One of the most serious issues facing healthcare organizations today is the rising cost of providing care, but those expenses don’t just stem from testing and procedures. A significant element contributing to those increased costs are other operational expenses such as providing employee benefits and risk management practices.
Within the larger hospital ecosystem, running a cost-efficient benefit program can significantly cut back on hiring costs and increase employee satisfaction – and that’s just scratching the surface. Though they’re often pushed to the margins, HR departments are actually vital to reducing operating costs and improving the overall experience of healthcare employees and clients. Whether through enhanced technology and reduction of inefficiencies or better support for employees, HR has the power to transform healthcare operations.
Hiring And Training Shifts
HR departments are central to hiring and training, no matter the industry. In the healthcare industry, though, every role comes with added levels of responsibility. Others’ lives are in their hands and every staffing decisions demands simultaneous risk-mitigation. With this in mind, a growing number of HR departments are working to decrease staffing costs and increase satisfaction and long-term career growth by implementing data-driven employee development systems.
These new systems can use existing staff feedback to identify what type of people are most likely to thrive in different roles and they underscore the fact that AI is central to the future of HR. Whether in healthcare or elsewhere, employee experience platforms reduce management costs and help identify what tasks staff members find rewarding and what will help them thrive in their roles. No one wants to stagnate in their careers, especially not passionate medical providers, so identifying growth opportunities can functionally and financially transform healthcare practices.
Managing Operational Inefficiencies
Operating costs include numerous aspects of any healthcare system, from keeping the lights on to making sure doctors are insured, and HR is often in charge of determining whether those systems are optimized. When they’re not, it also falls on HR to help redirect those practices – and finances have become a top target.
With medical costs so high, people regularly struggle to pay their medical bills and healthcare practices expend a lot of time and money trying to contact patients and collect on those bills. Based on analytics systems that determine the efficiency and costs of these practices, many HR departments have concluded that it’s more cost effective to outsource billing and payment processing plans. These are largely high-value but low-skill roles, ones that don’t need to be done in-house since it isn’t actually medical in nature.
In a similar vein, HR departments are also deeply involved with the risk management process and an important part of that is identifying patterns of adverse events that could put the practice at risk, a process that is simplified by improved data capture technology. This allows HR to work directly with physicians who may be introducing unnecessary risk, examine their practices, and require retraining as needed. Similar systems can also highlight other inefficiencies, such as improper facilities scheduling that’s impacting profits.
Encouraging Self-Direction
Though it may take outside intervention to create change, no one knows how they’re performing in a role better than the individual actually doing the job. Barring a few over-confident individuals, most people are good judges of their own competency and potential. Equipped with that knowledge, more HR departments are cutting annual training costs by encouraging staff to self-direct their career development. Video training takes less time and money than conventional approaches and demonstrates what staff members are most motivated toward career advancement.
HR departments want the businesses they oversee to be functional, efficient, and safe –reducing risk while maximizing profit is at the heart of the job. Equipped with increased data to analyze workplace performance and evaluate patterns of problems and successes, this is something of a brave new world for operations management and for HR professionals. With a bird’s eye view of everything happening, no detail goes unnoticed.
