Better space data visibility unlocks big savings for Highmark Health

When Beth Kocur joined Highmark as the director of workplace design and delivery, she inherited a manual, paper-based space management system that mostly used AutoCAD drawings. They had thousands of employees spread across multiple states. What they did not have was a single, trusted system of record for space and occupancy.

“The team would spend at least a week a month tracking,” she says.

Senior project manager Mark Tishko remembers those days, adding that the inconsistent data collection and reporting methods led to unreliable records and little clarity around true utilization.

“We had different properties around the portfolio, different groups in different states and nothing was standardized or consistent,” he says. "Some of the information was accurate, some of it was not."

Without reliable data, strategic questions piled up, and the team had no way to answer them:

• Which floors or buildings could be consolidated to reduce leases or backfill with tenants?
• Which teams are constantly moving and why?
• How much space do different business units actually need?

Highmark evaluated several software vendors. Kocur remembers what set OpenBlue Workplace and OpenBlue Employee apart.

“We decided to move forward because the package gave us the ability to customize it," she says. "There were a lot of things we did not have to be force-fed a certain template for. We could build it for ourselves, and we could evolve it over time."

They started with the fundamentals.

1. Standardize AutoCAD
   Tishko and the team led a portfolio-wide effort to standardize every drawing. “We went through and standardized all of our AutoCADs, same layers, same XREFs,” he says. “Making sure that all of our drawings met the exact same standards.”


2. Build the space inventory and connect HR
   Next they captured every room and seat across the portfolio, then integrated HR data so every employee could be assigned to a seat and department.


3. Expand into a modular workplace ecosystem
   

   From there, Highmark grew with the platform, adding modules for space management, move management, work orders and more.

   "It's become the nucleus of our corporate real estate department," Kocur says. "We use it for everything."

With OpenBlue Workplace and Employee, Kocur’s team could easily oversee:

• Space and occupancy management
• Move, add and change workflows
• Work order and facility maintenance requests
• Room scheduling and events
• Design and construction project management

For Highmark employees, OpenBlue Employee powers effortless desk and room reservations, interactive floor plans and integrated service requests.

The first and most immediate impact was visibility. With accurate data, Kocur and her team can spot when a floor designed for 150 people only has 50 scattered across it. A leader might feel “out of space” because their team is spread out. The system reveals the truth. “We can then consolidate them and then maybe consolidate another team into that footprint,” she says.

Today, Highmark's corporate real estate portfolio in OpenBlue spans 4.7 million square feet and supports 14,000 employees across four states. At that scale, transforming their space management systems to a single digital source of truth has delivered more than clarity and time savings.

"Because we are able to look at the utilization, we can then go in and do different scenario planning to figure out, where can we cut that space? And so we've vacated a lot of real estate, and that saved us money," Kocur says.

A national blended health organization, Highmark Health and its portfolio of healthcare businesses cover a diversified spectrum of essential health-related needs including health insurance, healthcare delivery, population health management, dental solutions, reinsurance solutions and innovative technology solutions. Their “blended” approach supports both patients and clinicians by redesigning care delivery to build a more holistic, integrated health ecosystem.