The medical sphere is on the fire. The demand on the part of the patients is on the increase, yet locating and maintaining talented individuals has never been a greater challenge.
A shortage of staff, turnover, and increasing burnout are causing a talent crisis–at least in the allied health sector.
An allied health staffing agency such as Kupplin comes in at that point. These agencies allow healthcare organizations access to qualified professionals precisely when and where they are needed to address the most critical workforce shortages and to make sure patients still get the care they rightfully deserve.
What Does “Allied Health” Mean?
Doctors and nurses are the first interactions that come to people when they think of healthcare workers. Others constitute more than 60 percent of the workforce in healthcare with allied health professionals.
There are a vast number of jobs that can be found in the allied health that facilitates diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation. Examples include:
- Physiotherapists and occupational therapists.
- Respiratory therapists
- Radiologic, ultrasound technologists.
- Medical laboratory technicians.
- Speech-language pathologists
- Nutritionists and dietitians.
- Pharmacy technicians
These are the professionals who are the foundation of patient care. Hospitals, clinics, and long-term care facilities cannot be effective without them.
How Staffing Gaps happen in Healthcare
Unparalleled workforce challenges are being encountered in the U.S. healthcare system. These gaps can be attributed to a number of reasons:
Increased Patient Demand
The increasing number of patients is caused by an aging population and a rise in the number of people with chronic diseases. Allied healthcare workers are necessary in rehabilitation, diagnostics and long-term care.
Burnout and Turnover
Due to excessive hours and stress, and unsafe staffing in some cases, healthcare workers have to deal with it. This has compelled several to abandon the field all together.
Unbalanced Geographic Distribution
Cities tend to bring talent, and rural and under-served regions have difficulty recruiting and keeping experienced professionals.
Educational Bottlenecks
Training programs in allied health professionals are overstretched, which causes an overcapacity in supply which is not up to date with demand.
Surges Periodic and Unforeseen
Various events such as flu season, pandemics, or even local emergencies can spike the demand of allied health workers in a short period of time.
The result? The facilities usually struggle to get people to occupy positions and this may affect the outcomes of patients and strain the available personnel.
The Allied Health Staffing Agency works in the following manner.
A Kupplin allied health staffing agency is a direct solution to these workforce issues. Here’s how the process works:
Assessment of Needs
It is the hospitals, clinics, or health care organizations that post their staffing needs whether it is a short-term assignment or a travel contract or permanent employment.
Talent Pool Matching
The agency has a network of pre-qualified, certified personnel of allied health professions. With this pool, they have the capability of pairing candidates with the facility requirements.
Streamlined Recruitment
The agency does job posting, credential checks, interviews, and onboarding instead of healthcare administrators spending weeks recruiting new employees.
Flexible Placement Options
Depending on the need in the facility, staffing agencies can provide flexibility; locum tenens, per diem shifts, travel contracts or permanent positions.
Ongoing Support
Kupplin and other agencies which offer this type of service offer around-the-clock support, ensure compliance, payroll management and any other staffing issue.
The Advantages of working with an Allied Health Staffing Agency.
Speed and Efficiency
Allied health vacancies may require months to be filled using traditional hiring. The process is accelerated by an agency and spared some downtime that ensures that services to the patients are smooth.
Access to a Wider Talent Pool
Kupplin accesses a wide network of skilled professionals throughout the U.S., with many ready to take up travel assignments (or niche jobs that cannot be found in a local recruiting process).
Cost-Effective Solution
Though getting an agency can be considered costly by some administrators, it is usually the opposite. Agencies would save money in the long-term given the expenses of overtime, burnout, turnover, and patient delayed care.
Staffing Models Change
The facilities are able to increase or decrease staff according to seasonal demands, variation in census, or unexpected shortages.
Improved Patient Outcomes
Patients get improved, quicker and safer treatment with adequately staffed teams. Allied health professionals play a vital role in the diagnostics and recovery system, thus occupying these positions leads to a direct increase in outcomes.
Less Burnout among the Current employees.
With a faster filling of the workforce gaps, the available employees will not be overworked. This assists in minimizing employee turnover and preserving employee morale.
Kupplin: Healthcare Staffing Strategic Partner
At Kupplin, we know that healthcare organizations require more than bodies to fill positions: they require the appropriate professionals with the appropriate skills.
We have three main pillars on which we base our approach:
Healthcare Specialization
Kupplin is a specialized healthcare staffing firm, and as such, covers compliance requirements, credentialing, and the specifics of allied health better than your average recruiters.
Agility and Scale
Depending on the hospital requiring a solitary respiratory therapist or a complete team of lab techs, Kupplin has the potential to multiply solutions within a short time without taking quality into consideration.
Quality and Compliance
Our background checks, credential checks and ongoing monitoring to make sure that all of our professionals who we place are of the utmost quality.
To healthcare organizations, Kupplin is more than a vendor, it is a partner in ensuring quality patient care amid the shortage of workforce.
Real Life Situations in which Allied Health Staffing Agencies are At their best.
Seasonal Surges
Influenza season is the period when the demand of respiratory therapists rises. An agency such as Kupplin is one that makes sure that hospitals would be able to recruit additional hands swiftly without overworking existing staff.
Pandemic Response
COVID-19 showed that staffing pipelines may be rather weak. Allied health staffing agencies supplied the lab technicians, respiratory therapists and other professionals when they were in high demand.
Rural Hospitals
Facilities in rural areas frequently have a problem with finding local recruitment. They are able to recruit traveling professionals who are willing to provide services in underserved regions through an agency.
Specialized Procedures
When there are new services, such as advanced imaging, that a facility might add, it might require specialists at short notice. Agencies will fill this gap at a quicker rate than in-house recruitment.
Removing the falsehoods about staffing agencies.
There are some myths that make some healthcare leaders unwilling to engage with staffing agencies. Let’s clear a few up:
“Agencies are too expensive.”
Add in overtime, employee burnout, and time wasted in hiring and agencies can be less expensive.
Agency employees are not as loyal.
As a matter of fact, a large number of allied health professionals are more flexible when working in agencies, and they carry with them the experience of working in different facilities.
“It’s just a temporary fix.”
Such agencies as Kupplin can offer temporary and permanent staffing, which offers organizations sustainability in the long term.
The Future Workforce Solutions in Healthcare
The problem of the talent shortage in healthcare is not leaving the stage in the nearest future. By 2036, the U.S. is expected to experience very high shortages in the allied health positions. Agencies will play even a more important role in closing the divide.
Emerging trends include:
- Technology Integration: Electronic credentials and placement.
- AI-Powered Matching: Augment data with information to match professionals with facility needs.
- Growth of Telehealth roles: The allied health professionals such as speech therapy and nutrition are also beginning to work through telehealth.
Strategic Partnerships: Facilities will call on staffing agencies to be not only vendors, but also have them become long-term partners in workforce planning.
Kupplin is already looking into this future-creating smarter systems, growing our talent pool and keeping innovating so healthcare providers will never need to decide between workforce gaps and patient care.
Final Thoughts
Healthcare is impossible without allied health professionals. But labor shortages are threatening patient care and overwhelming medical professionals in the country.
A health staffing agency such as Kupplin is not merely staffing positions, but providing continuity of care, staff wellness, and making healthcare organizations successful in a highly unpredictable environment.
In case of workforce gaps in your facility, Kupplin has the knowledge, talent and flexibility to provide the right professionals, at the right time.
Since in healthcare, each shift covered is the life saved.
