Why Healthcare Reporting?
Managed services is not a one-size-fits-all solution for resourcing challenges in the healthcare world, but there are areas where working with a strategic partner can help solve specific, tactical issues – and provide unexpected benefits beyond the scope of the original agreement. Managed services works best when a healthcare system has large volumes of routine tasks that are require reasonably similar expertise and tools. Healthcare reporting is a great example as data volumes, and therefore requests for data, are constantly increasing and fulfilling these volumes requires a team of strong technical resources.
What makes healthcare reporting teams unique from other IT teams is the broad subject matter expertise required to address requests from across the enterprise – clinical, financial, access, quality and more. On top of being exceptional from a technical perspective, reporting team members need to take a consultative approach to their work because data requests are often highly customized and require significant end user interaction and scoping.
Resources with this mix of skills and experience are scarce and that scarcity makes it very difficult to recruit, train and retain top talent. Many health systems’ HR departments are not able to compete with salaries and benefits offered and find themselves in a hamster wheel of recruitment and training. As a result, reporting staff tends to be undertrained, under skilled and cannot keep up with increased demand or with the complex nature of the work.
For these reasons, healthcare reporting tends to be the perfect space to explore a managed services staffing model.
Success Story
The Unexpected Benefits of Healthcare Reporting
The primary goal of managed reporting is to take the day-to-day work off of an internal team’s plate. We’ve also repeatedly seen, however, three unexpected benefits of working with a managed reporting team including:
‘Up-level’ Your Team
Because a managed reporting team is able to bring a high level of expertise that transcends geography and is available full time, we pair our folks with the organization’s team to serve as direct mentors to those who might be struggling professionally or technically. We view what we bring to the table as the player/coach mentality. This enables the work to get done. It also contributes to the longer-term development of an organization’s core staff.
Many clients tend to end up in a climate of attrition. They’re typically willing to explore anything they can do to support or retain staff. Examples of the player/coach model in action include peer code review to optimize resource usage and office hours for drop-in questions. Up-leveling has been the biggest unexpected benefit to many organizations. The goal is to remove the burden, not the employees. A managed reporting solution enables FTE employees to focus on the important work they were hired to do.
Resourcing Flexibility
Healthcare systems facing attrition and lack of available reporting and analytics resources have difficulty properly staffing these roles. As projects evolve, resource needs also can change. Training existing employees on a new technology or methodology can take time many overburdened IT departments simply don’t have. A managed reporting model brings the ability to flex knowledge, skills and abilities dynamically as projects shift. Take data warehousing for example. First, organizations need a data architect. After the build, they need an analyst. Managed services makes that transition seamless. This can’t be done in a traditional FTE resourcing model. The key difference is a managed reporting model is able to be nimble as needs change from day-to-day. It’s also able to anticipate needed skills before an issue arises. This resourcing flexibility can further enhance your department’s efficacy.
Soft Cost Savings
It’s important when considering a managed reporting model to remember soft cost savings. This can transcend the cost of the actual managed reporting work. For example, let’s look at the cost of the day-to-day management of people. Our managed reporting team places experienced resources on an organization’s team, thus eliminating the time and effort needed for recruiting. We also take care of onboarding and remove mundane managerial tasks. This can include the procurement of the new hire’s laptop, setting up their access and more. This generates soft cost savings as well as significant time savings for the management team.
The goal of managed healthcare reporting is to be to a lower-cost option than general staff augmentation. It’s also intended to take significant day-to-day work off the organization’s plate. There are, however, unexpected benefits of up-leveling staff skills, resourcing flexibility and soft cost savings. This can yield untapped, exponential value.
Want to free yourself up to focus on strategy? Contact our managed services experts.
