A major New York health system has taken to technology to better manage it’s 50,000 employees, shifting away from a paper-based time and attendance system to Kronos software.
Health Informatics reports that North Shore LIJ, a 16-hospital system on Long Island, is taking to the cloud with an eye toward efficiency and improving the bottom line on labor costs – no small deal for 50,000 employees, which includes 9,400 nurses and 10,000 physicians.
After three years, about 80 percent of the labor force is now on the new software, according to Jim Bosco, vice president of human resources. From Health Informatics:
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“By automating its labor allocation, the hospital system has been able to better control its labor costs, as well as identify trends in how it is allocating its labor resources, [Bosco] says. About 12 percent of the hospital system’s labor force across the board is per diem, with a significant percentage of it being the nursing staff. “By using real-time data, we are starting to look at trends and how we are using our workforce,” [Bosco] says.
Included in the initiative is self-scheduling for the nursing staff. Bosco continues:
“We have technology in place where people can remotely log in from anywhere, to be able to schedule themselves. They can log in at any time of the day to see what is available when the schedules get posted, and the nursing leadership is able to approve or do whatever they need to do online.”
While the health system will undoubtedly achieve great efficiencies within its own workforce, cloud-based HR systems aren’t exactly new. It’s perhaps telling – with no offense intended to North Shore – of how healthcare needs to catch up with certain technologies.
