Imaging department reduces staffing hours, improves productivity

After 17 months of hard work, employees at the Schneck Medical Center in Seymour, Ind., successfully decreased staffing hours in their diagnostic imaging department while increasing staff productivity and workforce engagement.

How did they do it? Two of those employees—Rita Baker, director of diagnostic imaging, and Suki Wright, director of organizational excellence and innovation—spoke with RadiologyBusiness.com about their experience.

Baker and Wright said the medical center’s diagnostic imaging department was operating well above the 50th percentile ActionOI benchmark for staffing hours. It was clear something had to be done, so a plan was put into action.

A central part of that plan was continuous communication. Where other workplaces may be quiet about potential staffing changes, leading to skepticism and distrust among employees, Baker and Wright said they always communicated as much as possible.

“When we first started, we wanted to show them the big picture of our organization and that it wasn’t just their department that we were looking at,” Wright said. “We showed them what we were seeing and asked them, ‘if this was the business you were running and you were losing money, and you see that you’re over the benchmark for staffing ... what would you do?’”

Baker added that all employees were kept up to date instead of just high-ranking officials.

“We were as transparent as we possibly could be with staff and tried to communicate as much as possible with all shifts and all staff,” Baker said. 

The team took several steps to decrease staffing hours at Schneck Medical Center. They evaluated workflows, modified shift times, and created task forces to look into specific issues.  

Baker and Wright said one step that stood out was the cross-training they carried out with all employees. This created a significant shift in attitude, they said, making employees much more likely to work together.

Another big part of the process was clarifying each employee’s role.

“Sometimes, there were some gray areas,” Wright said. “And working through that, having that outlined and having the staff participate in that, was very good.”

At the end of their 17-month journey, Baker and Wright said customer service remained high, which they worried about with the reduction in staffing hours. In addition, productivity rose, and anonymous surveys showed that workforce engagement had increased.

And perhaps the biggest news of all for Schneck Medical Center was that no downsizing was required.

Though the medical center never wanted to downsize, Baker and Wright said there was a time when they believed that might be a possibility.

“We thought we were going to have to reduce staff,” Baker said. “But once it came down to it, things worked out.”

Part of the reason “things worked out,” Baker explained, was the open, honest communication. Some employees changed departments, for instance, while others who were already considering retirement went forward and retired after the staff gathered to discuss the situation.

“There are advantages of doing your due diligence and trying to improve efficiency and drilling down instead of just kind of slashing across the board,” Wright said.  

Baker and Wright went on to share their success with others in the healthcare industry, presenting their findings at the AHRA Annual Meeting 2015 in Las Vegas.