A Comprehensive Guide to Healthcare Workforce Solutions: Enhancing Recruitment, Cost Management, and Quality Care
In the quest to find the perfect solution to today’s healthcare recruitment challenges, it’s likely that healthcare leaders have come across the term “healthcare workforce solutions”. While MSPs (Managed Service Providers) frequently come to mind, it's important to understand that workforce solutions extend far beyond just providing staff through an MSP. They now encompass a diverse set of models and technologies aimed at tackling today’s workforce challenges.
This guide explores what healthcare workforce solutions are, the various models and technologies they include, their use cases, and how they help manage staffing needs. It also offers insights on what to consider when partnering with a workforce solutions provider.
What Are Healthcare Workforce Solutions?
Healthcare workforce solutions refer to a range of different strategies, technologies, and services designed to address the complex staffing challenges faced by healthcare organizations today. These solutions focus on improving recruitment, credentialing, and administrative processes to enhance operational efficiency, control costs, and ensure the delivery of high-quality care. By offering flexibility in securing both permanent and contracted staff, workforce solutions help healthcare systems meet patient needs.
Types of Healthcare Workforce Solutions
Since the pandemic, healthcare workforce solutions have gone beyond operating as strict, singular models that provide temporary staff. Just as healthcare workforce challenges are complex and diverse, so too are the solutions designed to tackle them. The expansion of models and technologies ensures that unique challenges are tackled in a helpful and impactful way, rather than utilizing a one-size-fits-all model that doesn’t address specific challenges. This section looks at workforce solutions in their various form, their benefits, and use cases.
1. Managed Services Provider (MSP)
Managed Services Providers (MSP) are one of the most well-known solutions in the healthcare staffing industry. These third-party organizations help facilities provide end-to-end staffing services that centralize and streamline the acquisition, management, and oversight of temporary staff, contractors, and other non-permanent labor.
As many recruitment teams are aware, managing an external workforce comes with its own set of challenges including ensuring compliance, sourcing talent, and quickly onboarding new hires. By serving as a single point of contact, MSPs simplify complex staffing processes. They manage all aspects of external worker recruitment and management including vendor management, sourcing, screening, onboarding, as well as payroll and invoicing tasks. This allows healthcare organizations to focus on their core operations. For instance, Staffency’s MSP services helped a Children’s Hospital reduce workweek hours by over 20%, allowing more focus on permanent staff initiatives. See the full case study here.
Implementing an MSP program offers several advantages:
- Centralized Vendor Management: Simplifies interactions with multiple staffing agencies.
- Enhanced Compliance: Ensures adherence to regulations with dedicated compliance teams and technology.
- Greater Cost Control: Optimizes spending by managing recruitment costs and reducing administrative overhead.
- Improved Talent Acquisition: Leverages a wide network to fill roles efficiently, especially hard-to-fill positions.
- Supplier-Funded Technology: Provides access to advanced vendor management systems (VMS) at no additional cost, offering reporting, transparency, and data management benefits.
- Data-Driven Decision Making: Utilizes a VMS for comprehensive reporting and insights.
- Scalability and Flexibility: Adapts to changing staffing needs and demands.
Use Cases: Managing temporary staffing needs, streamlining recruitment processes, streamlining vendor management and communication, enhancing compliance and quality control, managing cost and budget constraints.
2. Vendor Management System (VMS)
A vendor management system (VMS) is a SaaS solution designed for healthcare organizations to automate talent acquisition and centralize data management. By consolidating traditionally siloed data into a single platform, a VMS streamlines operations from job requisition posting through to candidate onboarding and invoicing.
Centralization of data and processes allows the VMS to automate and simplify recruitment processes, including sourcing, onboarding, and compliance, while providing clear program transparency. This centralization also allows for the VMS to collate real-time analytics and comprehensive reporting to support data-driven decision-making.
What makes a VMS so useful is its versatility. For example, a VMS underpins several workforce programs, such as MSPs and Direct Sourcing initiatives, making it a versatile tool across different workforce models.
Implementing a VMS offers several key advantages, including streamlined recruitment, improved compliance, and optimized vendor management. Its capabilities help reduce the complexity and time-consuming nature of managing staffing processes, resulting in better operational efficiency and cost control.
Key features of a VMS include:
- Market Rate Analytics: Real-time cost visibility and predictive insights on market rates to make proactive decisions based on current labor and service rates.
- Proactive Compliance: Automate compliance tracking and monitoring to navigate complex healthcare regulations.
- Seamless Integrations: Easily integrate with other platforms to streamline processes, such as time management systems (KRONOS) or healthcare licensing platforms (Nursys).
- Comprehensive Data and Reporting: Access to dashboards for real-time insights that support data-driven decision-making.
- Candidate-Match Pairing: Automated sourcing and shortlisting features to identify the most qualified candidates for job openings.
