Connecting Silos:

How HR Analytics Helps Win More Business &

Remove Barriers Inside a Large Medical Research

Organization

Joseph G. Frank, PhD, CCP, GWCCM

Manager, Human Resources

Reporting & Compliance

Washington University in Saint Louis &

Washington University School of Medicine

March 24, 2016

Ray-Carroll County Grain Growers Elevator “D”, c.1953, next to the recently opened St. Louis IKEA store and two blocks east of the WUSM campus. (Soft red wheat is actually what’s inside.)

Organizational Silos

About Washington University• 163 Years Old

– The one in St. Louis, Missouri• We added “in St. Louis” in 1976

– Research-intensive institution• $6.9 B endowment

• Two campuses

– Danforth Campus

• 7 schools, primarily undergraduate-focused

– Medical Campus

• Majority of research funding ($531 M of $613 M)

• Majority of total University budget ($1.9 B of $2.7 B)

• Essentially all the clinical revenue (about $1.2 B)

About WUSTL School of Medicine• 120+ years old; 17 Nobel Prize winners

• 10,000+ FTEs

– 2,000 faculty (MDs and PhDs)

– 7,000 staff

– 1,000+ students and trainees

• Three missions

– Research / scientific discovery

– Teaching / training

– Patient care

• Affiliated with 2 teaching hospitals

Business Operations Structure• Highly de-centralized

• 20 academic departments + 4 programs

– Hundreds of faculty Principal Investigators (PI’s)

• Research is a core mission

– But generally not a fiscally lucrative mission

– Mainly funded by Federal govt and foundations

– Heavily subsidized by a combination of:

• Clinical revenue cross-subsidy within departments

• Dean’s office support for new investigators

• Philanthropy (individual and corporate)

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE ADMINISTRATION

Director of

Risk Management

(D. Pesti)

09.14.15 matteuzzi

Director Occupational Therapy(C. Baum, Ph.D.)

Director Physical Therapy(G. Earhart, Ph.D.)

Danforth Campus

Vice Chancellor for Research J. Lodge, Ph.D.Vice Chancellor for Human Resources L. ChandlerAssoc. VC for Med. Alumni & Develop. D. ShearrerExec. VC & General Counsel M. Cannon, Esq.Assoc. VC/Deputy General Counsel J. Powers, Esq.Director for Medical Public Policy R. Blaine

EXECUTIVE VICE CHANCELLOR FOR

MEDICAL AFFAIRS AND DEAN

(L. Shapiro, M.D.)

Executive

Faculty/Department

Heads

(See: Academic Org

Chart)

Director Audiology and Communication Sciences

(W. Clark, Ph.D.)

Director Biostatistics(D.C. Rao, Ph.D.)

Assoc DeanFaculty Affairs(D. Gray, M.D.)

Asst DeanSpecial Programs

(G. Wiman)

Assoc Dean & Dir.Office of Diversity

(W. Ross, M.D.)

Assistant DeanAdmissions

(L. Stevenson)

Assoc. Deanfor Research

(J. Lodge, Ph.D.)

Sr Assoc Dean HumanResearch Protection

(M. Kass, M.D.)

Exec DirectorHuman Studies

(M. Jones)

Assoc Dean/ChairHuman Studies(J. Green, M.D.)

BJH

SLCH

Asst Dean Strategic Planning/ Executive

DirectorJOSP(L. Reimann)

HIPAA Privacy Officer(Sondra Hornsey)

Asst DeanClinical Trials

(Y. Zhang)

Senior Director,Clinical

Operations(K. Mullen)

Dir. of Patient Safety(Mary Taylor)

Dir. Billing Compliance

(J. Ditch)

Assoc. VC/Assoc. DeanAdmin & Finance

(R. Stanton)

Associate VC ClinicalAffairs and CEO, FPP

(J. Crane, M.D.)

Asst VC Facilities

(M. Hopkins)

Exec. Dir., Phys.Practice

Develop. & Analysis

(J. St. Aubin)

Asst Dean/ Exec. Dir.

Human Resources

(L. Chandler)

Senior Director, Communications

(Kay Franks)

Assoc Dean/Dir Medical

Library(P. Schoening)

Chief – Director ofEmergency Medicine

(B.E. Ruoff, M.D.)

