Tampa General Hospital Builds a Culture of Accountability with Real-Time Productivity Insights

For Tampa General Hospital (TGH), improving workforce productivity management was about more than modernizing reporting processes. The organization wanted to create better visibility into labor performance while giving leaders the tools and information they needed to make more informed operational decisions.

Before implementing Strata’s Productivity Reporting, much of the organization’s productivity reporting process was manual and spreadsheet driven. Data had to be pulled from multiple sources, formatted in Excel, and distributed to leaders through static reports that often required additional analyst support to investigate questions or variances.

That process created delays in decision-making and made it difficult for leaders to independently analyze workforce trends. TGH implemented Productivity Reporting as part of a broader enterprise rollout and immediately focused on expanding access to real-time operational data across the organization.

Today, leaders can drill into labor data directly within the platform, monitor staffing trends in real time, and quickly identify operational issues without relying on manually generated reports.

“Before Strata, productivity was Excel-based,” said Brittany Bethune, Director of Finance Optimization at TGH. “Productivity Reporting is really enabling our frontline leaders to have access to more in-depth, real-time data, and establishing that accountability.”

“Productivity Reporting is really enabling our frontline leaders to have access to more in-depth, real-time data, and establishing that accountability."

Building accountability through governance and collaboration

As TGH expanded its use of productivity data, the organization also built a governance structure designed to reinforce accountability and create more consistent operational oversight.

One of the key components of that structure is a recurring series of functional area reviews involving directors and executive leaders. During these monthly sessions, leaders review departmental productivity performance, identify areas that may need support, and collaborate on solutions to operational challenges.

The meetings also create opportunities for cross-functional collaboration between operations, finance, and talent management teams. If departments are struggling with staffing or productivity challenges, leaders from multiple areas can work together to identify barriers and determine next steps.

To further strengthen oversight, TGH established a productivity accountability task force. It includes senior leaders from across the organization, including executives representing clinical operations, ambulatory services, talent management, and regional hospitals.

“The task force ensures our leaders at the executive level have an understanding of what’s going on from a productivity perspective and how they can ask their leaders to assist with areas that might be struggling,” Bethune said.

TGH also found that having operational champions within clinical departments played a major role in driving adoption. Bethune pointed to nursing leadership partners who regularly use the platform and help reinforce productivity concepts with frontline leaders.

Supporting strategic workforce and financial initiatives

As adoption increased, TGH began incorporating productivity insights into broader workforce and financial initiatives. One major area of focus has been position control. TGH integrated productivity metrics directly into position approval workflows, allowing leaders to evaluate labor trends, overtime usage, agency utilization, and productivity indexes before approving new positions.

“We have really been able to establish that position control,” Bethune said. “It allows leaders to have the insights needed to decide ‘Hey, do I need to approve this position? Push this position forward? Or should we hold and maybe shift some things around?’”

The organization has also used Productivity Reporting to support its broader “3 and 30” margin improvement initiative, which aims to improve operating margin by three points in 30 months. The initiative includes efforts to reduce avoidable overtime through an Overtime Exception Reporting (OER) process.

Using productivity and labor management data, leaders can monitor time clock activity more closely and identify trends that contribute to incidental overtime, including early clock-ins and late clock-outs. While the initiative is still evolving, it is already generating measurable financial impact. TGH identified approximately $450,000 in savings during the first quarter through its OER initiative, Bethune said.

The flexibility of the platform also proved valuable during the onboarding of TGH North hospitals, which include TGH Brooksville, TGH Spring Hill, and TGH Crystal River. TGH initially did not have historical budget data for those facilities, which the organization acquired in 2023. TGH leaders used external benchmarking and manually established targets within the system so leaders could begin monitoring productivity performance until that data became available.

Reducing administrative burden and expanding leader education

In addition to improving operational visibility, TGH significantly reduced the amount of time required to manage productivity reporting. Under the organization’s previous process, gathering data, formatting reports, and validating formulas often required days of manual work each reporting cycle.

“When we were doing it in Excel, the process itself probably took three to four days to gather everything, pull it out, format it, and make sure all the formulas were correct,” Bethune said. “Today, much of that work is automated and productivity could be done in two hours.”

The reduction in administrative effort has allowed Bethune’s team to spend more time helping leaders interpret data, answer operational questions, and focus on performance improvement opportunities rather than manually preparing reports.

TGH has also invested in education and ongoing support to help leaders better understand productivity concepts and use the platform effectively. The organization incorporated productivity training into new leader onboarding and created a centralized SharePoint site containing training materials, recorded sessions, and educational resources leaders can access at any time.

For Bethune, sustaining long-term success requires more than simply implementing a technology platform. It also requires operational alignment and leadership support throughout the organization.

“If you want it to be successful, it’s really important to have that governance and support to drive the tool,” she said. “It’s been highly worth it. Going from days of manual work and really reducing that time to hours means we’re able to focus on more important things, like the actual analysis and helping leaders.”