Concerns: Where should we invest and how much should we invest to maximize performance?
Healthcare systems must regularly update medical equipment, technology and facilities in order to grow. They must also maintain market share and improve patient outcomes. But with healthcare revenues dependent on government mandates and third-party payers, it’s an ongoing challenge to prioritize the updates, repairs and new projects in which to invest.
Traditionally, this regional health system handled capital planning through a manually updated spreadsheet. Facility managers knew they would only get funding for a few projects, so each facility manager presented the top five or six projects they wanted for that year to upper management. Because all the other, less immediate projects were not included in this presentation, the paperwork presented the false idea that the organization was making progress with deferred maintenance. In reality, facility managers weren’t asking for all the maintenance, repairs and new projects they needed.
The health system uses Brightly TheWorxHub as their CMMS (computerized maintenance management system) to manage their facilities and assets. Next, the health system started using an inventory-based spreadsheet. They exported their inventory from TheWorxHub to a spreadsheet and tried to do a more objective, quantitative calculation to determine which items needed to be replaced. But with 625 locations, it soon became clear that the system was simply too large to effectively manage capital planning via spreadsheet. They needed a robust software solution that was built for capital planning.
Our Approach
The Brightly team implemented enterprise asset management (EAM) in conjunction with TheWorxHub, which integrates seamlessly into other Brightly solutions. The addition of the Brightly Origin capital planning solution streamlines the health system’s capital planning process.
The Results
After implementing Origin, this regional health system’s leaders can easily access predictive investment models to see potential capital expenditures and operating expenditures related to various capital projects. These models use real-time system data so that executives can always see needs and their severity.
As a result, health system leaders understand the lifetime costs of their facilities, with the ability to maximize asset life to reduce future capital outlays, and enhance visibility to minimize the risk of failure, improving daily operations for their staff. This helps finance and operations executives strategically invest every dollar throughout the organization. In this case, as the ultimate measure of success, the hospital board authorized a 5 year, committed, infrastructure capital investment plan.
Health system leaders say the most important positive results of this solution include:
- Risk scoring. After importing their work order and maintenance data into Origin, executives can instantly compare the needs for various facilities or equipment and understand how meeting those needs can affect the lifespan of the asset.
- Complete visibility. In the past, assets like roofs and elevators were often overlooked in favor of air handlers, cooling towers and other items that affect patient satisfaction more immediately. With the new system, executives have a holistic view of all needs across the enterprise and can prioritize and schedule them with a 360-degree view.
- Improved communication. The new capital planning solution makes it much easier for facility-level leaders to communicate with executive leadership clearly and concisely. It also simplifies communication with the board of directors, as the platform makes it easy to show infrastructure needs, priorities and completed projects.
Learn more about Brightly Origin and our Enterprise Asset Management solutions.
