How Frequently do Hospitals and Healthcare Facilities Rely on Staffing Agencies?

There are many staffing agencies out there that help provide hospitals with staff to help them with their staffing needs during times of sudden demand. As we know now, they are perfect for a crisis, but how often do Hospitals utilize staffing agencies under normal circumstances?

Hospitals frequently rely on medical staffing agencies, even when there is not a massive shortage of healthcare professionals. The medical industry is hard to staff, especially for leadership roles, such as senior and mid-level management positions. It is also challenging to staff clerical positions. Staffing agencies also play a massive role in smaller hospitals, where it is harder to find adequate staff. Some hospitals even say that working with staffing firms has helped them cope with severe shortages.

Why is Staffing Hospitals so Difficult?

Currently, hospitals are facing significant healthcare staffing challenges. There are a variety of different reasons as to why staffing hospitals is hard. Some believe that it links to the constant, and long hours that workers need to endure. Oftentimes, residents even say they sometimes work close to 72-hour shifts with only a few breaks where they get to nap and eat.

It may also be a reflection of how human resources prioritize their tasks. Seldom do their jobs put the workers first, which in return causes other workers to feel neglected. Thus, they quit in search of more accomodating employment. Sadly, this is how hospitals lose many talented residents. The job is stressful enough without overworking them to the point of quitting.

When staffing is short in hospitals, the only recourse that health professionals have is to go through a staffing agency.

Hospitals Continue Returning to Staffing Agencies to Fill Their Needs

Staffing agencies are becoming increasingly popular, considering 40% of the current nurses are over 50 years old. That means they will be retiring soon, but it also means that they are more susceptible to taking time off due to illness.

Considering that hospitals prefer to hire people straight out of college, it is even harder to fill positions due to the low graduate pool. However, that isn’t due to a lack of applicants. In 2018, budget and staffing constraints caused education establishments to turn away 75,000 qualified applicants!

Due to this top-heavy shortage of healthcare professionals, the need for staffing agencies is rapidly increasing. Therefore, hospitals are relying heavily on staffing agencies versus hiring personally.

If you want to find out more information about hiring medical staff through an agency, contact Hiring Medicals today.

The COVID-19 Pandemic Shows the Need for Medical Staffing Agencies

The COVID-19 pandemic affected pretty much anything and everything, turning our world upsidedown. The health of the world is negatively affected, and the economy is in a tailspin due to normal business shutting down.

Yet, while most of us were sitting at home because we could not go to work, healthcare professionals were busier than ever as they tried to help those affected by COVID-19.

Hospitals ran out of beds, and, more importantly, they were running out of staff to help. Once there was a greater need for medical staff, even medical staffing agencies were running thin on workers.

COVID-19 has Clearly Shown the Value that Medical Staffing Agencies Provide

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, there has been a sudden increase in patients. During this time, the world learned how valuable medical staffing agencies truly are. If you were to hire someone the traditional way, it could take anywhere from 23 days to 40 days to fill a position. This process includes posting the ad, accepting applications, interviews, and reference checks, background checks, and drug testing.

Usually, that is acceptable, but as of right now, hours can mean the difference between life and death for patients.

Hospitals are jammed-packed with patients, and current hospital staff can’t handle the influx. Plus, hospital staff are getting sick themselves, which makes them unable to work.

How can hospitals keep up with the increase of patients? The simple answer is medical staffing agencies!

With a simple call, you can have trained medical staff come to your aid in a matter of hours instead of weeks. The best part about staffing agencies is they are pre-vetted for the position. The moment hospitals received an influx of COVID-19 patients, the medical staffing agencies were already preparing for the anticipated arrival of calls.

In San Diego alone, one staffing agency reported filling in over 1,995 crisis jobs in just a few days.

One stiffing agency in New York claimed they had a 1,000% increase in requests for nurses since the month prior. Those numbers are just from two agencies in two Cities, could you imagine the figures from around the world?

Medical staffing agencies are providing much-needed assistance in this time of need. Not only are they providing much-needed breaks for the medical staff that has been working days on end, but they are also saving lives.

