COVID-19 exposed so many cracks in the American healthcare system, but nowhere were those cracks wider than in nurse staffing. Nurses at the bedside endured the vicious cycle of emotional and physical burnout, the exodus of early retirees, and ever-increasing nurse to patient ratios.
Staffing agencies played a role during COVID providing short term staffing relief but did so in a transactional way, charging high fees with little nurse-wage transparency, and many times failing to deliver on filling orders completely. Some hospitals engaged with tech staffing platforms, circumventing legacy staffing vendors during the crisis and saw increased delivery and greater transparency; however, now that the crisis has largely abated, many have begun to revert back to traditional staffing models.
Healthcare staffing is at a major inflection point.
Do we really believe this is the last pandemic? On July 24th The World Health Organization declared Monkeypox a ‘global health emergency’. COVID hasn’t fully subsided, and we already have another health emergency. With one million nurses eligible to retire by 2030 - not to mention an aging population of Baby Boomers as patients - going back to business as usual is not an option. Health systems have an opportunity to learn from the staffing challenges witnessed during the pandemic and find better ways to manage external and internal staffing. Central to the solution will be technology forward staffing platforms. In the same way technology disrupted retail, transportation, and investing - it is and will continue to do the same for nurse staffing.
Right now we see some hospital networks like Geisinger in Pennsylvania innovating by creating their own nurse staffing agency as part of their total workforce solution. Their program launched in June and is promising to give nurses choice and flexibility in their careers and is open to internal and external nurses. Their goal is to recruit and retain more registered nurses in their hospital network and better manage the cost. And guess what, it’s working.
However, we know that not every health system has the funding, resources, or time to build a staffing agency let alone a technology enabled staffing platform. And yet, this is a solution that cannot wait to be developed over the next 2-3 years, it must be done right now. Tech enabled staffing platforms like SnapNurse are already in conversations with multiple major health systems across the country to do this immediately.
We already know that health systems do not need another agency vendor. Health systems need a partner who can help them manage their internal and external workforce. The right technology enabled staffing platform can help turn a cost center into a profit center for a health system. All health systems should be following the lead of a system like Geisinger but not necessarily by investing millions of dollars to do it themselves but by partnering with the largest and fastest growing tech-enabled staffing platform in America.
This partnership starts with managing internal and external staff using tech enabled recruiting, credentialing, booking, and same day payment for nurses while also offering innovative programs like reskilling and hospital-at-home initiatives with rideshare partners.
SnapNurse aims to displace the current client-vendor staffing model and become the MSP 2.0 - using a tech enabled platform to better manage internal and external float pools with the health system in greater control. Three years from now, healthcare staffing will look nothing like it does today. SnapNurse is leading the way to what the future of healthcare staffing will become.