- Online Interview Tools: Conduct and review pre-recorded video interviews to streamline the hiring process.
Use cases: Centralizing staffing operations, improving compliance and credentialing, enhancing data-driven decision making, reducing administrative burdens, optimizing vendor management.
3. Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO)
Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) involves partnering with external experts to handle all or part of an organization’s recruitment needs. RPO providers take on various tasks like sourcing, screening, and onboarding, helping healthcare institutions find and hire permanent or temporary candidates more efficiently.
RPO providers are particularly useful in helping institutions fill positions quickly, improve candidate quality, and reduce hiring costs. This allows hospitals to focus more on patient care rather than navigating the complexities of recruitment.
Depending on a hospital’s needs, RPO models can vary:
- End-to-end (full) RPO: This model covers the entire recruitment process, enhancing hiring efficiency from start to finish.
- Selective or branded RPO: Organizations outsource specific parts of the hiring process to specialists while keeping other parts in-house. This approach allows for greater customization, flexibility, and cost control.
- On-demand or project-based RPO: Perfect for short-term needs, this model allows hospitals to tap into RPO services for specific projects or periods.
Use cases: Scaling recruitment efforts, improving time-to-hire, accessing specialized recruiting expertise, reducing recruitment costs, enhancing candidate quality.
4. Internal Resource Pools (IRP) / Float Pools
Looking for flexible staffing solutions that can adapt to sudden demands or surges? Internal Resource Pools (IRP) and Float Pools might be just what you need. IRP (also referred to as Flex Pools) and Float Pools are workforce solutions that help hospitals maintain flexibility by deploying cross-trained healthcare professionals across different departments. This ensures quick responses to fluctuating patient volumes.
The terms IRP and Float Pools are often used interchangeably in the industry, although there is a subtle difference. IRPs can encompass a broader range of roles from administrative staff to allied health, whereas float pools typically focus on clinical staff, such as nurses, floating between units or departments. Despite this difference, both solutions offer the same advantage—enhancing staffing flexibility to meet patient demand.
IRP and Float Pools help organizations save costs associated with temporary labor and also fill gaps more quickly rather than relying on the time-consuming process of recruiting and onboarding. By giving employees greater control over their schedules, these solutions also promote better work-life balance, making them a win-win for both staff and health systems.
Use cases: Maintaining staffing flexibility, reducing reliance on external labor, enhancing workforce satisfaction, improving continuity of care.
5. Direct Sourcing
Another workforce solution that empowers organizations for long-term hiring success is direct sourcing. In direct sourcing, healthcare organizations recruit and hire workers directly, rather than relying on traditional staffing agencies. By leveraging their own recruitment teams and technology, they can build a dedicated talent pool ready to be tapped into when needs arise, streamlining the process and optimizing resource use.
The primary function of direct sourcing is to create and maintain a pool of qualified candidates who are readily available to fill positions as they open. This involves building relationships with passive candidates and using platforms like a VMS or ATS to efficiently match talent with roles.
Direct sourcing simplifies recruitment for hospitals, making it more cost-effective by reducing dependency on third-party agencies. With a strong talent pipeline in place, hospitals can hire candidates directly for positions, leading to significant time and resource savings.
Use cases: Filling critical roles quickly, engaging passive candidates, talent pipeline development, building a flexible workforce, reducing recruitment costs, enhancing employer branding.
6. Crisis or Strike Staffing
The number of hospital strikes has risen annually, with 2024 projected to exceed last year’s total of 30 strikes. Hospital strikes stem from a multitude of factors, including requests for fairer wages, improved working conditions, and better staffing and recruitment practices. Some workforce solution providers offer crisis or strike staffing solutions that quickly deploy clinicians in anticipation of strikes.
Strike staffing providers manage all aspects of strike planning and execution, from determining staffing needs and resources to ensuring compliance, overseeing deployment, and handling transportation and housing. This approach enables hospitals to maintain uninterrupted patient care during a strike.
Use cases: Impending strikes, emergency situations, workforce shortages.
7. Per Diem
When a healthcare facility needs temporary clinicians immediately for short-term needs, that’s where Per Diem services come in. Per Diem staffing allows hospitals to hire temporary workers on a daily basis to fill in staffing gaps. Often, this is used to cover shifts during vacations, sick leaves, or unexpected patient volume surges. Per Diem professionals are on-call and ready to step in when needed.
This staffing model is quite flexible, allowing hospitals to respond quickly to changing staffing needs without committing to long-term hires. It helps reduce the burden on full-time staff, preventing burnout by ensuring shifts are covered. Additionally, Per Diem workers can be cost-effective, as they are hired only when needed, avoiding the expenses associated with full-time employment, such as benefits and overtime pay.
Use cases: Filling last-minute vacancies, seasonal staffing needs, supplementing staff, peak time support.
