Many hospitals and health systems rely on contingent labor to meet fluctuating, often unpredictable care demand. Although this may seem like a sensible short-term solution, when used over the long term, it can undermine patient care, hurt team morale and strain budgets.
During a May Becker’s Hospital Review webinar sponsored by AMN Healthcare, Liz Cunningham, vice president for workforce solutions at AMN Healthcare, and Derek Godino, senior director of nursing at Geisinger Health (Danville, Pa.), discussed how technology-enabled creative approaches can help healthcare organizations reduce their reliance on contingent labor.
Three key insights were:
- Health systems want consolidated solutions to manage their contingent workforce. Until recently, most organizations relied on disjointed vendor management system (VMS) solutions to manage the contracting and scheduling of travel nurses, per diems, float pools and locum tenens. In addition, chief human resource and information officers were often developing their own workforce technology decisions. This resulted in an uncoordinated, inefficient mix of solutions.
With the arrival of gig economy apps and concepts such as “Uber for staffing,” health systems started looking for alternatives to traditional VMS approaches. “They want easier ways to distribute shifts and are searching for a one-stop-shop, single platform for growth and innovation across all labor types that will integrate within their existing ecosystem and has optionality for additional solutions in the future,” Ms. Cunningham said.
- AMN’s workforce technology solution lets health systems choose modules that fit their needs. The WorkWise technology suitebrings together the essential capabilities to achieve a unified workforce management system that covers all aspects of staffing, scheduling, and talent engagement.. It supports the management of both internal and external labor pools, which enables clinicians to choose the modality that works best for them, with the flexibility to move between modalities as their life or career circumstances change.
This built-in flexibility also empowers organizations to manage labor costs more effectively, thanks to consolidated workflows and enterprise analytics, as well as to improve clinician satisfaction and minimize attrition. “WorkWise encourages health systems to think about different labor mixes not in silos, but as a fluid spectrum where workers can have choice in employment that helps keep them happy and retained while working within the same health system,” Ms. Cunningham said.
Workwise integrates with organizations’ internal employee management solutions and larger ecosystems in a cybersecure way that prioritizes privacy, trust and reduced exposure to risk.
- Geisinger’s partnership with AMN helped modernize its contingent workforce management. In 2022, Geisinger launched an internal workforce program to improve flexibility for its current staff and reinforce recruitment of new talent. Geisinger had an ambitious vision for the program; however, it has been relying on Excel spreadsheets to manage contract labor, which was a cumbersome approach. The organization needed a flexible, forward-looking technology partner to help modernize its contingent workforce program.
Today, more than 500 registered nurses — one of Geisinger’s most expensive roles to fill — are enrolled in the program and Geisinger has reduced its turnover rate to 7%, well below the national benchmark.
In addition, because the program functions as a “feeder” to fill core positions across locations, the organization has eliminated its dependency on contracted labor in multiple areas. Those areas include med-surg, obstetrics, critical care, the emergency department, interventional radiology, endoscopy and the health system’s infusion clinics.
“We encourage traveling nurses who work with our organization to identify a department or campus that they’re most satisfied with and apply to any one of the full-time or part-time opportunities there,” Mr. Godino said. “We’ve been able to successfully convert as many as 60 into core positions.”
As a result of this creative approach, since the inception of the program. Geisinger has reduced its spend on contracted labor by $165 million. “Leveraging our internally built program and the AMN software, we’ve been able to have greater visibility into our metrics, our assignment details, our needs across the organization — and automate much of the workflow,” Mr. Godino said.
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