It’s no secret that healthcare systems are expensive to run, and at a time when hospitals are being asked to do more with less, every dollar counts during capital allocation. For most facilities and HTM departments, the most important way to ensure you’re getting the budget necessary to maintain hospital operations and patient safety is to make the case for your budget during capital planning.
This cannot be done without the data to back up every decision, and with that, the software tools to precisely track and document this data. Until now, there hasn’t been a convenient and cost-effective way for hospital operations leaders to collect, analyze, and export the datapoints necessary to advocate for their department’s capital plan during the larger financial planning process.
FSI has emerged with a solution to this problem: CMS Capital Planning. This brand-new tool centralizes asset information, including condition, replacement costs, and end of life, to help users make data driven decisions to prepare the annual budget for capital dollars.
If you’ve never used a software tool to aid your capital planning, you may be wondering whether something like CMS Capital Planning would make a difference for you. However, as Ann Monks, Director, Facilities Data and Technology Analytics for Yale New Haven Health reports, “Without the data you're just another person with an opinion, and that doesn't get you very far anymore.”
Ask yourself the following questions and consider whether you are in the best possible place to advocate for the budget your department needs, armed with the most important data points to get you there.
How are you currently tracking data for capital allocation?
Many hospital departments use simple tools like spreadsheets to put together their budget each fiscal year. If you are currently using spreadsheets to plan your budget, you’re missing out on a system that allows you to build a budget informed by all your asset data integrated into one dashboard. Imagine being able to calculate your budget from the same place you can pull an asset’s installation date, life expectancy, and replacement cost.
With CMS Capital Planning, once you enter your estimated budget, you can watch in real time how the budget gets allocated. Simply select the assets to repair and replace in the upcoming year and see how the money gets redistributed on the Budget Visualization screen. Eliminate spreadsheets and searches by keeping all asset information organized in one centralized hub.
Where are you getting your historic information?
If creating your capital plan typically involves hours delving into the history of all your assets to determine which ones should be repaired or replaced, then you may find that using CMS Capital Planning improves efficiency. Ideally it wouldn’t take hours to sort through asset history and read through several fields to determine whether an asset is a good candidate for an upgrade in the coming year.
In CMS Capital Planning, all historical data is at your fingertips via the Asset Analysis screen. Locate instances of unscheduled maintenance, the monthly maintenance cost, labor vs materials, how much life is remaining, and a complete work order history all on one screen. If you determine that asset should be added to your capital plan, do so with a simple mouse click and watch as it gets added to the Budget Visualization.
How are you tracking equipment condition?
When working on your capital plan, it’s essential to have the most up to date information possible. In order to do this, you’ll need to know how often conditionals assessments are being completed so you know that conditions reports are accurate.
How often do you perform conditions assessments and how are those documented? If notes from these assessments are handwritten and don’t consistently get added to your CMMS, there’s always a chance for error. If you aren’t able to attach photos to conditions assessments, you’re missing out on another detail that could make a difference come capital planning time.
Because CMS Capital Planning is part of FSI’s larger CMMS, all information about equipment condition is already in the system. With advanced search functionality, it’s possible to narrow a search for assets by condition. If you want to look at all assets that are in poor condition to determine how many you can replace in the upcoming year, it’s easy to do so.
Data is power
Capital planning can be stressful, but with the right tools, it doesn’t have to be. Data is power, and CMS Capital Planning seeks to provide all the knowledge one could possibly need during capital planning to accurately forecast costs and decide how to prioritize maintenance costs.
Take the next step in streamlining efforts for your team/healthcare system: now is the time to reduce risk, increase the likelihood for securing necessary funds, and ensure every asset in your hospital’s walls contribute to patient and employee safety.
If you're interested in learning more about CMS Capital Planning, get in touch.