Background
Mercy Hospital in Iowa City has been caring for Iowans since 1873, when four Sisters of Mercy traveled to Iowa City to open the community’s first hospital. Today, Mercy is a 234-bed, acute-care community hospital and regional referral center for southeast Iowa, providing a full range of medical services.
Customer Needs
As part of a new access control system integration, Mercy Hospital wanted to sync its HR and security databases to eliminate duplicate data entry into these two separate systems. The hospital also wanted employees to carry only one badge, so the access badges needed to serve as time cards as well.
Solution
After 42 hours of work from CEC’s development team, Mercy Hospital had a new process in place that eliminated all duplicate data entry. All employee information originally housed in the two separate systems was imported so that no data entry had to be redone. Existing records fed right into the new system.
After partnering with CEC, Mercy Hospital of Iowa City now has:
- One-time data entry when an employee is hired or terminated, or when there is an update to employee information. All employee data is synched so HR staff members only need to access/update the data once.
- Training for all staff members on how to use the database.
- A process for entering or updating employee information that can evolve as the hospital grows. The HR system creates an employee file that is imported into the security system; once the employee information is added or updated in the security system, a timekeeping file is generated only for new employees.
- One access badge for employees to carry. The badge serves two purposes: it lets employees punch in/out and gain access to certain areas of the hospital.
- One central location that houses all information for employees vs. having separate systems with different data about the same employees.
There were zero interruptions during this access control system integration project. There were no major problems or issues that happened. And now we’re saving time by having this system in place.