Securing the Future of Patient Care with Healthcare MSP
To honor essential healthcare workers around the globe, the World Health Organization has declared 2021 the International Year of Health and Care Workers. The goal is not just to recognize “the dedication and sacrifice of the millions of health and care workers at the forefront of the Covid-19 pandemic,” but also to emphasize “the urgency and imperative to address persistent health worker challenges.”
Facilities struggling to stay fully staffed during the pandemic understand this urgency better than most else, as well as the inherent challenges presented by a clinical workforce that’s been decimated by Covid-19. For those who lead these facilities, the idea of shifting resources to areas like education and safety in the face of daily crises can seem not only daunting but likely impossible.
Yet there’s already a solution available that can go far toward meeting the urgent new goals of the clinical workplace, as well as helping facilities stay fully staffed and meet their operational goals during a challenging time. With the help of a healthcare managed services provider (MSP), enhanced safety and the appropriate utilization of workers in a way aren’t just a possibility, but a core feature.
How Healthcare MSP Can Help Meet Clinical Workforce Goals
Delivering contingency staffing solutions. Perhaps the chief benefit of healthcare MSP at a time of extreme scarcity in the clinical labor pool is the access it provides to a deeper bench of nurses and clinicians. Even before Covid-19, the clinical labor market was moving toward contingency staffing as a means to correct regional imbalances in supply, as well as a creeping shortage of essential workers.
Using temporary workers like travel and per diem nurses to meet seasonal spikes in utilization is a well-established method of healthcare workforce planning. In the era of Covid-19, it’s become even more important as a means to access a larger network of workers that goes beyond your immediate location or hiring reach.
At one stroke, contingency staffing can offer access to a much broader workforce than would normally be available to most facilities. This is especially useful for those operating in rural and remote areas, but it can also be critical in urban and metropolitan areas that are struggling with pandemic-fueled shortages.
And those shortages aren’t new, either: In September 2020, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projected a 7% rate of job growth for registered nurses. Not only is that officially faster than most other professions, but it’s also outpacing the rate of applications for entry-level nursing programs, which is growing at just 5.1% per the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.
Burnout and compassion fatigue have risen sharply during the pandemic, which not only compounds the risks to the overworked clinicians themselves but also exposes a critical weakness that could undermine an entire health staffing strategy. The use of contingency networks can help supply additional nurses and clinicians to help keep current, potentially overworked staff members safe and mentally healthy.
Improving efficiency and cost savings. Beyond access to a huge, nationwide network of workers, healthcare MSP also offers a turnkey solution for all other aspects of clinical staffing and recruitment, including sourcing, hiring, and payroll. If you’re not sure of your level of need, your partner can perform a strategic analysis to recommend best practices and established vendors as appropriate.
At its core, MSP aims to drive efficiency by shoring up all aspects of healthcare workforce logistics, including using a web-based vendor management system (VMS) to automate certain tasks like invoicing and reporting. This can re-align many labor-intensive hours while freeing up busy staff for more important tasks, all of which promote the kind of resource optimization that leads to cost savings.
Remember, healthcare MSP services are also fully customizable, so you can pick and choose what solutions to employ to meet your specific challenges. For some facilities, that may mean patching up difficulties in sourcing or vendor management; others may benefit from a more complete strategic overhaul to ensure that the entire process is in the hands of seasoned experts.
Enabling continuous improvement and crisis readiness. The consolidation of all of your invoicing, billing and contracting efforts into a single, easily managed line item — all payable as a single invoice — isn’t just efficient. It’s also a means for unprecedented visibility into these important parts of your workforce strategy. On a regular basis, you can see what is and isn’t working, and make improvements accordingly.
In the era of Covid-19, continuous improvement also means staying on top of urgent new challenges like infection control and vaccine distribution. This knowledge is constantly evolving, and staying up to date can be difficult for leaders, not to mention the workers themselves. With healthcare MSP, you’re getting a partner that’s already developed comprehensive Covid-19 protocols as well as the methodology to keep nurses and clinicians in the loop.
This falls under the banner of crisis management, another key benefit of healthcare managed services. From regional natural disasters to facility-specific incidents like fires and security concerns, every facility needs a plan for emergencies above and beyond national and global challenges like Covid-19. With a healthcare MSP partner, you’ll have the resources to better ensure your facility can sustain patient care during the most unexpected challenges.
Finding Solutions to Your Clinical Workforce Challenges
You can trust CareerStaff Unlimited and our decades of experience to craft the clinical workforce solution that best meets your specific operational, demographic, and geographic needs. We go step-by-step through all the essential components of healthcare workforce logistics to make sure that our partners have everything they need to succeed today, tomorrow, and well into the future.
If you’re ready to learn more about how we can help you solve the challenges of clinical staffing, we’re standing by to answer your questions! Contact us here to consult a CareerStaff expert today.