Can you tell we love talking about actionable dashboards? We have a good reason though, and you do too. Continuing with our impassioned conversation about actionable dashboards, we want to show you an example of how someone can leverage one in a specific industry – like the senior living industry that recently hit an impressive growth rate of 81.4% in its fourth-straight quarter, but we digress….
By now, we know that the purpose of effective actionable dashboard metrics is to provide clear insights that drive change. So, how do you set one up so it influences meaningful change in a senior living organization? It’s simple when you break it down: By organizing data resourcefully, and in a way that makes sense to its facility’s staff. In a healthcare setting, this is possible by organizing key metrics into buckets of data like operating income, revenue and expenses, community fees, care charges, and so forth.
Additionally, Domo’s software for senior living is role-based so you can tailor the dashboard to display only the metrics and KPIs that are relevant to a healthcare employee’s day-to-day responsibilities. This helps cut out the fluff and assists in focusing on role-specific information only. Executive management, operations, and sales teams are the main drivers of business intelligence in a senior living facility, so that’s why we’re breaking down how each of these levels might specifically use an actionable dashboard. For an industry that is always so focused on helping others, we wanted to try and return the favor.
Tier 1 Metrics – C-Suite Executive
A C-suite executive needs to focus on the high-level metrics that impact the entire company, the bottom line, and long-term decision-making. Rather than just record and report on financial statistics, it’s imperative, even more so in the healthcare industry that’s constantly facing unprecedented change, that executives use the data at their fingertips to drive strategic and actionable planning. With that in mind, a senior living facility’s actionable dashboard metrics would need to include census (how many people) or occupancy (how many units are occupied), revenue, expenses, and net operating income, and the ability to compare these data metrics to a budget or a projection. They need to be able to see if the information and numbers are on track, or if there is something they need to take action on – hence the name “actionable”!
Tier 2 Metrics – Regional Operations Manager
Things get a bit more detailed at a regional level. The Regional Operations Manager, for instance, would monitor which communities are driving the variance for the portfolio and where they should think about stepping into more. Plus, any other metrics that could help them see where the discrepancies are.
These metrics are in addition to the same KPIs the C-suite executive monitors, but at this tier two level, the Manager would use the software for senior living to break down metrics slightly different from the executive level tier one level.
The main difference is the metrics are sliced and diced by individual communities that the Regional Manager is responsible for. This is so they can see what communities need attention and what ones are exceeding goals. This manager will probably compare each location’s KPIs to their budget to determine where things might be going off track.
Tier 3 Metrics – Office Manager
The tier three level could be an Executive Director or Business Office Manager at a single senior living community, and the metrics are broken down even further. This person needs to see data on what exact components make up the revenue. At our senior living organization clients, such as Tuscan Gardens, the KPIs for this role include rent, care charges, community fees, and any miscellaneous charges. At this level, the KPIs are really focused on revenue metrics and seeing where they are on or off their budget, room-by-room. This helps senior living management, like a Director or Manager of that facility to hopefully spot any issues before they become large enough to show up on the upstream dashboards.
Expose Revenue Opportunities
In terms of care charges, Domo’s software for senior living can also help identify who’s not being charged market price. The dashboard metrics can visually show the residents who are consuming staff’s time but maybe aren’t appropriately getting charged for it. Also, if someone has a $1,500 variance in their room rate, this can be used as an exercise in sales training to avoid making such big discounts. Furthermore, it can be a revenue opportunity to change rates on annual renewals and reap back some costs.
From the expense side of things, one of the big major players in a senior living organization is labor, like labor hours and dollar amounts. This type of described information would be on the lower-level actionable dashboard, like a tier two or three. Let’s say, the census says we should have X number of people, and the budget says we can have X number of dollar amount. Where are we at exactly? Do we need to hire at a different pay level, or do we just need to adjust projections? From the tier three level, that person can see where they are spending too little, for example, if they’re not spending enough on food or entertainment for residents, etc., and notify the decision makers of the discrepancy so they can make a change.
Trigger Points & Current Priorities
A question we sometimes get from our Domo clients is how often they should check their actionable dashboard metrics. We suggest checking in at various trigger points. For example, a common trigger point for senior living management is when a new resident moves in. At an Executive Director level, we would recommend checking the actionable dashboard to monitor expenses on a daily or weekly basis to make sure things are on track. It really just depends on your organization and what your priorities are at that time, but we find those times to be most effective.
The purpose of highlighting a particular industry in this blog is so you (hopefully) get a better understanding of an actionable dashboard’s workflows, including its benefits. This is how an actionable dashboard could work out in the wild! If you still have questions on how specific software for senior living might work in your organization, don’t hesitate to reach out to one of our Domo experts. Actionable dashboards have an unlimited amount of potential, you just need to know how to effectively utilize them in your business to make changes.
