Advocate Health governs nurse advancement at scale through an enterprise workflow and records solution

Industry: Healthcare
Location: 6 states across the United States
Organization size: 10,000+ employees
Hyland solutions: OnBase

Advocate Health’s ExCEL RN (Excellence in Career Engagement & Learning) supported 22,000 nurses and has now evolved to the ADVANCE program supporting more than 42,000 nurses through an advancement program tied to career progression and bonuses. As ExCEL RN expanded, Advocate Health established a governed system of record and workflow process integrated with Workday and payroll to enforce rules, validate eligibility and retain complete auditable records.

ExCEL RN was a voluntary, three-level program that requires nurses to complete measured activities across leadership, role development, clinical practice and inquiry/innovation (12, eight and four points, respectively) within defined timelines. But as the program grew more complex, the legacy platform could not support multiyear life cycles or exceptions (leaves, extensions), reliably retain documentation or provide enterprise governance visibility. Limited integration — including no direct-to-HR connection — created fragmented data, manual checks, higher costs, and added equity and audit risk in a program with direct compensation impact.

Advocate Health engineered an end-to-end ExCEL RN workflow and records solution to standardize data capture, govern routing and approvals, enforce program rules and retain supporting documentation as auditable records. Role-specific forms and workflow logic automate routing between teammates, leaders, ExPRT peer review committees and administrators while supporting multiyear progression. Direct integration with Workday and payroll delivers daily eligibility validation, reflects role and FTE changes, prevents ineligible applications from progressing and aligns advancement outcomes with compensation.

The solution now serves as the enterprise foundation for ExCEL RN, supporting more than 2,500 nurses in a phased rollout designed to scale across Advocate Health’s 44,000-nurse workforce. As the system of record, applications, decisions and documentation are consistently linked by nurse, cycle and program year, restoring trust and delivering enforceable governance and full audit trails.

Standardized, role-based workflows improve transparency and consistency, while Workday/payroll integration reduces manual effort and error risk. Advocate Health also realized an estimated $60,000 in annual cost avoidance and 300-400 hours per year in administrative effort reduction and has observed lower turnover among ExCEL RN participants than non-participants.

Advocate Health is extending this enterprise solution for broader adoption across its nursing workforce. The next phase builds on proven workflows and existing HR and payroll integrations to scale without sacrificing governance, auditability or user experience. Advocate Health also plans to reuse the same governance patterns and workflow foundation to support additional professional development and workforce programs, strengthening long-term sustainability by consolidating advancement processes on an enterprise platform.