If you want to find out more information about hiring medical staff through a staffing agency, visit Hire Medicals right now!

There is a Greater Need for Care than Ever Before in the Health Care Industry

The current healthcare industry as we know it is facing a crisis and has been facing this crisis for years. The issue at hand is the rapid aging and retirement of large percentages of healthcare workers, while the general population ages and shows higher percentages of chronic diseases that need treatment.

But how does this contribute to a lower number of healthcare workers available and how does this create a healthcare crisis?

The Aging Population

Since 2008 studies have shown that the older populations are very large and aging very quickly alongside the healthcare workers who are supplying healthcare to them. While aging populations are normal and expected, the sheer numbers are much higher than previously experienced by healthcare workers in the past.

Life expectancies have grown longer over the decades, meaning that the older generations of today are living far longer than the majority of their parents and grandparents did. This gives much more time for new issues and healthcare needs to show up.

Even though their life expectancy is longer, it does not factor in the care that these older folks need. To top this section off, the aging healthcare workers often end up requiring healthcare assistance as well, meaning that more and more healthcare workers are needed in an industry that already struggles to keep up with demand.

Chronic Health Issues

Chronic diseases have also become a large section of public health and healthcare issues, as higher percentages are reported each year due to cultural lifestyle changes. Obesity, heart conditions, and nutritional issues are some of the most prevailing issues in the United States today that did not stem from lack of healthcare workers, but lack of self-care education.

In schools, children are often given food that is cheap in the cafeteria and there is limited education on how to take care of your body to keep it healthy and happy. Due to this fact, years of children grew up not understanding the importance of healthy foods.

Additionally, poorer communities typically have higher rates of obesity and heart disease stemming from unhealthy diets because food that is processed and unhealthy is much cheaper than healthy foods that keep your body functioning properly.

All of these issues circle back to healthcare because the healthcare workers end up being the ones trying to assist people suffering from these issues.

One of the biggest problems, however, is the number of prospective nursing students who are rejected from healthcare programs in colleges and universities. These programs typically reject students due to limited capacity to maintain an “exclusive” or “prestigious” reputation. In 2012 alone, around 80,000 qualified students were rejected from these nursing programs.

These issues must be addressed in health and higher education, as well as factored into conversations about wealth inequality and inequity.

Projected Shortfall of 105,000 Doctors in the US by 2030

The projected shortage of healthcare workers has been an urgent topic in the medical and healthcare industries for a while now, but what does a shortage of healthcare workers mean and how is this happening?

To begin, as early as 2008, experts were speculating that to keep up with the rapidly growing and intensifying healthcare industry the nation needed approximately 250,000 new healthcare workers to combat the demand of healthcare workers by 2020.

More recently, a 2017 study has shown that the healthcare industry has a projected deficiency of 105,000 healthcare workers by 2030. This includes the projection of a shortfall of approximately 7,000 to 43,100 primary care doctors and a deficiency of 33,500 to 61,800 of non-primary care healthcare workers.

This means that the scarcity of healthcare workers has only increased over the past 12 years.

What’s Causing the Shortage of Healthcare Workers?

Several factors contribute to the falling number of healthcare workers and the increased number of workers needed by 2030. These include a large generation that is aging with more chronic conditions while the healthcare force is also aging.

There are not enough younger healthcare workers to replace the workers who are retiring. This means that as more healthcare workers age out of their positions as active physicians, there is no one there to take their spot.

This might be traced back to limited educational resources and competitive higher education environments. Because the healthcare industry is so critical to the public and private health of a nation, the educational system in colleges and universities is very intense. Students typically have to be accepted into a nursing program or a program that fits their career goals.

The competitive nature of higher education comes into play when students are rejected from programs they need to take to become healthcare workers. Universities are creating competition between schools as well as between students in their institutions.

All the colleges want to have the finest program in their area. This requires them to only accept a small number of students and create courses designed to keep only the smartest and most hardworking students in their program. Depending on the institution, a certain number of students will drop the program and their spots will not be filled.

This creates a lack of new healthcare workers coming out of school and ready to work, which then sparks a deficiency of capable healthcare workers down the road.

