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Case Study: Aurora Health Care

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March 2007	www.infomap.com	Vol. 15, No. 1

Case Study: Aurora Health Care
by Cynthia Whitty, Public Relations Specialist

Aurora Health Care adopted the Information Mapping® methodology to create an organized library of over 2,000 policies, procedures, and training documents. As a result, Aurora is able to provide services consistently to all populations, accurately bill patients, and save time training personnel.

With over 25,000 employees, Aurora Health Care is the largest private employer in Wisconsin and home to Aurora St. Luke's Medical Center, Wisconsin’s largest private hospital. Aurora provides care at facilities in more than 90 communities throughout eastern Wisconsin, including 13 hospitals, more than 100 clinics, and over 120 community pharmacies. More than 3,400 physicians are affiliated with Aurora Health Care, including 680 who make up the Aurora Medical Group.

Aurora focuses on prevention, treatment, and outreach. It finds new ways to keep people healthy and return them to health more quickly after injury or illness, and it reaches outside its facilities, rather than waiting for people to come in. Aurora must continually improve not only the quality of care for individual patients but also access to care for the elderly, the poor, and the uninsured.

Providing Benefits Consistently to a Diverse Population
Neil Brace, Web-based training coordinator for all billing functions, explains Aurora’s challenge in serving such a diverse population. “It is critical from a legal and ethical standpoint that Aurora, as a not-for-profit health care provider, offers all benefits consistently to both insured and financially assisted patients. Having clear, concise, accessible documentation helps to accomplish this goal.”

Neil was hired three years ago as training coordinator for the Aurora Health Care Central Business Office clinic billing function. His current position as Web-based training coordinator directly came out of his experience with Information Mapping.

When Neil was hired, he and Susan Kerr, Manager of Training for Patient Financial Services, saw that Aurora needed organized, shared documentation written in a consistent format. “Everyone was writing policies and procedures a little bit differently,” says Neil. “Information Mapping provided the solution and great tools with which to accomplish it.”

Soon, Neil began training in Web site development. Then, in November 2004, he completed his first Information Mapping workshop, Mapping Business Communications™ (MBCO). In April 2006, he received a certificate in Developing Procedures, Policies and Documentation™ (DPPD) at an on-site workshop and became a certified MBCO instructor.

With training in the Information Mapping® method, Neil was able to oversee the development of a resource library of over 2,000 documents. These documents help ensure parallel processes across departments and accuracy in job functions. According to Neil, “Consistent policies and procedures are the basis for clear training documentation. From consistent training documentation we can develop clear job competencies and performance-based training.”

Improved Document Readability and Accessibility Impresses Users
“Reactions from users have been very positive,” says Neil. As awareness spread of the mapped documents and intranet Web sites, the Central Business Office made it a policy that its 700 employees will develop content using the Information Mapping method and house new documents on Web sites for easy access from any location. Neil’s current position of Web-based training coordinator was developed to accommodate the many tasks involved.

Neil now trains managers, supervisors, and lead personnel in all 11 Central Business Office departments in process and procedure writing, giving approximately 10 classes each year. He works with subject matter experts to develop online learning, such as Insurance Terminology and Customer Service Call Center Overview, entry-level courses designed to provide new employees with prerequisite learning. He is responsible for eight Central Business Office Web sites, creating, updating, and maintaining them as needed and reviewing all documentation for mapping and department standards before it is placed on a Web site. He also creates and maintains standards for all documentation published on Aurora Central Business Office intranet sites.

“Our goal of creating an organized library of policies, procedures, and training documentation with a consistent format was achieved using the Information Mapping methodology. The training and support from Information Mapping helped us reach our organizational goals,” says Susan.

Aurora has found that Information Mapping has saved them significant time and money. “We not only created consistent documents, but documented processes in areas where none existed,” explains Neil. “Having clear training documentation helps to reduce the time it takes to train personnel and increase billing accuracy.”

Studies have shown that the Information Mapping method helps to reduce training time by 10%-50%, error rates by 54%, and documentation costs by 20%-50%.

Neil also provides Information Mapping method training to personnel outside the Central Business Office who are interested in bringing consistent and accurate documentation to their departments. According to Susan, “We recently implemented fluency-based training techniques – the ability to perform quickly and without hesitation – within our department. Since content analysis is done using Information Mapping, the process of determining the work outputs required for each job function is greatly simplified.”

Neil Brace was this year’s IMAP Award winner for Best Web Application for his document, “Guidelines for Information Mapped & Web Site Documentation.”

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