The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office made an issue date of June 1st 2010 for our Patent No.7,729,935 (“Method and Apparatus for Managing Workflow”), including the granting of 20 exclusive claims. The benefits are exciting, ‘no worries’ about infringing upon some elses ideas. With cloud technology peeping over the horizon and security issues and HIPAA compliance trying to keep pace, we stay on the cutting edge and our product’s built in philosophy of PLAN, ASSIGN, FOLLOW UP and REPORT can now reach out to all businesses, all hospitals, banks and manufacturing, large or small.

This year we have two goals:

1. To make myfrontline so user friendly, on line consultants will be at a minimum, thereby lowering costs even more.

2. Allow single departments anywhere in the English speaking world use myfrontline for a very small monthly user fee.

We have already set up on the internet a test system for anyone to request a Frontline manual access (that is without an interface). At this time one hospital behind its fire wall with its HIMS (Medical Records) department is using Frontline as a stand alone without an interface. They use the Frontline Scheduling System to plan and track their staff hours and a shared Google document to track and summarize individual performances. The Supervisors manually enter the shifts summarized volumes into Frontline which integrates the information as it does for all the other departments productivity. These other departments may be on the automated interface format. (e.g. Nursing). It is still less than 10 minutes per shift for the Supervisors. Therefore any hospital anywhere with or without expensive Scheduling systems, with or without a database can use myfrontline and have the results that top of the line Hospitals have access to.

This leveling of the playing field, and lowering barriers allows small and medium sized Hospitals to compete, improve and manage their resources in ways that have been out of reach before. A side benefit will actually educate Supervisors and Managers in the process of improving management skills thereby increasing value for these managers. Departments that are often neglected in respect to investing in modern management tools (e.g. HIMS) find that they can now afford to streamline productivity, enhance throughput and improve morale. Apart from identifying significant dollar savings to the bottom line.

Call 1 800 603 9753 for a demonstration or read our Case Study on line.

David Theiler

We have received some good news in this difficult economy. A formal approval of our patent for “a software based work flow process management sytem” has been sent to us. Our final hurdle was a challenge by Microsoft and it took a year, but we prevailed after nine long expensive years. The freedom to expand on the principles covered by the patent is fantastic. Our method of Planning, Assigning, Follow-up and Reporting through a computer is pretty simple and broadly encompasses other industries beside Healthcare. Banking, Insurance and Manufacturing will all benefit greatly at their own front lines with our simple ten minute process.

For the moment we are sticking to health care and hospitals in particular. This industry more than any other is understanding the neccesity to be proactive in determining its changing resource requirements. With over 80% of its labor force at a highly skilled level for 24/7 the slight changes to labor requirements on a shift to shift basis can mean meeting budget goals or blowing them out of the water. But on the other hand patient requirements are not budget driven and adjusting to these legitimate changing needs also requires a quick and sophisticated process. Frontline does both, we have been proving it for years, now anyone can license our software system and this year we will be taking it to the “cloud”. Cloud technology is the next step for Healthcare. Banks are already doing it.

http://www.contactcenterworld.com/view/contact-center-news/70-Percent-of-Companies-Using-Cloud-Based-Services-Plan-to-Move-Additional-Solutions-to-the-Cloud.asp

Once HIPAA compliance and security issues are dealt with the ease and cost of using the cloud will cut the hospitals‟ IT costs dramatically. Imagine 50% of your IT costs going away. That concept is fast becoming a reality in other industries, the leaders in health care will be next in stepping up to the bat.

In the mean time we still have soaring costs and hospitals failing and at the fore front are the decisions to cut costs without impacting the quality of care. We believe Frontline Software Solutions addresses these concerns by focusing upon the real needs of a department based upon their own standards of care. Give people the best tools (and they should be simple and easy to use) and I can guarantee that using Frontline will improve the quality of care and reduce the labor costs by a minimum of 10%. Our nation is going through a major shift that none of us have ever seen, it is not going to end tomorrow and people will still be losing their jobs. What we have to focus on, as leaders, is that each of our departments really has what they need, no more and no less to function to the standards we can approve. Tightening our belts without a plan to cope, without the tools to make it work can only lead to failure. Invest in the future, in your own people, bring in Frontline and let us show you the miracles we can achieve with your own people within a very short time frame and a positive cash flow to drive home the point.

