Ls Hospital

by Kurt Rodenhizer, MS, MBA
 
LS Hospital has over 10,000 employees or volunteers working for the organization. One of the logistics that is not often considered is the allocation of parking space for this population. The parking lot security system requires employees to scan a card for access to a parking lot and this means the person’s name and scan code number must be managed.

Challenges:
Because of frequent change in the employee population, managing the database used to store names, employee numbers, working shifts, rotation dates and vehicle details has not been an easy task. An MS Access database was being used by one staff person to manage the information and then communicate details to the parking administration department. It was important to have the information on parking assignments available on demand and also to allow new employee to apply for their parking assignments when they found it convenient (vs getting parking assignments only when the staff person handling the database was available).

Diagnosis:
It was decided that the database would be most functional if the information was made available online and ePD was contracted to build the Web version of the database. The system would have to provide an employee parking application form and the form design would have to change depending on the type of employee applying for the lot allocation. There would have to be a way for administrators to search, view and edit the records and since lot assignments varied by employee type, a login system would have to be implemented.

Solutions

Login Page:
Handling the variations in the application form used for different employee types was done by using a drop down menu on the parking home page. No names or passwords are required.

Application Form:
The application form was used to collect needed details such as name, location, rotation dates, shift times, and vehicle identification details. Drop down fields and radio buttons were used whenever possible to make the application process as efficient as possible and to prevent the entry of inappropriate data.

Administration Form:
Parking Administrators were given a weblink to a form that allows for the search of records by name, plate number, date of application and , employee type. The table section lists all filtered employee and allows access to the full record, editing of the information and record deletion.

Results:
1. The custom Web site database was created in four days.
2. The database handles parking lot allocation for over 10,000 employees and is available to anyone when needed.
3. The admin options include record location, editing and deletion.