Departments We Serve:

Administration

We conduct hospital-wide process improvement studies and reviews or evaluations of individual departments.   We tailor our studies to your needs.  We also provide counsel on organizational structure, spans of control, and related management issues.

Admitting / Central Registration

How do you balance minimum staffing with maximum customer service?  Is it better for ED registration staff to be part of the ED or Registration?  Who should schedule OR patients?  Our analyses provide the answers.  We can help you achieve the correct balance of resources, cost, and customer satisfaction.  

Ambulatory Care / Ambulatory Surgery Unit

Are you growing this business to offset drops in traditional inpatient care?  We evaluate staffing, room utilization, and customer-service issues in ambulatory surgery units, endoscopy, breast cancer centers, dialysis units, clinics and related cost centers.   We can help you decide whether or not to open, and how to staff your 23 hour or chest pain observation unit.

Business Office / Finance

Revenue cycle management is the key to success. How do you balance minimum staffing with maximum collections?  Do you need to reduce days in accounts receivables?  Are additional managed care requirements driving your staff nuts?  With 34 years experience, we can help you achieve the correct balance of resources and cost while improving cash flow.

Cardiology / EKG

Do you have the correct staffing level?  Should you even have a separate EKG cost center? Who should conduct these studies?  We have helped administrators in more than 50 hospitals answer these and other questions. 

Diagnostic Imaging / Radiology Department

This is one of the last revenue centers in most hospitals.  How do you balance staffing with customer service?  Do you keep your medical staff satisfied by providing timely reports and access to patient files? Should you open a separate Breast Cancer Center?  Should report transcription and/or patient transportation be centralized?  Should you outsource transcription entirely? What is the impact of a PACS?  We have conducted almost 100 imaging department studies.  Our analyses can provide the answers to your questions.

Emergency Services / Emergency Department

The majority, and perhaps the vast majority of your non-maternity admissions come through the ED.  Are your patients and their family members satisfied with their ED experience?  Is your ED volume dropping?  Did you increase costs by opening a Fast Track area but not reduce average length of stay?  Is the average patient length of stay too long, or do you even know how long it really is?   We evaluate patient flow, staffing and customer service issues.  With our experience in more than 100 ED's from less than 10,000 to more than 150,000 annual visits, we can help your most important patient gateway be your most effective gateway.

Food and Nutrition Services

Inpatient census is dropping.  Should you cut back on staffing in this department?   Should you outsource the department?  If you keep the department, should you offer a full service breakfast?  Are you maximizing cafeteria revenue and vending revenue?  Is employee turnover too high?  Should you raise cafeteria prices?  Should you move to a cook/chill food preparation method?   How do you balance minimum staffing with maximum service?  We have conducted more than 100 food and nutrition studies, and we can help you achieve the correct balance of low cost and maximum revenue.

Human Resources

Have you developed and implemented a flexible definition of full time status?  Is your position control system working for your department heads?  Are you paying the correct differentials to your per diem staff?  Are there wide fluctuations in daily staffing but you are not satisfied with your "not needed" policy?   Are you using too many agency nurses?  Do you have or should you have a "not needed" policy?  Do you require assistance in developing a pay for performance system for department heads?  We have years of experience with these issues and can assist you in supporting your most valuable resource - your employees.

Inpatient Nursing Units

What are your patient to nurse ratios, and more importantly, what should they be? We have the methodology to quantify your needs and the software to calculate the cost for changing your skill mix.

The average length of stay is dropping but the acuity is increasing and the staff cannot cope with the workload.  Your CFO says you must reduce costs because of greater managed care pressures and lower reimbursement.  At the same time your agency costs have doubled and there are many vacancies.  You have a patient classification system (PCS) but do not have the resources to update the standards.  You have consolidated peds onto another floor.  You have implemented patient-focused care.  You are experiencing significant peaks and valleys in census that translate into a staffing range of 200 or even 300% in one month.  You have looked at patient-focused care.  You have combined and consolidated management positions.  Your nursing staff is asking for more respect but you don't understand what they really want.  What do you do next? 

With our experience in 200 hospitals across the country and having worked with most patient classification systems, we can help you determine staffing strategies in 60 days, or less.  We can help you update your PCS, or we can install the Templin PCS©.  We can assist you in evaluating staffing levels, skill mix and the direct cost per patient day.  We can determine imbalances in your mix of full time, part time and per diem staff, and we can suggest recruitment and retention strategies.

Laboratory

In the "old" days you just needed to use the College of American Pathologists Workload Recording Method®.  Your laboratory was a revenue center and you just needed additional volume.  Your laboratory is now a cost center and you need to control utilization and costs.  Mr. Templin was primary author of the management section of the CAP Workload Recording Manual and was a frequent faculty member for CAP workload seminars.  We continue to work with hospitals and with national commercial laboratories to minimize cost, reduce turnaround time and increase staff utilization.  We evaluate laboratory instrumentation and can demonstrate the total cost of acquiring and using laboratory systems.  Should you eliminate laboratory-provided phlebotomy service in favor of patient care unit staff performing the work.  Do you know the tradeoffs of cost versus patient satisfaction and specimen procurement errors?  If you don't know these answers, how are you deciding the most cost-effective way for providing these services?  We have worked in almost 150 laboratories, and we can help you make the correct decisions.

Medical Records / Health Information Management

Inpatient discharges are dropping but it is taking longer to process each discharge and to meet managed care organization demands for details.  Outpatient workload is increasing.  Documentation takes more time.  Finding and keeping transcription staff is becoming more difficult.  Should you centralize or outsource your transcription work?  Should you introduce voice recognition technology?  Do you have the correct staffing level?  We have helped records administrators in more than 50 hospitals answer these and other questions. 

Pharmacy

Your cost per patient day is rising faster than any other hospital cost component.  Your work per patient day is increasing but total census is dropping and there is pressure to cut staff.  You would like to provide a clinical pharmacy program but are not sure how to cost justify it.  Vendors are pushing automation and robotics.  How do you balance these pressures?  Our analyses helped 75 other directors answer their questions.

Respiratory Therapy / Pulmonary Medicine

Inpatient census is dropping and there is pressure to cut staff.  You have seasonal peaks of activity.  Should your staff take an active role in specimen procurement?  Should your staff open and staff a Sleep Lab?   Should your department be decentralized.  Should your staff perform EKGs?   We have helped directors in almost 100 hospitals answer these questions. 

Surgery, Operating Room, GI Lab and PACU

Inpatient surgery is dropping.  The remaining inpatients are either day of admission surgery or come directly from the emergency department.  Most of your patients are ambulatory surgery.  Technology is exploding yet you need to cut costs.   It is even more difficult to recruit and retain staff.  Your surgeons do not like the case booking method and want more prime time.  Your first cases start late and your turnaround time between cases is too high.  SPD does not understand or appreciate your problems.  We have addressed these problems in more than 100 hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers ranging from less than 1,000 cases to more than 20,000 cases annually.  Our methodology has been presented at several national conferences, and was featured in OR Manager.  We can help you!  

Better Alternatives and Affordable Solutions:

If you are looking for effectual ways to offset the forces in today's healthcare environment, call Templin Management Associates, or use our Info Request for a no-cost initial consultation. We will give you a comprehensive overview of your affordable alternatives.

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Copyright © 2001 Templin Management Associates, Inc
Last modified: January 07, 2004