8. Locum Tenens
Locum tenens is another short-term solution in which physicians or advanced practitioners fill in for regular staff who are absent due to circumstances like vacation or medical leave. Their use ensures that patient care continues without disruption, even when the usual team members are unavailable.
Due to its flexible nature, locum tenens solutions allow organizations to quickly address staffing shortages without needing to hire full-time staff. Organizations can maintain patient care while also supporting the core team by preventing burnout through better workload management.
Use Cases: Filling in for long-term leave, addressing short-term vacancies, providing specialized expertise, managing unexpected staff shortages.
9. Consulting Services
For institutions looking for expert guidance and strategic support while maintaining their own staffing operations, healthcare organizations can leverage industry expertise through consulting services from workforce solution providers. These services are designed to help organizations navigate complex staffing challenges, optimize workforce management, and implement effective recruitment strategies. Consulting services typically involve a thorough analysis of current practices, followed by tailored recommendations to improve operational efficiency, compliance, and overall staffing effectiveness.
The benefits of consulting services include gaining access to industry expertise and specialized knowledge that can drive better decision-making and outcomes. Healthcare organizations can improve their staffing models, reduce costs, and enhance their ability to attract and retain top talent. Additionally, consulting services can lead to more efficient processes, improved compliance with regulations, and the implementation of best practices that align with the organization’s goals.
Use Cases: Optimizing staffing models to match patient demand, improving recruitment and retention strategies, enhancing compliance with healthcare regulations, implementing new technologies, addressing specific challenges, such as high turnover or staffing shortages.
Benefits of Healthcare Workforce Solutions
With such a wide range of solutions available, workforce solutions help hospitals overcome key challenges like improving staffing efficiency, managing costs, finding quality candidates, and enhancing overall patient care.
1. Enhanced Efficiency
Traditional recruitment methods in healthcare staffing often rely on manual data tracking, spreadsheets, and other fragmented processes. This leads to time-consuming operations that can have negative consequences, such as delayed recruitment, poor candidate experiences, and error-prone data management. These inefficiencies indirectly affect the quality of patient care as they strain resources and delay timely staffing.
Healthcare workforce solutions address these inefficiencies by streamlining staffing processes and lightening the administrative load for hospitals. Solutions like VMS, MSPs, and RPOs automate and centralize tasks, such as recruitment, compliance tracking, and invoicing—saving both time and costs. Reducing manual work involved in staffing gives healthcare teams more time to focus on important business initiatives and, most importantly, patient care.
2. Cost Savings
With financial strains ranking as a top concern for healthcare executives (second only to workforce challenges), the need to achieve greater cost savings and financial management is critical. Workforce solutions help hospitals achieve greater cost savings in several ways. Automating and centralizing processes help reduce expenses, like overtime, by ensuring optimal staffing levels and making sure the right people are in the right place at the right time.
Seamless and efficient operations mean less time wasted on recruitment, avoiding the high costs associated with prolonged vacancy rates. Additionally, solutions and technologies help minimize errors that occur when handling tasks manually—this helps reduce the need for costly fixes.
3. Top-Quality Candidates
Ensuring that highly-skilled talent walks through the door is important for health systems to deliver quality patient care. Workforce solutions help ensure health systems are receiving highly vetted professionals who are ready to provide excellent care.
When sourcing and screening talent, workforce providers use advanced AI-powered technologies to pinpoint the most suitable candidates with the right skillset and experience for each role. They also have dedicated compliance teams with comprehensive vetting processes to verify credentials and background checks, ensuring high standards. Many providers also use VMS technology with automated compliance features that track and monitor credentials, sending notifications about upcoming expirations to keep organizations on top of compliance.
Clinically-led teams further enhance candidate quality by applying their expertise to vet candidates, ensuring they not only meet professional qualifications, but also align with the specific needs and culture of the healthcare organization. This thorough approach helps hospitals confidently staff their teams with skilled professionals, leading to better patient care.
4. Improved Patient Care
Workforce solutions enhance patient care by ensuring that healthcare organizations are staffed with highly qualified professionals who can deliver exceptional service. By streamlining staffing processes and increasing operational efficiency, these solutions reduce the time spent on recruitment and administrative tasks, allowing healthcare teams to focus more on patient care.
Choosing the Right Solution for Your Needs
It’s important to choose the right healthcare workforce solution provider wisely, after all it’s an investment in time, resources, and operational changes. Important factors to consider is their reputation, experience, range of services, cost-effectiveness, compliance, and technology for efficient operations.
Conclusion
Effective workforce solutions can be an asset in overcoming today’s healthcare workforce challenges and enhancing patient care. Whether through MSPs, VMS, RPO, or IRPs, these solutions streamline operations, manage costs, and improve candidate quality.
Assess your organization’s needs and choose a provider that aligns with your goals to maximize the benefits. For more details on optimizing your staffing strategy, contact us or schedule a consultation.