Effective Functioning of US Medical Staffing Agencies

• November 21, 2022
• kupplinadmin
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The COVID-19 epidemic revealed a nationwide problem with staff shortages in hospitals, nursing homes, and other medical settings. Last year, hospitals in at least half of the states in the United States were severely understaffed when coronavirus outbreaks occurred.

Medical staffing firms have, understandably, taken on a tremendous amount of stress as they try to satisfy the frenzied demands of the current health crisis while simultaneously making plans for potential future issues.

Medical staffing providers can better respond to this massive demand by adopting a number of technologically driven strategies aimed at enhancing workforce management.

The medical staffing industry can use the lessons acquired from the epidemic to restructure and innovate. In preparation for a post-COVID era, here are five suggestions for improving the efficiency of medical staffing companies through the management of their workforce.

1. Improve Staff Communication

Medical staffing firms face the critical challenge of employee turnover. In 2020, the turnover rate in hospitals will have increased to 19.5% as a direct effect of the pandemic’s mental and physical toll on the medical staff. Keeping good employees is almost as crucial as finding new ones for those working in healthcare.

Though turnover is typically the result of workplace difficulties and strains, which are beyond the control of staffing agencies, these individuals are still your employees, not the medical facilities. Maintaining open lines of communication with employees is essential for checking in on morale, raising red flags, and fostering productive working relationships.

2. Use ATS Automation, But Be Aware Of Its Limitations.

AI should be a top priority if it is not currently being used in the sourcing and screening process. Numerous pre-built SaaS solutions exist to automate the sourcing and screening processes; all that’s needed is some initial configuration. Alternatively, you may integrate these resources into your current applicant tracking system for a more sophisticated approach (ATS).

Medical staffing firms, however, should give serious thought to how new technology might be used to supplement rather than replace preexisting processes. The state of artificial intelligence (AI) software is not yet at the point where a recruiter can click a button and have the six best resumes ready to evaluate within 24 hours. Screening requests may have subtleties or requirements that require human review.

3. Using Time And Attendance, Automate Payroll.

Payroll integration with their time and attendance (T&A) system is one area where many medical staffing businesses might realize considerable time and cost savings with just a minor investment. Without an integrated payroll system, employees would have to manually download T&A data, reformat it, and then upload it. This is a time-consuming process that raises the possibility of payroll mistakes.

Instead, you can just use an application programming interface (API) to link your T&A system with your payroll system so that information can flow seamlessly between the two. There are already a lot of T&A systems out there that have pre-built APIs for integrating with common payroll systems. As a result, you can get things set up without the help of any IT specialists.

4. Employ Geofencing And GPS Tracking For Team Members.

Various medical facilities will serve as homes for various staff members. House calls are a common part of the job for community health workers, who often see patients in their homes.

Because of the increased complexity, agencies may incur higher administrative costs in tracking field employees’ time and attendance. Medical staffing firms can benefit from using T&A mobile apps with GPS functionality to streamline this process. The T&A platform may get real-time updates from employees’ clock-in and clock-out times on the go.

All data is synchronized to your T&A platform, so employees no longer have to fill out paper time sheets, and you can immediately see if there are any problems, including tardiness or absences.

5. Modernize Your Onboarding Procedure

As a result of the stringent requirements for verifying and screening healthcare personnel, medical staffing companies typically have a more extensive onboarding process than other types of agencies. In this case, a staff portal can cut down onboarding time by a significant amount. Candidates can upload copies of their credentials and fill out tax forms and payroll information.

In addition, candidates can be notified by an automated email prompts when they are expected to give this information, and reminders can be sent if necessary.

If you plan on onboarding a significant number of candidates, it may be worthwhile to invest in back-end APIs that provide access to national criminal databases, the National Nursing Database, and other background-checking services.

Concluding Thoughts

Some of these tips for improving your medical staffing agency’s workflow may already have been implemented, but it never hurts to take a fresh look and make sure everything is running as smoothly as possible.

Agencies that have not yet made investments in automation should determine which processes use the most time or result in a negative employee experience, and then begin developing automation to address these concerns.