The shortage of healthcare workers is not just an issue in the United States, but a global issue brought about (largely,) by the changing cultures of lifestyle into a mostly unhealthy form. People around the world are spending more time at their computers and sitting than getting outside and exercising.

In addition, healthy food is less accessible and more expensive around the world, while cheap junk food is easy to get. Junk food is cheaper and has terrible ramifications on your body and as more communities (both impoverished and not,) pick up these foods, global health decreases

Credential Management has Become a Key Issue for Medical Staffing

When beginning to discuss the issue of credential management in medical staffing, we must first understand what credentialing is.

Credentialing is a system of formally processing the credentials of any healthcare workers attempting to practice medicine. This ensures that the patients of the institution get the best treatment and care by a professional who has all the necessary qualifications and licenses to perform their trade.

Credentialing also makes sure that all medical and healthcare staff are being held to the same standards of professionalism and expertise.

In the modern-day medical and healthcare industry, credentialing has become even more important than ever before, but it has also become much more difficult. This difficulty comes from the expansion of the scope, rise of new requirements of private insurers, and other third-party players.

These new factors in credentialing have risen over the past 20 years, causing the medical staffing departments in hospitals and healthcare facilities around the nation to face a difficult hiring process.

In the medical and healthcare industry, licenses and training often have to be repeated or redone in specific intervals of time to keep the workers up to date on modern technologies and sciences. This also helps to make sure that the medical or healthcare staff still know all the necessary information to perform their job properly.

How Do Staffing Agencies Alleviate This Burden?

While you could try to manage the credentials of all of your employees, this can become an extremely complex task that requires third-party software. Credential management software can track the credentials of all your employees and notify you when their credentials expire, but you still need to put in the work of inputting all of your staff’s credentials for the software to work. You would also need to learn an entirely new software system to ensure it delivers all of the information you need.

Instead of worrying about tracking the credentials of all of your employees, more and more healthcare facilities are turning to staffing agencies. With a staffing agency, you never need to worry about the credentials of those employees as the agency manages all of their credentials for you. This ensures all of your staff remain fully compliant and up to date on all of their licenses, credentials, and training requirements. It also helps limit your liability if an auditor checks the credentials of these employees as they are the responsibility of the staffing agency.

Why is the Healthcare Industry Struggling to Find Qualified Candidates?

The healthcare industry has been struggling for several years to fill positions with qualified candidates as older healthcare workers leave the industry. But why is this such a struggle for places like hospitals and healthcare facilities?

You would expect that the industry of providing care and life-saving treatments to others would be a popping industry, with too many people applying for positions, but is that the case?

For years, the healthcare and medical industries have been projecting shortages of healthcare workers, up to 105,000 by 2030 if qualified applicants do not start showing up to open positions in the industry.

But what exactly is causing this deficit? One study from 2018 showed that out of a survey of 200 hospital hiring teams, almost 31 percent reported that they could not find enough qualified candidates to fill open positions promptly.

Hospital Human Resource Departments Do Not Prioritize Hiring

This could be due to the process that human resource departments in hospitals are doing when it comes to dealing with certain aspects of the hospital’s functioning, including hiring. Out of the same 2018 survey, the majority of hospitals reported that hiring came third on the list of important duties of their human resource reps.

The top two objectives on the lists of the human resource departments were training and compensation. Although these two factors of the human resource job are important and need to be done for the hospitals to be run smoothly and legally, they are preventing new hires from getting into the hospital to start training and begin working.

In this sense, the human resource departments are self-sabotaging in a kind of way. This is not to say that the human resource departments need to completely change their hiring methods, but hospitals should take a look at the process that hiring happens in their facility.

Higher Education Makes it Difficult to Become a Healthcare Professional

Another reason that hospitals could be struggling to find qualified applicants or simply enough applicants to fill the positions they need to have filled, is that the industry of higher education has made it much more difficult to become a healthcare professional.

Colleges and universities are in a constant battle between each other to see who has the most exclusive and prestigious programs for career paths like law and medical practitioners. This makes the programs only accept the best of the best instead of every qualified student. Through this practice, the higher education industry leaves hundreds of eager and capable students with nowhere to learn the things they need to know to become a healthcare worker.

