HOUSTON –  A company that earned its reputation designing staffing schedules for dialysis centers is setting its sights on other healthcare providers.

Officials at Houston-based EmLogis say their workforce modeling product, called Generator, reduces thousands of schedules into a series of parameters. Healthcare officials then choose from among those parameters – such as the schedule that offers the least amount of overtime or offers the most support to a particular department – to complete a staffing plan.

"It's really adaptive programming," says Robert Bernard, MD, the company's chief software architect. "We've taken workforce modeling and we've partitioned it."

Last July, the company implemented Generator at several dialysis clinics run by Dialysis Clinic, Inc., a Nashville, Tenn.-based operator of more than 200 outpatient clinics in the country. According to EmLogis CEO Martin Estill, the technology helped the clinics realize a savings of $500,000, reduced direct patient labor costs by 5 percent to 9 percent and eliminated overstaffing issues.

"What they've done is taken staff and redistributed them to take care of other issues," said Estill, who noted the technology is now in use in more than 40 DCI clinics.

Estill said the company is now targeting long-term care organizations and hospitals. A recent white paper conducted in conjunction with the Memorial Herman Healthcare System, reported an 8.4 percent reduction in payroll costs, 98 percent employee satisfaction for days and hours scheduled and a 50 percent reduction in time spent by authorities in developing staffing schedules.

In expanding its scope in the healthcare sector, EmLogis is venturing into a busy field. Companies offering workforce management programs include Lawson, McKesson, Broadlane, Kronos, Infor and Concerro, to name just a few.

Estill and Bernard say EmLogis tailors its product to meet the needs of each organization, allowing them to factor in operational demands and employee preferences. By creating parameters, said Bernard, administrators are able to choose the staffing schedule that best fits their needs.

"The hardest part of many staffing solutions is just getting the names in the boxes, and that leads many businesses to adapt their processes to meet what the product can do," said Estill.

"We're not really selling an application," said David Crawley, the company's vice president. "We're selling an enabling technology.”