The Complete Guide To Staffing In Health Care
Every hospital administrator knows how hard it is to find and manage temporary and full-time workers in a healthcare facility. And since fewer people want to work as clinical staff than there are jobs, you may wonder about your healthcare staffing system for finding and hiring the best people.
Will The Money You Put Into A Managed Service Provider Be Worth It?
The first thing to consider is how insufficient medical staff affects your healthcare facility. If you can’t predict staffing shortages and don’t have a steady stream of well-qualified candidates, your facility may be paying more than it should for extra help. Whether you want to improve your in-house medical staffing process or hire a managed service provider (MSP) to do the work for your healthcare facility, your choice will affect the following:
Costs To Think About
The money you spend on salaries is only a small part of what it costs to find and hire staff for healthcare. Before you try to save money by doing all the work yourself, it’s a good idea to know the hidden costs and how they can affect your bottom line.
How Much Your Own Time Cost?
Forecasting staffing needs and recruiting — either on your own or with the help of multiple staffing services vendors — screening, hiring, credentialing, and onboarding candidates takes a lot of time and work. It’s especially hard if you want to hire top people who are a good fit for the services your healthcare facilities offer.
How Much Do New Resources Cost?
You might buy a health technology platform with forecasting, scheduling, and communication tools in the hopes that it will solve your staffing problems in the healthcare field. There are many good things about new technology, but it costs money and takes time to learn. You also need an IT expert to keep the system running and determine what’s wrong when it goes down.
The Price Of Hired Help
You want your bill rates to be comparable to those of other healthcare facilities in your area so that you can hire the best people. So, it’s good to know the current rates and when someone’s fees are too high or too low. In addition to travel nurses and locum tenens, it helps to have a mix of international healthcare professionals and temporary-to-permanent candidates to choose from so that you are not as dependent on contract labor. If you need a flexible and efficient staffing management process or a partner, you may pay more than you need to fill positions as quickly as possible.
How Well Patients Are Cared For
You can meet the quality metrics in value-based care contracts if you improve the care and experience of your patients. Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) surveys show that patients are happier with hospitals that provide a higher level of clinical care.
In a 2015 study, the level of respect doctors showed their patients, how well doctors and nurses listened to their patients, and how well pain was controlled were all linked to how well the hospital was ranked. Getting the right people on board is important for keeping patients happy and directly affects the reimbursements and bonuses your facility may get. You want the best system to find, hire, and keep good nurses, doctors, and all other healthcare staff and employees who put patient care first.
Your Retention Levels
In a nursing unit, it’s important to spot the decline cycle and break it. When there is a lot of impact turnover, the quality of care decreases, which gets the attention of the hospital management. Unit managers who are supposed to improve the quality of care may be harsh with front-line staff, which could make morale drop and cause more people to leave. With help, the decline cycle will continue, which could turn into a long-term staffing problem.
You want a partner who can help you avoid the cycle of decline by predicting your talent needs and helping you manage new hires. About 30% of a healthcare facility’s salary is lost when they hire the wrong person. They change the atmosphere at work and make it harder for the rest of your staff to do their jobs well and efficiently. One of the best ways to keep labor costs down and improve the work environment in your healthcare facilities is to keep as many of your employees as possible. You can do this by improving how you hire, onboard, train, support, and deal with conflicts. Consistent shifts, enough time off, and a flexible work environment are also good for employee morale.
Making Your Decision
When you add up all the costs of hiring healthcare staff, you may already have everything you need to do the job well. But suppose you think about the value of an MSP. In that case, the chances are that if you choose the right one to be your medical staffing partner, you will pay a similar bill rate for new hires and avoid many of the hidden costs of an inefficient healthcare staffing solution.
Not all MSPs are the same, so look into the differences to save money and stress. A good MSP should act as both a consultant and a partner. They should take a clinically and technologically driven approach, be clear about their prices, and work with you to create a solution that fits your needs.
When you take the time to learn as much as possible about the MSPs you are considering, you give your healthcare organization the best chance of finding the right fit.