AZ Damiaan Schedules Personnel with Kronos Efficient
The “Algemeen Ziekenhuis Damiaan” in Ostend is a regional general hospital, founded on January 1st 1999 by the fusion of “AZ Heilig Hart” and “AZ Sint Jozef ”. Both hospitals have complementary profiles. The “Heilig Hart” hospital focuses on planned activities, whereas at “Sint Jozef ” the main activities are acute diseases and emergencies. On the long term all activities will be brought together in a newly built hospital at the site of “Heilig Hart”. AZ Damiaan offers a broad variety of medical competencies and care, for a total of 525 beds. On both sites together around 1250 people are employed (A1- and A2- qualified nursing personnel, administrative, cleaning and maintenance staff) and 80 physicians.
The challenge
“To schedule hospital staff in a correct and efficient way is not an easy task. Complex time tables in various shifts, guards and the most effective occupation of all employees need a well devised approach” says Marleen Spileers, director of personnel at “AZ Damiaan”. “Finally we turned to Kronos, as their Kronos Efficient for healthcare offer, is the correct answer to our needs for scheduling in combination with time & attendance”.
Link between scheduling and time & attendance at both sites
One personnel department handles scheduling and time tracking at both sites. “Due to the irregular and complex time tables it is a quite complicated mission to schedule the hospital staff in a efficient way, while being compliant with the ruling regulations and conditions, such as the obliged presence of fixed numbers of medical profiles depending of the number and type of patients present at a certain moment,” tells Marleen Spileers. The original scheduling was done in a very slow, user unfriendly and cumbersome way.
Streamline the administrative processes
The administrative follow up used to be a hard and time consuming job for the personnel department. Payroll changes after closing were tracked and checked with a “post-it” note or by phone and then introduced in the system. Such a manual approach is very sensitive for errors, which happened to cumulate quite often. Furthermore, the payroll partner, hired to execute the payroll administration and to take care of the compliance with the social legislation, did not meet the expectations. “AZ Damiaan” wanted to streamline all these administrative processes, with as main objectives to minimize errors and to gain precious time in the administration.
Selection of the right supplier
Thorough preparation
Marleen Spileers: “At first we looked for a fully integrated system for scheduling and time & attendance, which would allow the re-use of the existing terminals. At this moment these features are in general delivered separately.” After a thorough pre-selection of several suppliers during more or less 6 months, the hospital finally returned to Kronos, who already supplied the software and time tracking terminals. “The integrated Kronos Efficient solution for health care, which they have developed together with a partner, responds the best to the needs of our hospital.” says Spileers.
Exigent scheduling and administration requirements
With the specific requirements for each employee in a hospital, the integrated Kronos Efficient solution had to fulfill quite some criteria. For instance “AZ Damiaan” must be able to check rapidly how many employees at both sites have the early or the late shift. A new employee must be fitted in the existing schedule as from day one, taking into account all the requirements regarding holidays, absences and so on. The solution must allow the creation of very specific control mechanism. A clear view is needed on whether there is an optimal occupation, or what the problems are in the other case, such as for example too few scheduled A1- or A2 qualified nurses.
Link with payroll
The Kronos Efficient for healthcare solution allows “AZ Damiaan” to link the data of the scheduling and planning tool to the payroll software, to assure a correct and timely payment of the salaries. The managers of the departments get one day to correct the deviations in the system. The next day everything is finalized and closed to extract the data. The next day this information is sent to the payroll supplier, who then executes the payment of the personnel.
“We are very happy about the work that has been realized. The solution was operational at the agreed moment, and Kronos always fulfilled their promises. The planners were closely involved in the implementation: in an environment where we work with people, dialog is very important of course. Kronos clearly shows that they share this point of view.” Marleen Spileers, Personnel Director
Next steps?
“AZ Damiaan” foresees to extend the system with a tailor made report generator. However, the integrated Kronos Efficient solution is right now the most adequate tool in the market. “Our planners, the final users, are very satisfied about this solution. The scheduling is done in a much more efficient way and shows a highly improved quality. This saves us about 25% precious time!” continues Marleen Spileers.
Project benefits:
- Integrated solution for complex hospital scheduling and time & attendance tracking
- Use of existing infrastructure & terminals for time & attendance
- Involvement and engagement of planners, the future users, as from the start of the project
- Time savings of over 25% in scheduling and administration AZ Damiaan schedules personnel
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