Capacity Management Brochure

In this period of key resource shortages, a healthcare organization’s ability to align limited beds, staff, services and supplies with shifting daily demand can mean the difference between financial stability and duress. Capacity challenges, heightened costs and mounting clinical consequences have placed additional emphasis on the need for effective capacity management planning, processes and tools. However, these strategic investment decisions can be difficult to navigate, and implementation can be rife with complications and delays.

FTI Consulting’s team has implemented capacity management programs for large healthcare systems, academic medical centers, community hospitals and post-acute care settings in some of the most impacted areas. Our professionals have developed creative strategies to mitigate many of the pitfalls associated with these implementation efforts. Our team offers a range of expertise across key functions critical to surge or crisis scenarios, including leadership advisory, clinical informatics and decision support, clinical operations, workforce management and supply chain.

Leadership Advisory, Clinical Informatics and Decision Support

Key to responding to a crisis is the ability to understand the extent of the crisis. FTI Consulting’s Capacity Management team collaborates with client leadership to develop and deploy a decision support framework and a central command center that defines and responds to distinct, data-based thresholds for response scenarios (pre-COVID surge, COVID-19 contingency, and COVID-19 crisis levels).

Services include:

• On-demand leadership consultation for crisis management
• Command center support
• COVID-19 dashboard development and utilization
• Communication planning
• Staffing huddle development and supervision
• Third-party crisis partner management (federal, state and charity organizations)
• Recovery planning for elective procedures and outpatient services

Workforce Management and Clinical Staffing Support

Our team offers clients tactical coordination of staff deployment, contract labor management, emergency staffing ratios and scheduling best practices to support organizations in mitigating staffing shortages. FTI Consulting’s Capacity Management team provides additional services, including employee leave analysis for resource pool calibrations, contract labor onboarding and off-boarding, and talent roster assessments to engage resources from throughout the organization.

Services include:

• Emergency management reporting of ADT, staff and census
• Contingency plan development to manage patient-to-staff ratios and bed availability to facilitate continuation of essential outpatient surgeries and procedures
• Staffing demand validation and consolidation
• Agency onboarding and deployment management
• Agency ramp-down strategy
• Staff roster management (return to work, leave policy management, etc.)
• Cross-site resource sharing

Clinical Operations

As COVID-19 cases rise, the priority is to determine where and when capacity can be added to meet the needs of an emergent situation. Our team is experienced in the implementation of data-driven processes that respond to demand and effectively reallocate resources from non-emergent areas to support critical needs (ED, ICU, etc.).

Services include:

• Unit opening/closing strategies
• Site ingress and demand-management strategies and programs
• Patient transfer policies and management
• Management of contracted staff deployment
• Clinical and ancillary alignment strategy

Supply Chain and Cost Tracking

Ongoing PPE, pharmaceuticals and capital equipment shortages require continuous monitoring and agile decision-making to meet demands. Our experts work to implement vendor vetting programs and develop cross-functional teams that enable responses to the latest supply or service challenge. Our Supply Chain and Workforce Management team evaluates the use of agency labor in key service areas (environmental services, security, nursing, etc.) and optimizes current agreements through detailed reviews of contracts and pricing.

Services include:

• PPE and clinical resource inventory management
• Vendor contract review
• Invoice analysis
• Temporary resource tracking and deployment management
• Agency staff tracking and reduction strategies
• Hourly rate monitoring