Travel clinicians have long been instrumental in ensuring high-quality care during times of increased demand or unexpected staffing challenges. Their expertise, flexibility, and ability to help control labor costs make them the primary solution for filling vital staffing gaps, providing crucial support when and where it’s needed most. While they continue to play a key role in strengthening your teams, they are still one piece of a larger staffing puzzle.
Additional talent solutions—such as PRN, local, permanent/direct hire, and international—can be integrated alongside your current contingent staff to help fortify your units and maximize cost-efficiency across the board. This balanced approach to talent variety enhances your teams’ flexibility, localized expertise, and long-term stability, ensuring that your workforce is comprehensive and adaptive to what comes next.
Balance is Key (And Cost-Effective)
Building a more balanced and cost-effective staffing model starts with recognizing the full range of options available to you. With the right staffing partnership, like a healthcare talent ecosystem, you have the flexibility to scale your service needs up or down, at a pace that best suits your facility’s needs. This allows you to assemble the right mix of talent that helps solve immediate staffing challenges and aligns with your facility’s unique, long-term goals. Here’s how:
Step 1: Optimize Core Staff Utilization
Start with your current foundation. How can you make the most of your existing team? Evaluate how your core staff is currently utilized—can you identify areas where permanent or local staff might be better deployed? Are there opportunities to optimize staff allocation? By maximizing the contributions of your core staff, you can benefit more from the flexibility that your contingent staff provides.
Step 2: Complement with Short-Term Solutions
PRN, local, and travel clinicians are invaluable when staffing adjustments are necessary or you need to fill vital gaps quickly. In fact, they cite the flexibility to work more or less as a top factor for choosing their roles. This makes them ideal for managing fluctuating patient volumes on an as-needed basis without requiring long-term commitments.
85.1% of travel nurses prioritize flexibility
94.6% of per diem nurses prioritize flexibility
Local clinicians familiar with your community and facility can offer a cost-effective solution that enhances the care experience. Travel clinicians allow you to bring in specialized skills and support exactly when and where you need it. Your short-term options should complement your core staff, giving you the ability to scale your workforce to tackle specific challenges without compromising on care quality.
Step 3: Build a Balanced, Long-Term Workforce
As your facility stabilizes with the help of contingent staff, focus now on building a permanent team that will carry your facility forward. Permanent and international clinicians naturally gain a deeper understanding of your facility’s culture and protocols over time, which enhances clinical quality and is key to staying competitive. These are the team members who will help move you from short-term solutions to the long-term stability you’re aiming for, steadily reducing dependence on temporary staff.
The Benefits of a Diversified Approach
A well-rounded staffing model that includes travel, PRN, local, permanent, and international clinicians offers the best of all worlds. It arms you with the flexibility to respond quickly to immediate needs, the stability to ensure continuity of care, and the cost-efficiency to manage budgets effectively. While travel clinicians remain an essential part of this model, they’re not your only option. Every staffing solution plays a key role in building a more robust and resilient workforce, positioning you for long-term success.
Strengthen Your Units with a Healthcare Talent Ecosystem
A healthcare talent ecosystem gives you access to a wide range of talent—contingent, permanent, clinical, allied health, and more—allowing you to customize your workforce strategy based on real-time demands and data-driven insights. It’s an all-in-one staffing solution, pulling from subsidiaries and partnerships to supply you with the exact clinicians you need, when, where, and how you need them.
Partnering with a healthcare talent ecosystem means taking a more holistic approach to workforce utilization. It leans on pillars of service, strategy, and technology to optimize your workforce, reduce costs, and ensure that your facility is equipped to handle any challenge.
Learn more about Medical Solutions healthcare talent ecosystem here:
- What is a Healthcare Talent Ecosystem?
- Staffing Woes to Wins: Solve Top Workforce Challenges with a Healthcare Talent Ecosystem
Interested in exploring a more balanced staffing strategy that leverages the strengths of travel clinicians alongside other staffing options? Let’s connect. Our healthcare talent ecosystem offers the flexibility and support you need to build a dynamic, cost-effective workforce. Contact us today to discover how we can help you create a staffing plan that works for your facility.
