For Helen Anderson, administrative director of HR at Bon Secours Hampton Roads, ShiftWise was a revelation from the first day it was implemented in 2008. She recently shared with Healthcare Informatics their transformation of an operation of chaos to one of streamlined efficiency.
Over time, as Anderson explains, the vendor management system they implemented has been expanded to multiple labor departments beyond nursing and to nearly the entire multi-state operation of the Bon Secours Health System.
Initially, the solution was implemented for the contingency nursing staff, which accounted for 77 percent of the labor job type usage, according to Anderson, who coordinated the rollout there. Since its initial rollout, the vendor management system has been expanded to other areas, including allied clinical areas such as radiology.
Anderson says that using an automated vendor management system has streamlined the organization’s dealing with agencies by standardizing its processes and providing transparency for both the hospitals and the agencies.
For hospital executives, it has provided reassurance when it comes to credential management and ensuring a fully compliant operation.
She notes that this gives a level of comfort to the nursing executives, as well as human resources executives, that the contingency person hired has met the same expectations as regular hospital employees. It has also streamlined the auditing process when the hospital is visited by regulatory agencies. Pulling the profile on a contingency employee is simple and can be done in minutes on the computer, she says.
For more on the experience of Bon Secours and other stories of staffing innovation, you can read the full article at http://www.healthcare-informatics.com/article/streamlined-staffing-taking-guesswork-out-labor-allocation.