Yours in good health and a prosperous New Year,

David Theiler

Frontline Software has recently had some great news. In 2002 we started a patent application for our management tool and last week we finally succeeded in a presentation to the Board of Patent Appeals in overcoming all objections save one small one in the final stage of our patent approval. Our program should be approved within the next six months. It has been a long and expensive process to prove the totality of our invention as a new innovative and simple concept. Other larger more dominant companies that use similar “buzz” words deliver on many things but have yet to deliver the automatic process, training and feedback that Frontline has continued to focus upon.

In the Frontline program managing Productivity is a quick proactive process ‘flexing’ staff requirements based upon projected work. We make this simple and easy. There is no free lunch but the Frontline management tool will even do this work automatically. Managing Budget is accountability, managing productivity is delivering savings while ensuring quality of care. These concepts are not mutually exclusive. Frontline delivers both.

This month, after more than 12 months, Frontline has released its latest Release 3.6 to Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. This new product includes a new interface engine that addresses all the requirements for Treatment based departments. The first recipient of the tool is the Respiratory Therapy department. Now RT has a tool that takes all the Doctors online treatment orders, sorts them by department, patient and time of day within any given shift. The Frontline tool then calculates the standard of time agreed upon to determine not only the staffing requirements for each shift in advance but the workload for each therapist and a PDF print out of each therapists work within the shift. Manual changes are updated in Frontline and even activities that were never accounted for are now included in the big picture.

It is too soon to measure how much more efficient the Frontline process is from the prior process RT used, but early indications are that a significant opportunity for correct staffing is present and a more accurate way of assigning and tracking the work (treatments and meds) is underway.

We are very excited about this new development and expect RT to show significant savings and improved management oversight and quality of care that has been our hallmark. Last year the HIMS (Medical Records) department implemented the Frontline management tool in their three departments, reducing staff across the board by 30% while improving the output and lowering the constant backlog cushion of unprocessed medical records from an average value of $2M to $1M. Recently the HIMS Director was awarded one of the most prestigous awards at LPCH and she paid tribute to Frontline Software Solutions in the success of her department. The department continues into its third year with over a $1M a year in labor savings and an increase in volume.

For all you leaders who want to make a difference and lower your labor costs while maintaining or improving the quality of your work please do not overlook Frontline Software Solutions because we are smaller and cheaper. We may be smaller and cheaper but we are proud of our product and dedicated to the principles of our company: integrity, cutting edge technology, experience and professionalism.

No matter what direction health care finally decides to go, the frontline is where we will be, helping the managers balance their resources, meet their obligations and feel that what they do is not only important but necessary to pass on to the next generation of leaders.

I hope to see you all soon,

David Theiler

Is it just me or is business really starting to come back into the sun?

With business slowing down we refocused on our core functionality. For the past year we have been working on a revolutionary adjunct to our suite of tools in Frontline. Now apart from all the shift plans by Nursing and Ancillary areas we have developed for all the Therapy departments a beautiful program that takes all the treatments (RT orders) that Doctors put into the system and we match these with all the patients AND define when they should take place over ANY given period of time and then we create a pdf that displays the patient, the treatments and when they have to receive them. All sorted by department, IN “REAL TIME”. This allows Supervisors to look into the future, plan their shifts and make assignments that make sense to the therapists as they get their own pdf with all their patients listed out for them with the treatments right next to them.

This new feature has been developed over the past year by our Senior Software Engineer Inna Nill with intimate input by Director of Operations Lee Kwiatkowski on the ground at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. We are currently in the last stages of testing at LPCH and expect to roll it out in the next few weeks.

Now is the time when all responsible leaders are focusing upon the real needs of their organizations. Frontline is focused upon determining these needs in a pro active manner that recognizes that slashing a 10% scythe across all FTE’s does not build trust and loyalty. But a considered approach using 21st century tools to achieve the same result is pragmatic, thoughtful and involves decision making that is made easier by the accumulation of data and reports that is inclusive and removes much of the pain in making the tough adjustments.

Frontline is here for you, we work at the frontlines teaching good management practices that go with you wherever you end up. Our software is designed to show you the true picture of your operations performance, over any period of time. Trust your frontlines, trust myfrontline.biz.

