In addition to guest posting on the UpCity blog, Advantis Medical Staffing is featured as one of the Top Healthcare Staffing Agencies in the United States. Check out their profile!
Healthcare staffing shortages and burnout amongst frontline workers became part of the global conversation during the pandemic. Interestingly, this period of intense focus revealed systemic hurdles to delivering the best patient care. Overwhelmed facilities couldn’t keep up and their human resources departments had no chance of finding adequate staff from local job seekers, let alone tackling the hiring and onboarding processes on their own.
Mobilizing urgently to administer quality care often came at the expense of healthcare workers’ mental and physical well-being. At that moment, healthcare staffing agencies were uniquely positioned to supplement staffing levels with travel nurses and other clinicians who crossed the country following the disease and caring for its victims. Learning and reacting at a frantic pace for more than two years transformed healthcare and staffing in many ways. And, as life moves toward a form of normalcy those lessons, along with industry-specific innovations, can be applied to the new landscape of medical staffing. Used strategically, healthcare staffing services can benefit healthcare providers and practices in several ways:
- Presenting the best qualified top talent
- Streamlining process for accuracy and efficiency
- Blending humanity and technology for the best results
The Best Workers for Your Healthcare Facility
The bottom line, patients have a choice. If you want them to opt for your facility you need the best staff. So, even if retention is down, adequate personnel levels must be maintained. Beyond headcount, you want staff that reflects your high standards and delights your customers with expert care. Ideally, this staff comes to you onboarded and shift-ready. It should be easy. Because effective staffing is one critical element of your facility’s success. There are other important pieces in that puzzle. Outsourcing this time-consuming essential task to experts can give you peace of mind along with the necessary added bandwidth for other key areas of focus.
Done right, the placement process serves clinicians, healthcare providers, and the healthcare industry as a whole. Travel nursing is ideal for registered nurses and allied clinicians who seek work-life balance by taking breaks between assignments for professional development and/or personal recovery. This reduces frontline worker burnout and improves the quality of care delivered when working again. Travel nursing’s high pay rates make it possible to take an occasional hiatus while still out-earning staff positions.
By tapping into this responsive talent, agencies cultivate huge pools of qualified, vetted candidates who are ready to serve – often with just a few clicks on your end. The right staffing company will translate those few clicks of yours into properly credentialled and licensed registered nurses and allied staff members who are there when you need them, with the skills you need, and only for as long as you need.
It sounds ideal, and it is, with the right agency. Researching staffing companies is easy, doesn’t take long, and can provide eye-opening information. Start by checking out the reviews and community feedback on any possible agency partner with a Google search and some time on social media. Travel nursing has lots of activity on most platforms.
Also, make sure the agency you choose has the technology and know-how to deliver in today’s fast-paced market. You should find information about innovation and value-added practices on company websites along with client testimonials. There you can find support for your selection and transparency into your agency’s recipe for success.
Process Makes Perfect
Travel nurses and allied healthcare professionals must have the appropriate education, certifications, and licenses to practice in each state in which they accept an assignment. Efficiency is essential and errors can be costly. That’s why healthcare staffing agencies have dedicated credentialing teams that focus full-time on making sure every medical practice can rest assured their travel nurses possess all needed skills and qualifications. Credentialling and other support teams collaborate with each candidate’s recruiter to help find the best role at the right time. Importantly, all staff members responsible for the clinician’s success must have real-time access and empowerment to help match the professional with the healthcare system that needs them. It is in everyone’s best interest to make thoughtful placements that result in relationships rather than transactional exchanges. Working with the same agency long-term often comes with financial benefits along with travel nurses and clinicians who are a match for your facility in qualification and cultural fit.
Automating everything from job search and application through job portals to timecard submission, reference checking, reimbursements, and more propels the candidate’s digital journey. Multiple components of the job search advance concurrently, opening a chance for more jobs, sooner. Choreography like this requires time, testing, and lots of practice. The unique demands of healthcare staffing are why healthcare organizations benefit from working with agencies to cover shortages and maintain adequate staffing levels. It’s also why smart processes and effective technology are even more important than for most other types of staffing agencies.
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Technology With a Human Touch
Implementing healthcare staffing services makes it easier to identify the top talent to help with your bottom line. Since “it’s not life or death” doesn’t always apply here, positive outcomes for patients, healthcare workers, and healthcare systems are essential. A blend of artificial intelligence, machine learning, industry data, and hard-working humans must work together seamlessly for the best results. To qualify as the best result, the match between candidate and facility must be vetted and it must be fast.
Seconds count in staffing. Urgent needs for specialized medical staff are a daily occurrence. Therefore, candidates must be easily visible and instantly searchable once in the system. And once placed, those temporary staff must have clear access to all resources and information they need for a successful assignment. That kind of speed and precision is well out of the human realm of ability. This is where AI, machine learning, and an abundance of tech support successful placements. There’s no substitute for speed, accuracy, and ever-evolving algorithms to handle the matching of data points.
Though fueled by AI and machine learning, the right recruiter elevates the placement process to an art form. Automating the technical components of medical staffing gives recruiters enough wiggle room to work magic. Maybe it’s time for a coaching call with a first-time traveler. Perhaps the chance to spend extra time with an RN who’s changing specialties and wants earning information. Whenever those extra moments present themselves it’s a chance for a professional recruiter to positively impact a candidate who might work for your facility next. And the extra big smile, added enthusiasm, and improved confidence will translate to everyone they meet on the job.