By Jennifer Melham
How has the pandemic reshaped healthcare staffing? What sort of challenges are hospitals and health systems facing now? What are we doing to help? In a recent webinar presented by Becker’s Healthcare, Medical Solutions’ Sr. Director of Client Growth Scott Armstrong and Vice President of Client Success Kevin Walsh answer these questions.
Read on as we uncover what’s happening in the current climate coming out of the post-pandemic market, looking at everything from market conditions and business strategy shifts, to what to consider when evaluating your total workforce solutions partner.
Market Conditions and Challenges
The healthcare staffing shortage we face today is one of the primary ways the pandemic has reshaped the industry. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that about 2 million healthcare jobs will open between 2021 to 2031, with 20% of current clinicians expected to retire by 2025. By 2032, we expect a shortage of between 47,000 and 122,000 clinicians in the U.S.
“We continue to see a significant clinician shortage that existed well before the pandemic,” said Armstrong. “Over the past two years, COVID further exasperated the issue and really placed it under a microscope and at the forefront of all of our conversations.”
Staffing shortages impact healthcare facilities in many ways; they can make it harder to find skilled talent, and facilities face higher bill rates. Compounding this is the dissatisfaction felt mostly by early to mid-career clinicians, who cite:
1. Feeling Undervalued and Burnt Out
2. Desiring Higher Compensation
3. Discovering a Lack of Career Growth Opportunities
4. Unsafe Staffing Levels as Nurse-to-Patient Ratio Drops
Gen Z clinicians are seeking flexibility in the ability to set their own schedule, work in various locations, and work at different units or sites of care. Read more about Gen Z in our new whitepaper, which you can download here.
The good news is that student enrollment in entry-level baccalaureate nursing programs, designed to prepare new registered clinicians for the nursing workforce, increased by 3.3% in 2021. Enrollment in Doctor of Nursing Practice programs increased by 4%.
Despite this, qualified applicants at schools of nursing are not being accepted due to unprecedented faculty and preceptor shortages, which means that health systems must be savvy when it comes to their hiring and recruitment efforts. It’s time to shift business strategies!
Business Strategy Shifts
Many post-pandemic changes are here to stay. You need a transparent and consultative workforce solutions partner that will help drive decision-making, find opportunities to cut costs, and not overpay in situations where clinicians are in abundance due to a common specialty or the popularity of the location. Here’s how Medical Solutions can help you make the right business strategy shifts to succeed.
Utilize Data Analytics
We help you access real-time analytics to help inform staffing decisions, understand current market trends, and make more strategic, data-driven choices. We also help you understand job volumes, supply and demand, program efficiency, and many other performance and trend indicator metrics.
“What you do today, even if you’re doing it really well, might not be what is needed in the future,” said Walsh. “It’s not difficult to do a quick Google search and find countless examples of strong companies and brands that either folded or lost significance.”
Pay Attention to How Clinicians Want to Work
Another pandemic-fueled strategy shift for you to consider is how younger generations think about their job and overall careers—they are always looking for advancement that can oftentimes be achieved by changing jobs multiple times to gain experience. And so, employers need to think about this—how clinicians want to work, capitalizing on both travel and allied clinicians as well as non-clinical staff and interim leadership.
Provide Quality Care
Quality care is something that should never be overlooked in healthcare. It’s essential that your clinicians have the right experience, skill set, and commitment to supporting the values of putting patients first. Medical Solutions’ clinicians are matched through technology that ensures the right positions and locations are found for them, and that your needs as a healthcare facility are fulfilled.
Evaluating Your Workforce Solutions Partner
At Medical Solutions, our specialty is placing travel nurses, allied healthcare professionals, interim clinical leaders, and non-clinical professionals in contingent and permanent positions for hospitals, clinics, and long-term care facilities throughout the country.
Our observations over the last few years have revealed how the pandemic has exacerbated staffing challenges, how health systems need more comprehensive support, and how machine learning and data analytics continue to grow in importance as well as applicability.
What’s clear is that we cannot get by with the solutions, resources, or approach that we had prior to the pandemic. You and your healthcare facility deserve more.
- Does your staffing partner have a deep understanding of the market ecosystem, both where it’s been and where it’s going?
- Is your partner agile enough to quickly adapt to the changing market conditions?
- Does your partner prioritize your success and evolve with you by investing in technology and people?
- Does your partner have access to machine learning and data analytics to validate all its recommendations?
Our philosophy of connecting care is rooted in everything that we do, which is exemplified in our 95% job completion rate. Our technological advancements, in combination with our focus on the human element of care, ensure that clinicians are being presented with the right jobs. This allows clinicians to feel supported, which results in happier clinicians, satisfied clients, and most importantly, better patient outcomes.
Ready to learn more? Connect with our client services team today and register to watch the webinar here.
Jennifer Melham is a content specialist for Medical Solutions.