David Theiler

No one needs reminding that this has been a tough year for most people. It has been tough for us as well. Our major client decided to take a slower approach to installing Frontline. The good news is that when we actually started, we moved into Medical Records (HIMS) first, where they were already doing well with an increased workload (EMR) and a reduction of 2.0 FTEs (people) below their budget of 60.0. But three months later when we finished, they were operating with 38.0 FTEs and the three managers were sure they could reduce even further, without negatively impacting the quality or process. The hospital loved the results and we are now installing our software into more departments through the rest of this year.

Ironically, tough years for the US economy are usually better for our business, as our focus - helping the front lines define their real need for FTEs - is in line with the need to reduce labor costs. Yet our business model for the last few years has been focused upon the software! I think this has been a mistake. The software supports our work in reducing labor costs but is NOT the primary function of our company. With or without the software we reduce labor costs and improve the quality of front-line management. Managers love our process: it empowers, educates, and validates. Senior management sees the improvement as it shows up on the bottom line and the managers have a new confidence and perspective on how they manage.

The problem has been that when we make a sales call the discussion is all about the software. Everyone loves our software, “it is the best tool that any manager could have”. BUT when the discussion circles around software and implementation and interfaces, the whole reason for our work, gets bogged down and lost. Fortunately we do have a way around this; we work off our own servers using Frontline to define requirements and show the managers. They continue to use it offline and demonstrate their own success. If senior management likes the results they can then decide to “bring it in-house”. No shifting the focus, no problems, no mumbo jumbo software discussions. Let us know if you or your colleagues want to see these results in your areas in just a few short weeks. Our standard guarantee is that we will identify 10% labor savings, and we usually do better than that. Sure, our software is easy to install and the savings will be easy to see. So let us focus on getting results and we will work off-line to get you those results. No IT issues. Just results.

The ability to balance delivering quality service (goods, services, etc) and the cost of the labor (all skills) is the essense of good management. The irony is that you cannot have one without the other. Once this fact it recognized it becomes easier to determine what our parameters will be. Each enterprise starts out with time to complete its objective, this in essence is our labor cost. Determining what we can pay for this labor to complete the task determines in many ways what the quality will be. Too high a labor cost over too long a period of time will inevitably end the endeavor in failure. Too little attention to the skills required and the amount of time needed to complete the task will end the endeavour with low quality and no one interested in the product. Addressing this balance is vitally important to the front line managers. Your frontlines are your bottom line. Most managers understand each area of the department and its function. They could usually do the work in any area themselves and pride themselves on this knowledge. Yet understanding the cost involved, wether it is ‘morale’ of staff (balanced assignments), patient satisfaction, budget or productivity is not a daily planning feature of most managers. The fact that they do not have readily available tools that simplifies this step compounds the issues that surround the frontline manager.

At the frontlines of management, particularly in hospitals the sheer overwhelming number of things to do can burn out new managers. Now on a salaried track there is frequently little if any day to day mentoring. Each Manager has to find ways to manage not only their staff and the quality of patient care but to also manage the frequent ‘important’ meetings too. Add to this is a seven day work week (always on call) and the responsibility to meet specific criteria (budget, patient satisfaction scores, staff retention, overtime and registry usage, discharge times, etc) can be overwhelming. Given all these complexities, it is little wonder that managing to budget (Hours per Unit of Service or HPPD) becomes the measured standard for most Hospitals since it is comprised of a single static number.

However, HPPD is typically based upon the number of patients (not their acuity), averaged over the past year. Then, depending upon the ‘negotiated’ labor budget a Manager can be given more or less staff than is needed. In either case a problem arises. When a unit has more staff budgeted than they require we most often see that Productivity performance is quite low. (Productivity being the Required Hours (based upon the acuity of patients and other variable and fixed activities) divided by the Worked Hours for the staff. Left unmanaged, the HPPD measure will slowly and in most cases rise artificially, to approximate the budgeted level. Conversely, when a department is understaffed and constantly performing below budget there is no mechanism to explain the discrepancy without a Productivity performance standard in place.

Having both indicators (Budget and Productivity) is the first step to helping front line managers understand the difference between these two measurements, and then use that information to make informed management decisions.