6 weeks from contract to first use, only 1 day of lost productivity from training.
Benchmark’s technology is an “Internet Overlay” that works with your existing systems.
All anyone needs to access Benchmark’s solutions is Microsoft Internet Explorer and an internet connection. There is no other setup required for the users.
Your core Information Systems must be interfaced, however, and Benchmark has made that as easy as possible for your IT staff. Yes, your IT staff must produce data extracts, HL7, and provide a specification to Benchmark for putting “comments” back into your core system, but Benchmark’s data intake flexibility ensures that our system speaks the language of yours, reducing IT time required.
Training is equally optimized. The work portal for the workers ensures that the workers can achieve higher productivity in less than 1 work day. Benchmark also believes in “on the job training” and stays on-site with your staff until you are certain that your productivity and employee satisfaction are higher than it was before Benchmark.
Training your managers is a snap, because Benchmark provides quick basic training, and then your Benchmark Revenue Engineer works with your managers to optimize the system until your managers “get the hang of it.” Even after that time, your Revenue Engineer is with you (remotely, but still real-time connected) ensuring you achieve the highest Benchmarks possible.
Benchmark interfaces with your core systems via HL7 and Data Extracts. While we can achieve a reasonable portion of the functionality of the system with only a Patient Accounting System feed, we prefer to pull data from as many systems as possible. Benchmark requests data from the following systems, recognizing that we might bring some of them up over time, as need and as ROI dictates:
Benchmark can aggregate the data from each of these sources, and across multiple facilities and core systems, providing your managers and workers with a unified portal to their information.
Benchmark has not only pulled data from many multi-system environments, aggregating data from dissimilar Patient Account systems, such as Siemens and IDX, but Benchmark has worked with almost all core and ancillary systems in the Hospital industry, including:
Benchmark pulls data in nightly, and HL7 real-time. We exchange data via Secure FTP, but have implemented other methods as customer needs required them.
Benchmark logs all worker activities, account work pool qualifications, root cause codes, reminders, transfers and comments into a “comments extract” file that loads all of these actions, and more, into your Patient Accounting System. This ensures that workers throughout your hospital need not be on Benchmark’s work portal system to interact with and understand Benchmark workers’ activities. In fact, other workers will notice that Benchmark’s comments are mostly automated and therefore highly regular and readable, increasing the worker satisfaction of all staff members who must read account comment history in your core system as part of their work.
Benchmark believes in keeping client-side training costs and time down, and emphasizes “on the job” training. We recognize that it doesn’t work to just train and leave, so we guarantee that your productivity will be higher than it was before we started before we leave you on your own.
Manager Training
Our Revenue Engineers spend about 2 half days with your managers to configure the workpools, user accounts, and rules. During this time, we train them interactively on the use of the interfaces that apply to them, and close out with a formal training lasting about 4 hours. Your Revenue Engineer stays on-site until worker productivity has exceeded normal levels, and then supports the managers as their go-to-resource from then on.
Revenue Engineers work closely with your managers to ensure the system stays optimally tuned. This includes creating and selecting red-yellow-green alerts for your managers that reflect the issues they are facing week over week. Further, they identify key trends that indicate training issues, resource utilizations issues, and more, reporting those in their weekly status calls with your managers.
Benchmark revenue engineers ensure that your managers don’t necessarily need to be super-users to make your installation perfect, but that if your managers want to become super-users they have that option. We ensure that the process is such that no manager will ever feel that the learning curve is getting in the way of productivity.
Worker Training
Our implementation staff and Revenue Engineers spend ½ day training your workers on the work portals. That same day, we turn them loose in the live system and stay on-site until everyone is comfortable. This is typically a 2 to 3 day period… it truly is that quick.
Workers receive “cheat-sheets” and helpful prompts that guide them through using the Benchmark system for maximum productivity. Furthermore, your Revenue Engineers and the system itself monitor workers for signs of struggle and we work with your managers to ensure that the worker gets the continued education they might require.
Benchmark clients get assigned a Revenue Engineer, who is a super-user of the Benchmark system, a support agent, and a relationship manager all rolled into one. Revenue Engineers do most of their work remotely, from Benchmark’s Offices, but do visit on-site once a quarter. There is also full time support staff available to you and your revenue engineer to resolve everyday support issues.
Any user of the Benchmark system can open a support ticket through the software with a click. All information about that user is instantly transmitted to the Benchmark team including where the worker is in the system, how to contact them, and the ID of the support ticket that is automatically generated. Out support staff carries e-mail devices with them at all times, so these messages are answered nearly instantaneously.
Any user is welcome to call us, but the effectiveness of the support ticket system in terms of speed to issue resolution is so dramatic, our clients almost always prefer using the support ticket feature for first contact.