Podcasts

KRISTIN: Thanks for joining us for Staffing Unplugged, a Medical Solutions podcast that delves into the world of staffing and recruitment. Each episode, we bring you insightful discussions, expert interviews, and thought-provoking conversations with industry experts. I’m Kristin Dahl, your host, joined today by Kevin Walsh, Vice President of Client Success at Medical Solutions. Thanks for joining us today, Kevin.

KEVIN: Thanks, Kristin, for having me on.

KRISTIN: Can you start by telling us a little bit about your role at Medical Solutions?

KEVIN: Yeah. As the Vice President of Client Success, I oversee the account management team. That includes our MSP, FocusOne Solutions and all our direct and third-party client relationships. Our focus is on ensuring client satisfaction through timely job fulfillment, relationship management, and alignment of strategic goals to create a seamless client experience.

KRISTIN: And your title says it all—Vice President of Client Success—so what are some of the things healthcare organization should be aware of in order to find that success?

KEVIN: I immediately think about clinician quality and talent acquisition and retention strategies. The last few years, the focus on cost reduction has overshadow the importance of attracting and retaining the right clinicians. Clinicians are demanding flexibility and they’re increasingly mobile, especially with the expansion of the compact licensure, so things like burnout, decreased job satisfaction, and high turnover ratios can contribute to a decreased level of patient care. Healthcare organizations should prioritize creating an appealing workplace through a strong culture, transparent leadership, growth opportunities, and fair compensation. It’s not just about paying the most but creating an environment that makes people want to come back. The number one focus should be on retaining the talent you have, but you also need to make sure that you have strong recruitment support, whether that be permanent or contingent labor. You need to help supplement gaps with top talent.

KRISTIN: And you mentioned clinician burnout. That’s a big issue that could factor into retention so can you talk about some of the things organizations can do to cut down on burnout?

KEVIN: In a recent webinar with Medical Solutions, Don Sull, who is a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, shared research on nurse attrition. He talked about identifying unhealthy subcultures in your organization and then learning from staffing agencies whose best practices typically center around treating clinicians like patients or customers and this helps employees feel a greater sense of value and belonging.

Also Patty Artley, Medical Solutions CNO, has extensive bedside and nursing leadership experience and she advocates for enhancing staff retention by prioritizing flexibility. She often discusses the importance of creating an environment that is accommodating to a diverse set of workers at different stages in their career. Think, for example, shorter shifts for senior team members or working mothers. This allows for a more balanced work-life dynamic. And adding this level of flexibility helps you retain workers that you might have otherwise lost.

KRISTIN: Kevin, overall healthcare organizations are dealing with issues across the board, especially coming out of a worldwide health pandemic with a nursing shortage. Can you discuss why it’s so important to address staffing issues and what happens if you don’t?

KEVIN: I think it’s simple. Neglecting issues like burnout or high staffing ratios can compromise patient care; it decreases morale; it creates operational inefficiencies, and results in a financial strain which ultimately impacts the health system’s reputation.

KRISTIN: Absolutely, and what you’re describing kind of sounds like a domino effect when at the end of the day quality patient care should really be the number one priority.

KEVIN: 100%. Patient care is the foundation of trust and satisfaction that any community is going to have with a healthcare system.

KRISTIN: Moving on now from all those challenges, I’m curious—What are some of the positive trends that you’re seeing that make you excited about what might still be to come for healthcare staffing?

KEVIN: I’m excited about the continued influence of technology in healthcare staffing. We rolled out our cero platform to our clients and our clinicians. This improves our ability to make quality candidate matches. It provides enhanced data analytics, and it streamlines the onboarding process. I also see this leading more to self-service options which align with what many clients are looking for these days. I’m also an advocate for transparency. It’s exciting to see our industry increasingly embracing visibility and openness among organizations. Misinformation often stems from a lack of understanding, and I believe that our service benefits both clients and clinicians and we bring significant value and the more openly that we can demonstrate that value, the stronger our partnerships become.

KRISTIN: And Kevin can you expand on that? What are some of the specific things that we’re doing to integrate more transparency into the industry?

KEVIN: Transparency is everywhere. Especially in client and clinician rates. Contrary to previous assumptions, agencies don’t set bill rates. The market trends guide the decision making and clients control the cost by continually adjusting rates and our data platform provides extensive information and helps clients make informed decisions that align with their goals. Then, on the clinician side, clinician pay rates are accessible on our website. Everybody can see them. I just see both scenarios as positive shifts in our industry.

KRISTIN: Do you feel the increased transparency has led to any changes with how the industry operates overall?

KEVIN: We’ve identified cost savings by adjusting rates for clinicians who live near client facilities. We previously avoided working with any individuals that lived within a specific distance to prevent the use of traveler rates for local talent and adjusting that philosophy has helped us maximize regional talent utilization for our clients which delivers a financial benefit to them. Then, adding visibility here helps them prioritize temp-to-perm conversion targets.

