Forrest General Hospital Data Upload Facilitates Performance Tracking with Online Scorecards

Organization

The Forrest General Hospital (FGH) system is a leading provider of healthcare services in the South Mississippi region. It consists of Forrest General Hospital, a 429-bed acute care facility; Pine Grove, an 88-bed chemical dependency and psychiatric unit; Rehab Resource, a 20-bed rehabilitation unit; Lowery A. Woodall Outpatient Surgery Facility; and Forrest General Home Care.

Business Need / Drivers

Performance tracking and scorecard solution

In October, 2004, FGH began a process to implement departmental scorecards across the system. The key issues driving this process included:

• Inconsistent approach and methodology to tracking performance
• Lack of formalized performance tracking in certain areas
• Scattered tracking data and lack of one central repository of all data
• Difficulty for senior leadership and administrators to review and analyzer data

Before this time, FGH was primarily using individual Microsoft Excel files to track key performance measures, for a few selective hospital departments. Although a few hospital areas excelled in tracking their own data, there was lack of top-down strategic approach to performance tracking. As a result, it was difficult to quickly use the data to support any performance improvement initiatives in an efficient manner.

Given these circumstances, FGH hospital decided that the new process needed to have a uniform approach, be web-based, and allow immediate access by all of the senior leadership members. To make this happen, FGH decided to build departmental scorecards using Performance Logic's (PL) HealthCommander.

Challenges

FGH faced both technical and cultural challenges in order to both implement a hospital-wide performance tracking initiative and change from using a multiple-file based tracking process to a web-based system:

• Rapid deployment and training
• Accountability for all VPs and their managers for data input and tracking
• Error-free data upload from existing systems

Process

PL worked closely with FGH to quickly develop FGH's scorecards, and create an data upload process, so that key data (financial and HR) that was already captured in existing systems could be easily and seamlessly uploaded to the appropriate scorecard within HealthCommander at every tracking period.

As soon as performance measures were identified and their data fields mapped, FGH and Performance Logic decided on a monthly schedule for data transfer. Within two weeks of data management on both sides, the first set of performance measure data was sent and uploaded.

Results & ROI

Within three months, FGH was able to view their scorecards on-line and begin sharing information seamlessly across the organization. Specific results from FGH include:

• All 6 VPs/senior leadership positions had their own scorecards setup to track their own respective areas and departments.
• The CEO and VPs have 24-hour access to data from all units and departments, with which to generate real-time, professional quality scorecard reports directly from the system.
• Strategic decision on potential areas of improvement can now be made more readily.
• Line managers and directors are trained and empowered to use the new system, encouraging computer use and fostering accountability.
• Trained users see instant results and are rewarded accordingly during staff reviews with managers.
• Significant data inputting and documentation time has been reduced by 20%-40% and replaced by data analysis and solution assessment time.