantees he can cure you but that the cost of the cure is $2.5MM even though it requires only 1 pill per day. A lot of consulting firms “feel” like that to hospitals and that is not at all a practice we intend to replicate”, claims Michelle Dawson, the firms CFO.
 
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."
 
Workforce Prescriptions can be reached at (888) 343-8403 or online at http://www.workforcerx.org
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