In a blog titled “3 Data Insights Every CEO Will Want to See,” PointClickCare (PCC) shared survey findings revealing that the biggest hurdle for executives of CCRCs was having access to more meaningful data that can be used to drive better decision-making across their business. Perhaps, not surprisingly, the most important data pertained to Revenue and Expenses. The PCC survey results stated:
“In our survey, 23% of executives indicated revenue and expense metrics as a top priority. This key operational metric helps determine if additional revenue generation tactics (such as ancillary services) are needed, or if your community is receiving payments in a timely manner. Examining your revenue and expense metrics can also help identify any overspend on staffing. If you’re spending a lot on overtime, you may want to consider hiring an additional staff member or making a change to the staff schedule.”
These findings lead to two crucial issues for you to assess:
- Are you regularly examining your revenue and expense metrics?
- Are you able to gain real-time visibility into this essential data?
Automated Reporting: for many growing CCRCs, the management of multiple facilities and the continuum of care for its residents means there’s a lot of information spread across different departments, different programs and different locations. The result may be too many spreadsheets and canned reports that simply can’t provide staff with the information they need in a useful format.
Forward-thinking CCRCs automate all aspects of financial reporting and recognize that reporting needs span all areas of operations. By way of example, there may be a for a report for the cost per pound of laundry by facility or productivity of nursing staff by campus.
Business Intelligence: while the automation of financial reporting is crucial, true impact is realized when executives can leverage information to make proper and timely decisions. This requires a set of business intelligence (BI) tools integrated across the financial and operational area of a CCRC. A well-designed BI infrastructure provides ready access to key performance indicators (KPIs) and offers up this data via dashboards and is done so in real-time. Given the increasing levels of oversight required by boards, shareholders of other key constituents, essential data – which used to take days or weeks to compile – must be available immediately and generated with just a few clicks. The highest-performing and most successful CCRCs are those that can proactively spot potential problems before they occur and determine the best course of action based on factual data.
As PCC concluded in its blog, “The only way to see all this information in one place is to have a centralized platform... The metrics you gather tell a story about your community and its ability to deliver positive results for residents and staff. And if you have a great story, your community will thrive.” We encourage you to learn more about visibility into expenses by reading this article by Mike Bufano of Intellitec Solutions where he addresses the issue of controlling costs through insightful, real-time reporting.