The United States is facing a shortage of a variety of healthcare workers. The factors contributing to these shortages are varied and complex, and have the potential to seriously undermine the provision of safe, high-quality healthcare.
Worker and faculty shortages are accompanied by changes in American demographics. As the population continues to age, so does our need for healthcare. In addition to the number of people needing healthcare, changes in healthcare delivery have altered traditional practices. Hospital stays have increased, and extended and home healthcare needs are growing rapidly. These facts are prompting the healthcare industry to ask the following questions: How can my industry best retain the existing workforce? How does the growing trend of per diem and contingent workers affect workforce capacity?
The answer to these questions is simple: You need to effectively and efficiently manage per diem and long-term labor under one system. This system is ShiftWise’s vendor management system (VMS).
Because of the nature of the healthcare industry, it is necessary to keep staff on at all times. This demand presents a unique set of challenges, and per diem employees are often a benefit to the healthcare industry. They work on a PRN or as-needed basis, have flexible schedules, and do not receive benefits. The clear advantage of having such employees is the ability to call on one to cover for another employee who is absent. A hospital, for example, can schedule these “daily workers around the clock, resulting in an adequately staffed building at all times, even if a large number of regular employees is out. But managing these types of workers, along with long-term workers, is a different ballgame. Often there are different variables, laws, and costs associated with maintaining employees with varying time commitments — and businesses often struggle to improve their ways of handling them.
To complicate matters, the landscape of healthcare regulations is rapidly changing, especially in the wake of the recent efforts to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare.” After its implementation in 2010, the Affordable Care Act had a positive impact on healthcare staffing. But with the Act’s fate up in the air, healthcare companies are finding it increasingly difficult to manage per diem employees without interfering with the long-term ones.
This is where ShiftWise comes in. ShiftWise ensures that your healthcare company will meet staffing demands quickly with its software’s per diem and long-term employee management capabilities.
As the number of per diem healthcare employees continues to grow every year, many healthcare businesses have been relying on ShiftWise to bring solutions to simpler and more user-friendly employee management. ShiftWise gives employers peace of mind knowing that they are paying their employees the correct amount for the correct time worked.
Managing the matching, scheduling, and compensation for per diem workers and long-term workers alike doesn’t have to be hard. ShiftWise’s VMS software is built for healthcare, allowing healthcare companies to easily manage customizable shifts (start time and end time) and fill their unique staffing needs.
Sources:
www2.staffingindustry.com/site/content/…/Fri_0830_SubadhraSriram_Gold_hc13
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www.onestops.info/resources/WA_WAG/Shortages