I’ve said it before, a single data point, in itself, may not provide adaquate context for your operations and certainly not to someone outside your business.
Think about it. If the Dean or CEO were to ask you, “How many people came through your simulation center doors this year,” and you say “3000.”….what does that mean to him or her? Does the Dean or CEO know what the number should be or what equivalent-sized simulation centers are doing?
This exact situation is why trend analysis is important.
If you know your trends, the conversation can be very different….when they ask
“How many people came through your simulation center doors this year,” and you say “3000, its a 25% increase from last year due to the increase in medical simulation curriculum from the School of Nursing.”
So right there you are giving the Dean or CEO context to where you were, in census numbers to where you currently are, and the reason why those numbers are up 25%.
Using trend analysis is a powerful tool for reporting purposes but also operations predictions.
Trend analysis is an approach based on the concept that past data can be used to help predict the future. As such, the process involves comparing business data over time with the goal to identify certain patterns, otherwise known as trends. We see this commonly in finance-side of the business, but it can be used for the operational side as well.
Why Trends are Important?
Trend analysis can improve your center or program by helping you identify areas with your organization that are doing well, and areas that are not doing well. In this way it provides valuable evidence to help inform better decision-making around your program to ensure the sustainability.
How should I look at or display the data and trends?
Unless you are prescribed to show the data a certain way, the answer is…any way you’d like by whatever means you like. Perhaps the most common method you will see with be a Microsoft Excel.
There are two important things to consider when looking at trend analysis:
- At what point is an upward or downward trend worth focusing on?
- is 10% increase or decrease enough to warrant a closer look?
- And what is the cause of the trend?
- What are the factors that are contributing to the change?
- Can it be replicated or improved upon?
- Can it be mitigated or fixed?
The chart below from 2018-2019 year shows the percentage of time spent on tasks; for March, 62% of the total time was spent on “direct” simulation operations, or about 5 hours out of the 8 hour day.
If you look at March from the previous year, 67% on “direct” operations; the data suggests that operationally less time was spent on administration and more on operational simulation comparatively.
Now if you compare it to the previous year, you begin to get a picture of what the average operations are. Yes, the numbers fluctuate and there are outliers. For example, January 2018 shows a dip in operations and an increase in administrative hours, this was due to the sim specialists going to a simulation conference.
Overall, the trends suggest that 2017-2018, thus far, has been more productive operationally. Now as the operations manager, I need to look at that and determine the cause by comparing other numbers, staffing, schedules, etc…
Below is another graphical example of how you can display operational data for non-simulation stakeholders. This graphic tracks center utilization for the entire academic year. For reference, I have added two bench marking lines; (1) design capacity set at 100%, and (2) target capacity set at 55%. For this center, based on the trending data from 2013 to current, 55%-60% is the average operational utilization. Some of this is based on staff and some of that is based on how the rooms are configured in the center.
Now you can take the center utilization and cross-reference it with the staffing utilization for that year. One thing you will notice that staffing, for the most part, was close to the 100% bench mark most of the year with a spike in February. With the almost 100% staff utilization, the center utilization was still 55%-60%. Worth noting: the spike in staff and center utilization in February 2018 was due to two weekend events.
Diving further into your operations, trends can be used to look at historical usage of a particular department or as a whole to see who is utilizing your center. For example from the chart below, it is expected that the School of Medicine and School of Nursing will increase the number of hours at the center this year, having a direct impact in the number of hours available for residency departments and hospital.
This can be useful in predicting operations for the next year or sending out a pro forma budget request to the department or help you with budgeting for the next year. For example, lets take the School of Medicine, if you take the average percentage of time from the available data, it comes to approximately 60%. Therefore, as you work with your financial analyst for budgeting, 60% of the funding for next year roughly should come from the School of Medicine. You can then tweak if you need to based on your knowledge of operations going forward.
Trending doesn’t have to strictly about operations data, you can also use trending data to display graphically selected financial information.
The graphic below shows the downward trend of costs over time.
Not everything in medical simulation can be or needs to be analyzed for trends, but it a great way to know your business inside and out; however, it is better to get the data and not use it than to not have the data and need it.
Keith A. Beaulieu
It is better to get the data and not use it than to not have the data and need it.
Remember, it all begins with having a good process in place for collecting, comparing and analyzing data, then trend analysis becomes a very powerful tool over time.
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