McLaren Health Uses Brightly Origin Data to Increase Annual Facilities Funding by 25%

Earning a Place at the Table 

Before adopting Origin, the McLaren team simply used an Excel spreadsheet to track capital needs. The items that were approved would be funded, but those that were not approved would simply be deleted. “Even if something wasn’t funded, it was still needed, but we didn’t have a good system for tracking those requests year after year,” Miller says. “Origin gives us a very good understanding of our needs for the long-term and short-term, and things don’t fall off the list anymore.” 

After transitioning to Origin, Miller and his team were able to share their funding requests with deep analytical data rather than a simple spreadsheet, and the capital committee was impressed. 

Armed with detailed capital requests and supporting data, Miller earned the trust of McLaren leaders and gained more authority to make funding decisions. 

In the past, it was really hard to get capital dollars,” Miller says. “Now that we have data and proof of what we need, people trust our data, give us the funding we need, and allow us to do what we need for capital improvements.

Securing More Capital Funding 

With the increased trust of the capital committee, Miller and his team have been able to secure increased amounts of funding for updates and repairs. Since implementing Origin, the committee’s funding for facilities has increased 25%. “It wasn’t instantaneous, it took time,” Miller says. “But Origin gave the c-suite the understanding to be able to make decisions based on data.” 

By providing real-time data on assets, preventive maintenance and repairs, Origin offers a blueprint for the capital updates the system needs. However, Miller has the leeway to adjust that blueprint based on available funding and priorities. 

For example, rather than using the funds to replace a roof or HVAC unit at one facility, Miller sometimes applies that money to improve the roofs or HVAC units at multiple facilities, improving the useful life at several locations and improving the FHI (Facility Health Index) scores at several facilities. With the help of Origin, McLaren has improved its FHI score across the portfolio between 6% and 8%. 

Standardizing Data 

In addition to helping McLaren secure increased funding for capital improvements, Origin has also helped the system reach its standardization goals. Over the past five years, the company has been able to meet or exceed its annual cost reduction goals of 3% to 5% across the organization. 

Anything we can do to standardize across our subsidiaries is helpful and allows us to reduce our overall costs. We will continue these efforts and with Origin because it makes sense for our organization.

In recent years, McLaren has grown through facility construction and expansion as well as acquisition. The standardized data the system has accomplished with Origin has made it easier to bring on new facilities and align them from a data perspective. When new assets are added, they are simply set up to follow the same template so that Miller and his team maintain visibility across the company. 

“Origin allows us to maintain visibility of our needs and continually make adjustments,” Miller says. “As we deployed Origin and created the data standards so that when McLaren onboarded new facilities, the process was seamless.”