Planning and Facilitating a Central Office Move for a Major Health System Affiliate

Situation

As a client’s lease for a centralized business office was set to expire, the client began exploring more cost effective commercial real estate options. The client identified an ideal space. At the beginning of the project, the new space for the approximately 120 employees and contractors was nothing more than a concrete floor and commercial shell. Since the new site was not part of the client’s commercial real estate portfolio, no I.T. infrastructure or network existed. All tenant improvements needed to be designed and constructed, along with the selection and installation of all furniture, fixtures, and equipment.

Solution

The client’s Patient Financial Services (PFS) Director and CFO engaged Freed Associates to manage the relocation of their central business office. Freed Associates created a centralized workplan and issue log that facilitated weekly status calls with all teams responsible for supporting the relocation including the architect, building owner, contractor, client IT networking, client telecommunications, client applications departments, moving company, PFS management team and more. The client also asked Freed to manage the installation of new call center software for the Customer Service department to coincide with the move to the new location.

The project spanned approximately five months. As the move in date approached, Freed worked closely with the teams to mitigate risks to Accounts Receivables (AR). We established a billing contingency site to ensure that all bills would continue to flow even if core applications could not be activated at the new facility. Furthermore, moving to a new facility allowed the client to perform time and motion analysis that optimized productivity by placing staff closer to needed resources such as printers capable of producing hardcopy claims. During the weekend of the move, Freed acted as the “move coordinator,” ensuring that various departments shut down according to a strategic schedule. This allowed the PFS management to focus on their business and manage their employees through this change. The move took place between Friday and Sunday. Freed oversaw the technology setup over the weekend and ensured that all staff computers were attached to the new network and that all applications, printing functions, and telecommunications functioned appropriately.

Results

On the Monday after the move, all staff were productive immediately. Freed managed the “triage center,” which collected and resolved any issue reported by the staff. More than 95% of all reported problems related to requests for ad hoc staff relocations from one cubicle to another. These moves were performed immediately and with limited down time.

In addition to a dramatic savings in facility costs, there was no negative impact to AR or cash collections. In fact, AR days actually decreased due to the PFS aggressive clean up performed prior to the move to mitigate any impact of technical issues at the new facility. The average staff downtime was fewer than 4 hours on the Friday prior to the move and fewer than 30 minutes on the Monday at the new facility. Customer Service was brought up on the new call center software with no technical issues and only minor configuration changes.