Collaborating With Innovative Change-Makers in Healthcare

At Workday, we’re proud of our community of healthcare industry customers that continues to grow. While we couldn't be in-person to connect this year, we’re pleased that we were able to gather our community for our first fully digital healthcare industry summit. Focused on innovation, collaboration, and sharing lessons learned, we heard from and celebrated customers across the industry who are advancing their organizations. Below we share key takeaways from the summit: 

Navigating the Future of Healthcare

To kick off the sessions, we heard from leaders at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), including Joni Rittler, vice president of supply chain management; Beth Rohlfing, senior director of total rewards and HR technology; and Gayle Stidsen-Smith, associate chief information officer and associate vice president, business applications, who discussed the importance of embracing change while working on innovation efforts. Rohlfing said that organizations have to “be willing to let go of the old ways of doing business and need to stop being afraid of stepping into the—sometimes—hard changes.” 

They said collaboration across functions and leadership levels and looking for opportunities to optimize are essential for innovation. For example, during the pandemic, Rittler said, “we have increased awareness of the importance of the supply chain function in healthcare,” and the need to diversify the supply chain and use predictive analytics has never been more apparent. Stidsen-Smith shared, “investing in partner relationships is critically important” and emphasized the need “to develop creativity, trust, and agility across the organization.”

Transforming HR to Improve Employee Experience 

Krista Barth, vice president of HR operations at SSM Health, said that when innovating, having a dedicated change management function helps create a “champion for employees, so employees have a voice.” 

Before going live on Workday Human Capital Management, the SSM Health team was using six different systems. Barth shared, “we’ve been able to adapt to things this year that we could not have without Workday.” The SSM Health team moved from a paper-based tangle of systems to an automated, mobile-enabled platform. This allows them to provide employees with access to accurate, timely data, so providers can focus more on patient care. 

Scaling for Growth and Agility

For a finance perspective, we heard from Lankford Wade, chief financial officer at Summit CityMD. Wade has the unique perspective of having previously led the Workday deployment at US Anesthesia Partners prior to his move to Summit CityMD where he also led the Workday deployment. Wade shared how having technology solutions that are “highly coordinated across all of our points of care” meets the needs of “patients in a convenient, highly patient-centered way.” To grow, the Summit CityMD team is focused on continuing to connect with other Workday customers via the Workday Community to continue collaborating on industry best practices. The organization is also focused on deploying financial resources to clinical leaders, so clinicians can focus on practicing at the top of their licenses rather than spending more time than needed figuring out their technology systems. 

Having a system that integrates HR, financial, planning, and forecasting has reduced administrative burden, Wade said. And, because Workday is cloud based, Summit CityMD has been able to invest IT resources in other areas. For example, the team tried to stay ahead of healthcare worker burnout by leveraging Workday to increase recruiting.

Managing Technology Transformation in a Virtual Environment 

Robyn Funcannon, business applications director at Intermountain Healthcare, said it’s important to have, “people, process, and technology come together” when innovating, because change takes work. With employees working remotely, fostering relationships has become even more vital. 

While the pandemic changed how Intermountain Healthcare deployed Workday, it still had a successful deployment. The company pivoted to virtual help sessions, demos, and using a voting mechanism for feedback—all while increasing employee engagement. Funcannon said that the mobile capabilities of Workday allow “leaders to have data at their fingertips” to better support employees and caregivers. 

Innovating for the Future of Health 

Two leaders at ChristianaCare, Daina Parker, corporate director of shared services; and Kristen Raber, corporate director of cloud innovation labs, discussed the balance of managing day-to-day operations and innovation efforts. Raber emphasized the importance of being deliberate in supporting the healthcare industry. She shared, “it’s all about partnerships. All of us are working together for a better healthcare future.” 

Raber continued, “We’re looking to transform our organization, and our data is moving us forward.” She added that having a flexible platform enables efficiencies and workflow changes. 

Celebrating Innovation and Community Building 

Every year, we celebrate the winners of the Workday Healthcare Innovation Awards, and this year was no exception. Award recipients were selected for driving strategic business objectives and exemplifying innovation in business operations. 

• Ochsner Health received the Digital Transformation Award for standardizing its annual employee performance evaluation process and performance data collection. These efforts helped Ochsner Health’s leaders increase compliance and improve analytics and communication. 

• Sanford Health was honored with the Trailblazer Award for its early deployment of Workday Prism Analytics, which the team used to create compensation and job trend reports, including turnover and time to recruit. With improved analytics, Sanford Health delivered a real-time approach to the merit process, analyzed staffing needs, and looked at the stresses on employees to try to make sure they were supported during these unprecedented times. 

• Westmed Medical Group received the Process Innovation award for creatively using Workday to provide employees and leaders with important updates and timely data via a COVID-19 resource dashboard, implement various workflows to respond to regulation changes, and secure personal protective equipment (PPE).

• ChristianaCare was honored with the Collaboration Champion Award for engaging the customer community and sharing its story and learnings. ChristianaCare also served as a design partner and advisor for Workday People Analytics, Journal Insights, and Supply Chain Management for Healthcare, and was an early adopter of Workday WayTo and Workday Adaptive Planning.

If you were unable to attend the Workday Healthcare Summit live, you can view on demand. 

_{This article was updated on April 1, 2021.}