The North Savo hospital district (PSSHP) provides specialised medical care through Kuopio University Hospital (KUH). Kuopio University Hospital is the largest trainer of physicians in Finland. The hospital is in charge of the demanding specialised medical care of nearly a million patients. The properties owned by the health care district total around 283,000 m². Rapal’s Optimaze solution gathers all the data for PSSHP’s properties in one place, significantly improving the efficiency of real estate management.
All information in one place
PSSHP implemented Optimaze in autumn 2016. The most significant changes have been in budgeting, managing internal letting and removing unnecessary work stages.
“Optimaze is a modern system and a good overall package. There will be significant savings in working time in the future, as we can find all the information in one place,” says Jouni Pääkkönen, a project worker in property maintenance and rental of premises at PSSHP.
The health, social services and regional government reform has brought with it new requirements for real estate management. This includes sending regular reports. Pääkkönen goes on to say, “It really helps that all the information about a building is available in one system. This makes it much easier to prepare reports.”
Easier budgeting and data entry
The real estate unit used to prepare budgets using Excel. The challenges it had were that in Excel only one person could make changes at a time, and the errors that users sometimes introduced into the formulas. The budget for 2017 has now been transferred to Optimaze, and in spring the budget for 2018 will be planned using Optimaze. Simultaneous editing is possible with the system, for example, changing electricity and water costs. Users can no longer mess up formulas by accident, making budgeting more reliable than before.
Letting, invoicing and use of facilities all under better control
The old system used for external letting was rigid in its function. A copy of the lease agreement was sent to accounting, and invoicing was carried out with another system. There were often breaks and errors in the flow of communication between accounting and the real estate unit, for example, in rises in rent. Invoicing is now done with Optimaze. “Invoicing went smoothly. Seems good all round,” says Pääkkönen, praising the system.
Units have had to move because of extensive renovation work and new building projects. Information on facilities leased internally was recorded in lists previously. Checking the details for thousands of properties from lists was difficult, and there were doubts as to how up to date the information was. The floor plans were kept as separate files on a network drive and as such were not directly connected to the other information about the properties. Now the floor plans for all PSSHP’s properties, including social facilities, have been digitised in Optimaze, and the user information has been marked on them. “What has changed the most is the management of units: we now know exactly where each unit is located. A digital floor plan really helps in this,” says Pääkkönen.
The real estate unit is satisfied with Optimaze, and the plan is to extend its use within the North Savo hospital district. In future, more data will be brought into Optimaze through an integration.