Optimale inzet van het zorgpersoneel bij Máxima MC dankzij Power BI

Máxima MC's supply and demand of staff is optimally matched thanks to capacity management based on Power BI.

Máxima MC (MMC) is the largest medical center in the Southeast Brabant region with branches in two locations (Eindhoven and Veldhoven). With the overarching SMART program, MMC was working toward an increasingly efficient way of working. Within this program, some €3 million per year in improvement targets were provided for capacity management. Through capacity management, MMC maps out the expected demand for care and ensures that the right capacities (especially staff) are scheduled at the right time. This prevents under- and overcapacity. "Hospital finances are under pressure and it is increasingly difficult to find good healthcare staff. We therefore want to provide maximum care with the people we have and not schedule care providers when the work is not there. People do not like it when there is nothing to do," says Bart Visscher, capacity management and BI consultant at MMC.

Plan Do Check Act

Bart now has more than 15 years of experience in capacity management in healthcare. "I lived and worked in New Zealand for twelve years and together with some Kiwis founded our own company in capacity management for healthcare. When this company was acquired by an American company I ran into limitations. I wanted to move forward with new techniques, such as Power BI, but the company wanted to continue using our outdated original platform. From that interest, I ended up at MMC, where I have now been working for five years," Bart explains. Previously, capacity at MMC was mainly determined from a budgeting process. This did not properly anticipate seasonal patterns and daily variations in demand for care. Bart: "There was more individual planning per department. Now we meet daily with all department heads. Every week we discuss the planning for the coming weeks. We use a Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle (PDCA), for which information from the BI tooling is indispensable."

Automate and optimize

Bart went to work himself with a number of analyses based on his extensive experience: "I used the free version of Power BI to convert hospital data into a dashboard with relevant management information for planning. However, this still involved a lot of manual operations." To further automate and optimize the capacity management based on Power BI, MMC engaged Acknowledge. "We converted the manual basic dashboards into the future-proof application CMI 2.0 for the right availability, reliability and scalability," says Remi Anthonise, BI consultant at Acknowledge. This support allows MMC to make more informed decisions. "As a result of contemporary technology and medical developments, a transition is taking place from inpatient care - where patients are admitted for a few days - to more day treatment and outpatient care. Patients generally like this much better ánd it is more economical. It is essential that we adjust our planning accordingly," Bart explains.

During the corona crisis

Unfortunately, the project was not completed within the planned timeframe. "Due to changes in the composition of the team, uncertainties in the assignment and the impact of the corona crisis, we had to deal with some considerable challenges," Remi explains. Behind the scenes, Acknowledge provided the technology behind the data collection from systems and the construction of a data warehouse. Fortunately, most of this infrastructure was in place when the corona crisis began. Bart: "The staging and basic tables of the data warehouse were complete, so I was able to put this part into production after all. The fact that we already had quite a piece in place absolutely helped us manage the many capacity challenges around COVID. We were able to respond very quickly to the information needs for scheduling totally unknown COVID care. Without being formally live, CMI 2.0 was already in use by some 200 end users, and very much appreciated!"

High absenteeism

During corona time, there is a fairly high absenteeism rate among staff. This fluctuates greatly over time and by department. "It is crucial to know how many people we actually have available in the daily and weekly planning. In addition, we want to know how many people are sitting at home because they are awaiting test results or are sick. For these issues, too, we were able to quickly provide relevant daily insights that support our approach," Bart explains. "We also introduced a number of important things as an organization, such as a joint flexpool (Harmonica Services), for example. All departments provide staff for this safety net. As soon as someone is sick, we always have one or two people ready to fill in immediately. Our dashboards provide insight into where the problems are each day. The teams report that this gives a lot of peace of mind, because people are no longer constantly being texted with urgent requests to fill in shifts of sick colleagues."

Intended results achieved

MMC is now equipped with a flexible data platform. "With the foundation laid by Acknowledge, I could easily set up my own analyses via self-service BI," says Bart. Thanks to Acknowledge's data warehouse, MMC has the tooling to get to work itself and regain control of their own data and environment. The organization is very satisfied with the total package that is now offered and the decision-making and advice that is delivered based on the information. Bart: "The intended results for capacity management have been achieved. I would therefore give the project and the cooperation a nine, despite the delays. The fact that we can run capacity management like that and also with the corona crisis we were able to respond to it so quickly, that has just proven to be very valuable."