Asst VC Finance

(M. Corcoran)

Exec. Dir., Managed Care Cont & Phys.

Billing(J. Albertina)

Dir, Student &Employee Health(K. Winters, M.D.)

Sr. Assoc Deanfor Education

(A. Whelan, M.D.)

Assoc Dean, MedStudent Education

(M. Awad, M.D., Ph.D.)

Asst Deanfor Education

(C. Dufault, Ph.D.)

Asst Deanfor Curriculum

(S. Nunez, Ph.D.)

Asst DeanMedical Education(D. Andriole, M.D.)

Assoc DeanAdmissions

(V. Ratts, M.D.)

Assoc DeanStudent Affairs

(L. Moscoso, M.D., Ph.D.)

Assoc Dean Graduate.Med. Ed.(R. McAlister, M.D.)

Assoc DeanCME

(A. Zazulia, M.D.)

Assoc VC /Assoc. DeanMed. Public Affairs

(J. Westerhouse)

Ex. Dir., Siteman Marketing, Comm &

Phys. Srvcs., (A. Warren)

Director, Web Technical Strategy

(B. Marston)

Exec. Dir., Integrated

Marketing & Branding

(D. Heroux)

Exec. Director,Research Comm.

(C. Arbanas)

This org chart is about 6 months old, so several names have changed. However, it still accurately illustrates the complexity of WUSM operations.

This org chart is from January 2016. It highlights the major operating areas of School of Medicine central administration.

Program in Audiology & Communication Science

School of Medicine research funding by Department and by Sponsor Type. Shows significant growth from FY14 to FY15 (7-1 to 6-30 fiscal year basis).

FY14 Total: $449 M

FY15 Total: $532 M

About Me• Part of Med School HR team since May 2011

– Hired to improve HR reporting

– Added compensation duties later

– Promoted to Manager Feb. 2015

• Now with University-wide duties

• And parts of 3 FTEs reporting to me

• Former ColdFusion programmer

– Built St Louis city website tools

– MS SQL Server, GIS experience

• PhD, political science

– Washington U. program heavy on statistical methods

– Both frequentist and Bayesian (Stata, R, SAS)

• Grants & Contracts experience

– Brought $124M+ in business to St Louis

Technical EnvironmentData Silos:

Disconnected,

locally-built systems

HR Environment

• Two HR offices

– Main (Danforth) campus

– Medical School

• Main HR reports to University EVP of Admin

• Med School central areas (including HR) report to

the Med School VP of Admin & Finance

• This is gradually evolving into one entity

– But during project studied, still separate

The Problem

• Budgets are tight and getting tighter

– Research dollars are declining

• Sequestration, gov’t shutdown, Federal budget cuts

• WUSTL Fed research revenues declined $52 M in 10 years

– Aside from the “stimulus bump” of 2009-10

– Clinical revenues stable, but uncertain future

• ACA, no Medicaid expansion in MO, readmission penalties

• Historically, clinical revenue subsidizes research

The Challenge from Leadership

• University goal: $30 Million in annual savings

– Huron Consulting Group hired in spring 2013

• Identified four areas for efficiency:

– Facilities Management

– Research Administration

– Central Area Finance/Accounting Services

– Procurement

What is “Research Administration”?

• Proposal Writing

• Budgeting

• Project Management

• Documentation

• Compliance

– Human Subjects

– Animal Welfare

– Conflict of Interest

– Intellectual Property

• Reporting to Principal Investigators (PIs)

The focus here is on “Local” Research Administration – that is, within the various departments of the School of Medicine. These are the people who provide direct service to Principal Investigators (PIs). Another layer of staffing exists in central administration, within the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research.