KRISTIN: And to me that sounds like a win-win for both clinicians and healthcare organizations.

KEVIN: Yeah, absolutely. The way we see it, clinicians in your geographic area, that’s your workforce and if you need our help in mobilizing them, we’re here to do that.

KRISTIN: And before we end today, I feel like I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask you about AI. It seems like the big topic that everybody is talking about, so what are your thoughts on AI and staffing?

KEVIN: AI can transform staffing by automating manual processes. It frees up teams to focus on the high value, human-centric actions. It’s a little bit cliche, but people say instead of replacing people, AI is going to shift the tasks that they perform. So, think of how much time a recruiter spends reviewing resumés or collecting onboarding paperwork. AI can create efficiencies in those areas and that’s going to really lead us to re-evaluate which skills are most important in those roles.

KRISTIN: Well before I let you go today, is there anything else you’d like to mention that I haven’t already asked you?

KEVIN: Just that our commitment to services, strategy, and technology will continue. Our goal is to leverage the tech advancements as a way of enhancing the human touch-tailored solutions that we’re known for.

KRISTIN: Perfect note to end on. Thank you so much for joining us today, Kevin.

KEVIN: Thanks for having me.

KRISTIN: And thank you to our listeners. Be sure to join us every month as we unravel the complexities of health care staffing and recruitment, providing expert insights and actionable advice to help you with your recruitment efforts. In the meantime, visit our website medicalsolutions.com to learn more about our healthcare staffing ecosystem and how we can help your facility reach its full potential. Thanks again. We’ll see you next time!

KRISTIN: Hello, and thanks for joining us for Staffing Unplugged, a Medical Solutions podcast that delves into the world of staffing and recruitment. Each episode, we bring you insightful discussions, expert interviews, and thought-provoking conversations with industry experts. I’m Kristin Dahl, your host, and I’m joined today by Chase Farmer, Chief Commercial Officer at Medical Solutions. Thank you for joining me today, Chase.

CHASE: Thanks for having me.

KRISTIN: On our show, we like to discuss successful staffing strategies, and that wouldn’t be possible without a strong executive team. Can you start by telling me a little bit about your role at Medical Solutions?

CHASE: Sure. I serve as the chief commercial officer. The commercial team is really responsible for solutions design. I probably categorize that into two different forms. The first is working with a prospective health care organization who is either looking for a first-time partnership, maybe looking to replace an existing partnership, or to find an organization to help them to achieve a set of goals or objectives. The second category would be an existing Medical Solutions’ customer. Most customers will partner with Medical Solutions with a set number of objectives or goals to achieve, but as the organization matures and continues to evolve itself it also needs the partnership with Medical Solutions to continue to evolve.

KRISTIN: Perfect, and since this is our first episode we really wanted to give our listeners an introduction to Medical Solutions so can you talk a little bit more about what the company is and what we do?

CHASE: Sure. Medical Solutions is one of the largest healthcare staffing firms in the United States. What that really means is we work with client partners to help find them great people and at the same time to work with our clinicians to help them find great organizations to work for. Our mission is to connect care and the way that we really focus on that is through the partnerships with hospitals across the United States. We have offices from coast to coast. We work in all 50 states and our dedicated recruitment group with which works with tens of thousands of clinicians, nurses, and allied professionals alike to find them their next either full-time, permanent position or if they’re interested in short-term contract labor.

KRISTIN: I know a lot of people hear “staffing” or “agency” and they may have an idea of what that looks like but can you explain how Medical Solutions differs from a traditional staffing agency?

CHASE: Sure. Medical Solutions has been around for a little over 20 years, and I think in the original origin of Medical Solutions it probably did answer that as a staffing agency. I think the thing that has really driven the success at Medical Solutions is not only our people but a real drive for innovation and as we work with these organizations, as they become more sophisticated and larger and are looking for a more sophisticated or robust partnership that innovation is what really drives Medical Solutions and in doing so Medical Solutions has actually created the first healthcare talent ecosystem and that’s really a big piece of focusing on the strategy and the services that clients are looking for from a partnership. I think the COVID-19 pandemic maybe made that necessary for some agencies to kind of evolve and offer other services aside from what they were offering before.

KRISTIN: To expand on that a little bit, could you explain what are some of the advantages of a healthcare ecosystem as opposed to a traditional staffing agency?

