St. Josefs-Hospital: Mastering everyday work with Stackfield

About the St. Josefs-Hospital

The St. Josefs-Hospital Wiesbaden, or JoHo for short, is a Christian-oriented, catholic emergency hospital in the German, hessian state capital Wiesbaden. Founded in 1876, the hospital has twelve medical departments and about 500 beds (as of 2021). As the first German hospital with a DIN EN ISO 9001 certification and equipped with state-of-the-art technologies, the St. Josefs-Hospital Wiesbaden demonstrates its pursuit of innovation and progress daily. Today, Stackfield supports JoHo in the process of continuous improvement.

Outlook flags and protocols in OneNote: What work at JoHo was like before Stackfield

OneNote for writing protocols and as a kind of diary replacement and outlook for communication and project work. Arne Evers who has been working at the St. Josefs-Hospital for around 20 years, today as the JoHo association's director of nursing is relieved these times are over: When you work on the same topic as a team for a longer time, it quickly becomes problematic with Outlook. A lot of emails will eventually pile up and you will have to work with these impractical Outlook flags, Arne Evers recounts.

In the end, however, it wasn't just Outlook that was decisive for introducing a digital tool, but above all the need for project management software. Arne Evers explains: We have a strategy and development process called 'JoHo 2030' which contains a large number of projects, let's say 300 projects. All these projects need to be managed and tracked by the people responsible, and those responsible don't want to flip through a book every day. With project management software, the aim was therefore to provide not only team leaders but also the management with a quick and easy insight into ongoing projects, including the current status and possible bottlenecks.

Data protection and value for money: Stackfield impresses with a coherent overall package

In a project group together with his colleagues Thomas Gorniok, IT manager at JoHO, and Angela Tausendpfund from strategic project and company development Arne Evers set about looking for suitable software. Google was used to compare various tools in terms of price and range of functions. Stackfield not only stood out in terms of price but also surprised the team in terms of data protection. Arne Evers explains: We simply liked the software. It is German which makes things a lot easier and all servers are located in Germany. That would have been quite a different story with Monday, also financially.

Hence the decision was quickly made in favor of Stackfield, Stackfield was introduced to the hospital, and training courses were initiated for all department heads. Today, Stackfield is offered internally in various departments of the hospital, and all those who wish can receive a short training course and a license on request.

Project work in other dimensions: In Stackfield, every project quickly becomes manageable, regardless of its scope and complexity

Small projects at the St. Josefs-Hospital get their own task in Stackfield. Within a task card all individual task steps can be mapped by using sub-tasks and the comment section additionally offers a detailed history documentation.

For more complex projects, a separate room is provided so that every detail can be monitored using the various modules and features. Especially for projects that require larger teams, the Stackfield room is suitable as a separate, project-related workspace. Arne Evers talks about the complex project of the implementation of the digital fever curve which is managed in Stackfield: In hospitals, vital signs have to be recorded somewhere and this can also be done digitally. However, for this to be implemented, a large number of conversations and changes or investments are necessary. [...] Stackfield has the advantage that I can inform my team about problems, for example, and ask them about possible solutions without having to open up countless email distribution lists. In addition, Stackfield is faithfully supporting JoHo in implementing the requirements for the Hospital Future Act and in working towards the Pflegeattraktiv certificate.

In the sidebar all rooms are sorted into room groups, for example, JoHo 2030, Nursing Services Management, and Quality and Risk Management allowing easy access without time-consuming searching. Often used rooms are additionally pinned in the top of the sidebar as favorites. Arne Evers' pinned rooms are for example his personal room, the room together with his colleagues on site, and the room with his colleagues from group clinics. If a room is no longer needed, it is finally archived by the responsible person. Room groups, favorites, and the archive, support especially the Nursing Services Management and other team members in keeping an overview of a large number of projects.

Email applications as tasks in Stackfield: How applicant management can work in Stackfield

Using Stackfield's email integration, all applications submitted to the hospital's nursing service are automatically forwarded to Stackfield and created as tasks in the Applications room. Each task is then assigned to the responsible team members and, depending on its status, moved back and forth between the Kanban columns defined by the HR department itself: To do for all applicants to be contacted, Interview scheduled if an interview date has been set, Work day scheduled if an appointment has been made for the trial working day, Pending feedback if acceptance is still expected or, for example, documents are still missing, and Done for completed applications. This way, everyone in the team maintains an overview at all times and no application is overlooked or forgotten.

Thereby, the task card contains all relevant information for the application. The content of the email is in the task description, documents attached to the email such as the CV are attached to the task together with the minutes of the interview, and a meticulous diary is kept in the comments section, e.g. with comments such as not reached by phone. Arne Evers is so convinced of Stackfield's usefulness that he can no longer imagine his everyday life without it.

The transparency is worth its weight in gold.

The transparency within the team as well as towards team leaders and management, which Stackfield provides as a matter of course, is especially worth its weight in gold for JoHo. Instead of sending emails back and forth for weeks, a topic can be entered into Stackfield with just a few clicks and the work can be done centrally for everyone to see directly in the task. Requested feedback can be provided at the end via approvals, mentions, or other means and can be tracked without any problems. It's not just a question-and-answer dialog, but a transparent provision of information, praises Thomas Gorniok. And transparency can bring benefits in several ways.

Final words: Customer feedback and continuous improvement at Stackfield

Whether extensive project management or everyday small jobs: Arne Evers knows that all tasks at JoHo can be transparently mapped and managed with Stackfield and praises Stackfield's willingness to continuously improve.