The challenge
Most unit managers have access only to retrospective, infrequent staffing reports. These reports rarely contain all the budgetary information managers need to make staffing decisions. As a result, managers are unable to make informed, in-the-moment adjustments to meet staffing targets.
The organization
Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) is a 167-bed public children’s hospital in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
The approach
Recognizing the costs of regularly missing staffing targets, CHEO’s chief nursing executive worked with the information technology (IT) department to develop a daily staffing dashboard. This dashboard allows managers, care facilitators, and off-hours charge nurses to make real-time adjustments to their schedules and helps units avoid going over budget.
The result
Since the dashboard was implemented, unnecessary hours at CHEO have decreased while quality measures remain high.