CHASE: Yeah. In a traditional staffing partnership, organizations are really faced with a situation where they come up with a need turn the need over to a staffing partner and the staffing partner does what it can to help in a transactional type of partnership – they need the request, and they try to meet the request. Rather, an ecosystem is focused not only on the aspect of staffing but really focused in on the strategy and that strategy often incorporates is understanding not only how to fill a position but why is the position needed to be filled and what can be done to reduce an organization’s reliance on a traditional travel contract. That’s where Medical Solutions has really come a long way in building out the number of services that we provide. An ecosystem is not just about a travel contract relationship. For instance, Medical Solutions provides services of not only travel, but also local. We offer permanent direct hire solutions as well as international solutions and together those two pieces both the strategy and the services really allow Medical Solutions to have a more prescriptive approach to the partnership with these organizations help them to control cost better help them to have more efficiency more effectiveness in what they do and really looking towards the future of what the goals and objectives of that organization are when it comes to staffing bedside care.

KRISTIN: It seems like a win-win for everyone involved.

CHASE: Absolutely.

KRISTIN: Switching gears now, you’ve been with Medical Solutions for 14 years. Can you tell me how has the company changed over that time?

CHASE: Sure. It’s been a lot of change not only for Medical Solutions but really the industry as a whole. When I started back in 2009, Medical Solutions was a boutique staffing firm, and I think that the way that organizations use contingency sort of the  why and the how, I think that’s the biggest change that we have seen and what I really mean by that is the why start with the why so the why on how organizations were using a partnership like Medical Solutions was looking for short-term coverage if and when they had something like an FMLA or a department was just short staffed really kind of more of a of a transactional relationship and as the organizations and as the industry has gotten more sophisticated then so too has the way that Medical Solutions works with those clients. So if you think about the way that Medical Solutions approaches it today, we’re not just focused on something like FMLA coverage but a real strategic partnership in trying to achieve the objectives of an organization. A great example of that might be an expansion project. An organization could add a new department say a cath department in a relatively rural area where they don’t have the equipment or the staff to maintain that cath lab so they either lease or acquire the equipment move it into space that hasn’t been utilized and then an organization like Medical Solutions can help in come to provide whatever they might need from a staffing perspective: mid-levels, nurses, techs, etc. Then is to open up and to create a great opportunity for that organization in a market that maybe didn’t have the capacity or capability to provide cath lab services to that community and now they can. You can see a real transition in the strategy on why an organization uses a partnership like Medical Solutions. The other half of it is the how and I referenced managed services so Medical Solutions is one of the largest MSP or managed service providers in the industry and what that really allows Medical Solutions to do with its partners is to centralize and streamline any of the interactions with outside agencies that an organization might need to have. It allows them to centralize through a single contract, a single procurement process. Pricing can be standardized, protocols and processes to onboard the clinicians can be standardized, billing, etc., can all be standardized so the industry has really changed a lot in the last 20 years. A lot of innovation, a lot of technology improvements, and I think organizations like Medical Solutions are really the ones driving that forward.

KRISTIN: That does sound like a lot of change. What has it been like for you to witness that growth and change over the past 14 years?

CHASE: Incredible. It’s a lot of work and certainly a lot of challenges to be faced, but solution design and its heart that’s really what the commercial team is about. It’s the piece of it that I love the most to sit down with an organization, to sit down with their leaders, to understand the specifics of their problems and what their goals are to come out of that. Certainly, we see a lot of the same themes running through organizations, but there is always a level of unique expectation or unique circumstances that each organization will bring into the partnership and that’s really the part that I love personally is working with the organization understanding the challenges, understanding the goals, and then building out a solution to be able to achieve that. It’s been incredibly rewarding. I don’t think very many people have had the privilege of working for an organization that is so focused on its people, so focused on innovation and that the work that we do every day really means so much. I mean it’s bedside care that we’re talking about, and we’ve had an incredible journey to this point and really looking forward to what comes next.

KRISTIN: Absolutely and speaking of continuing that journey ahead, we just started a new year so what are you looking forward to the most for the company this year?

CHASE: We are on the cusp of some innovative services and strategies that we are going to be bringing to customers this year. I would say that one of them that I’m most excited about is the recent update and release of our new technology platform which is called cero and the capabilities of this technology and what it will allow organizations to do. For instance, to use the technology not only to manage the part partnership of its staff through Medical Solutions as a partner but also to use that technology within the organization itself to manage its own float pool, for example. The technology has a number of different sequences that we’ll be releasing over the coming months so just really excited about what technology we’re bringing to the market and how that will help to influence and to really provide access to the organizations to streamline their processes. That’s probably the most exciting thing for 2024 for Medical Solutions.

KRISTIN: Absolutely, it sounds like it and that is also a great note to end on, so I just want to thank you so much for joining me today.

CHASE: Thank you very much for having me.

KRISTIN: Of course. And thank you to our listeners. Please join us every month as we unravel the complexities of healthcare staffing recruitment, sharing expert insights and actionable advice that can help you with your recruitment efforts. In the meantime, visit our website medicalsolutions.com for more information on our healthcare talent ecosystem and how we can help your facility reach its full potential. Thanks again, and we’ll see you next time.