SWOT Analysis – Current State

•Grant Management System

•Consolidate and Leverage Resources

•Training & Career Development

•Standardize Processes

• Decline in NIH Funding

• Increasing Compliance

• Inverse relationship between grant approval & # of submissions

•Grant Management System

•Multiple IT Systems

•Reporting Metrics

•Cross-coverage

•Duplication of Effort

•Training & Development of RA staff

• PI Responsiveness

• Customized Processes

• Competitiveness for Grant Submissions

• Top 5 in NIH Funding

Strengths Weaknesses

OpportunitiesThreats

Courtesy of Cindy Smith, Executive Director for Business Operations,

Washington University Department of Psychiatry

How to Win More Business• Streamline the proposal development process

• Maintain “PI-friendly” customer service

• Dedicate personnel 100% to research admin

• Develop more efficient reporting tools

• Identify more non-Federal opportunities

• Many non-Federal grants do not provide the

same level of indirect cost charge as Federal

• Major growth area is industry-sponsored

clinical trials

– More complex contracts, different skill sets

Data Gathering• Remember – decentralized institution

• Each department provided an estimate of

their fractional FTEs performing this function

– Some tweaked a little along the way

• Then raw data gathered for an FY12 snapshot

– Grant & Contract proposals (dollars requested)

– Research Admin staff salaries & fringes

– Financial System transaction counts

– Grant & Contract awards (dollars in)

– Grant & Contract expenditures (dollars out)

– Each one assigned a Complexity score

Data Problems

• Each data source comes from a different,

standalone system

– Department numbers are not coded consistently

– Employee names are formatted differently

– Divisions do not consistently roll-up into larger

entities because of coding differences

– Dollars will never match between data systems

because of time lag, in a single FY snapshot

Manually Generated Crosswalk Table

Simplified Version of Crosswalk Table

Findings

Research Expenditures Per Research Admin Staff FTE

$0$1 $2 $2 $2 $2 $2 $3 $3 $3 $3 $3 $3 $3 $3 $4 $4 $4 $4 $4 $4 $4 $5 $5 $5

$7

$51

$0

$10

$20

$30

$40

$50

Mil

lio

ns

Average = $3.41 M

Research Admin Staff Cost Per FTE

$53

$61$62$63$65$69$69$70$70$70$71$71$72$72$73$73

$76$77$77$78$79$79$82$83

$85

$100 $100

$0

$20

$40

$60

$80

$100

$120

Th

ou

san

ds

Average = $72,560

This is a total employee cost figure including base salary, overtime (if applicable), and fringes.

Awards (Wins) by Type

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

Gifts

Contracts

Grants

Research Expenditures Per Principal Investigator

$0

$1,000

$2,000

$3,000

$4,000

$5,000

Th

ou

san

ds

Average = $497,000

Recommendations• Combine resources into ‘local’ service centers

– Consider the departments that are above average in

research dollars per research admin FTE

• Total $245M research revenues, and 52.80 staff FTEs

– Make the below average departments’ equivalent in

FTE coverage to the above average departments

• Total $254M research revenues, currently 108.76 staff FTEs

• In long-term, reduce staffing by 55.96 FTEs

• Recall average staff cost of $72,560

Potential Savings

$4.06 Million annually (based on FY 2012 alone)

Follow-Up Work

• Several departments have formed a “coalition of the

willing” to share research admin staff

– Psychiatry as lead, serving Emergency Medicine and Physical

Therapy; 3 Internal Medicine divisions

• Also a “Research Reporting Subgroup” formed (includes me)

– Identified several key reports such as “burn rate” that would

be helpful to implement school-wide.

• 1 full report produced by IT for departments to use on-demand.

– Ongoing changes in IT

• First University CIO hired (from BI background)

• First BI director hired (from corporate world)

• Shift to creating ‘packages’, not canned reports

• New emphasis on replacing legacy systems

• FY’15 data analysis (pending)

Shifting Priorities on the HR Side• Efficiency is still very important going forward

– Shared service model adoption still ongoing

– Primarily focused on payroll, finance transactions

• New job titles, career ladder for grants admin

– Rolled out October 2015 for Med School depts

• New focus on diversity & inclusion (post-Ferguson)

– Employee training, data analysis, engagement survey

• New leadership: new School of Medicine Dean

– Med School HR leader promoted to University CHRO

– Several new department chairs

• Retire about 70 from leadership, stay on faculty

Contact

Joe Frank, PhD, CCP, GWCCM

Washington University in St. Louis &

Washington University School of Medicine

Manager, Human Resources Reporting & Compliance

Email: jgfrank@wustl.edu

Twitter: @mrjoefrank

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/joefrankstl

Web: http://hr.wustl.edu/ or http://hr.med.wustl.edu

Phone: (314) 362-4943