AMS’ Operational Diagnostic includes a review of the operating systems and hospital staffing in each cost center to determine appropriate staffing targets and to identify opportunities for improvement in systems and procedures. Both inter-department as well as intra-department issues and barriers to effective utilization of resources are reviewed. The operational diagnostic can be performed as a standalone project or as a follow up to labor benchmarking.
The AMS approach is to achieve the desired goals and objectives by working in close partnership with the hospital senior management staff in a highly customized and focused way. AMS evaluates how each department meets their service and workload goals and challenges. All activities and functions are reviewed and hospital best practices are highlighted.
Key objectives of the Operational Diagnostic are as follows:
- Identify/verify departments that have potential for labor productivity and operating system improvement
- Provide a comparison to other hospitals of similar size and mix of services
- Increase department management buy-in
- Provide a focal point for senior management to discuss labor resource issues
- Establish a starting point for future improvement efforts by identifying barriers to effective utilization of resources
- Serve as a guide in filling vacant positions and development of long-term strategies
The Operational Diagnostic serves as a cornerstone for the development of departmental workload standards for use in AMS’ hosted labor productivity monitoring system Quantify.