Columbia Memorial Hospital
Situation
Columbia is a Level III Trauma Center. Its financial management needs are considerable. The finance team was drowning in paper, spreadsheets, inconsistent reports, and limited variance reporting. They recognized a real need, but thought investing in a solution like INSIGHTS would not be feasible for a hospital of their size.
Reasons
During budgeting, financials had to be re-keyed into spreadsheets and rolled up into a budget for each department to review. It took weeks of extra hours, late nights, and working weekends to get a final budget everyone was comfortable with.
Monthly Responsibility Reports also were time-consuming, labor-intensive, and paper-based. Variances were a problem. Every month managers would walk into Accounting with a pile of papers asking, “Can you help me figure this out?” No one was tracking who filed variance reports or monitoring how variances were being addressed.
What they needed
A cost-efficient system for budgeting, reporting, monitoring, and decision-making that offered exceptional flexibility, both in how data is entered and how it can be used, and capable of functioning at a deep-detail level.
What we provided
A powerful software and service suite that captures comprehensive raw data, transforms it into useful information instantaneously, and more than pays for itself by reducing time, labor, and stress for healthcare facilities of all sizes.
Some of the results
Reporting speed—All that’s required to close each month is downloading data from the system, uploading it in INSIGHTS, and running alerts. The process has gone from a couple of days, and many reams of paper, to a couple of hours.
Faster budgeting—Budgeting in INSIGHTS has cut down on the extra hours and weekends, and reduced the number of times the budget has to be reviewed and adjusted. Now, when Accounting finishes the first cut of the budget, it is close to final. It’s really budgeting by exception now.
Accuracy of data—Support documents are scanned in or electronically attached to line items to show exactly how each decision was reached. Changes are made automatically in INSIGHTS, so the resulting budgets and reports are more accurate and cleaner.
Accountability—Automatic alerts for variances make managers more aware of issues with their budget and more accountable for fixing them. Now they can drill down on the date right from their desktops and find the information they need to respond.
Finance also can see at a glance which managers have not responded to variances by the due date.
Access to data—INSIGHTS is accessed during Board Finance Committee and senior management meetings. As questions come up, they can drill down and get immediate answers — no more delays in tracking down financial details. The CEO also uses INSIGHTS to get a quick and easy read on what is really going on in the hospital.
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