The lower number of students entering these types of programs means that after the program is complete, there are even less qualified graduates because there will be dropouts who decide that healthcare is not for them.

This means that there are fewer graduating classes with high numbers of graduates with majors in some form of the healthcare industry. So, there is a higher amount of jobs open to qualified and inexperienced workers, but simply not enough qualified (or new) workers to fill these positions.

Hospitals of All Sizes Regularly Rely on Staffing Agencies to Fill Staffing Gaps

The healthcare and medical industry as we currently know it has been struggling for years to fill positions with qualified healthcare workers. Studies have also shown that the projected number of a deficiency of health care workers by 2030 is 105,000 fewer workers than what is needed to keep up with the demands of the public.

So with all that said, how are hospitals combating issues with finding qualified and professional workers to fill the vacancies in their facilities? Seeing as the number of graduating healthcare workers is even lower than the number of students going into the field of medical and health care, finding good healthcare workers will continue to be a struggle.

Hospitals of All Sizes are Increasing Their Use of Outside Staffing Agencies

Surveys have shown that hospitals of all sizes and capacities have been turning to outside staffing agencies to help them fill specific roles, such as clinical roles and leadership or managerial roles. This means that the leadership positions can be filled quickly so that other positions that are of equal or greater importance, such as specialists, head doctors, and nurses can fill the other vacant positions. This allows the hospital to get back to focusing on saving lives and working at its best.

When it comes to the size of the hospital using outside staffing agencies, there are a few notes. Smaller hospitals are more likely to resort to outside staffing agency hiring help, simply because they are running a smaller institution, so there might not be as many people who can help form a hiring committee.

Smaller hospitals are also more likely to use outside staffing agencies to fill roles such as senior or mid-level leadership and managerial roles, rather than lower-level leadership which could be done by a doctor or nurse already working in the hospital.

However, on the opposite hand, larger hospitals are more likely to use outside staffing agencies to hire for a multitude of positions. The positions large hospitals typically use staffing agencies to fill are both leadership and managerial roles, as well as clinical positions, like doctors and nurses.

Despite how the hospitals are using outside resources to help fix their hiring issues, there are still issues concerning the priorities of human resource talent managers or hiring teams. Hiring for new or open positions typically is not at the top of their priority list and staffing agencies help alleviate this burden.

WHAT TO EXPECT FROM A NURSING CAREER

One of the most trusted and respected group of professionals in the world are nurses, and deservedly so. It takes a high level of dedication, professionalism and compassion to commit toward a career aimed at improving and saving the lives of others.

Following an intense educational program, clinical experience, internships and examinations, a nurse obtains a license to practice in a particular state or country. A nurse must also undergo continued education courses throughout his or her career in order to maintain licensure, based on the stipulations of their state or country of practice. We recognize the hard work and dedication of the nursing profession.

OPPORTUNITIES IN NURSING

Nursing offers a wide variety of specialties with promise of opportunities  to grow and build a lifelong career. With a growing demand for nursing professionals, there is no shortage of opportunities. As a nurse, you may expect to earn a reasonable income, gain access to a wide range of professional options and take comfort in a fairly high level of  job security.

There are ample opportunities in hospital settings, medical offices, schools, camps, clinics, ambulatory care, nursing homes, occupational health, community health centers, shelters or any of several other possibilities.

TASKS OF A NURSE

Nurses are involved in various professional tasks which may vary depending on their workplace or specialty. According to the American Nurses Association (ANA), nursing professionals are responsible for the following tasks:

  • Obtaining of medical or health histories
  • Performance of physical examinations
  • Provision of health promotions, education and counseling to patients
  • Administration of wound care, medications, and other health interventions
  • Coordination of patient care alongside other members of their healthcare team
  • Supervision of staff such as nursing assistants and licensed practical nurses
  • Critical decision making
  • Research

Nursing degrees may also determine the area of specialty. Over a hundred nursing specialties are available including ambulatory, burn care, camp or school, diabetes care, emergency, forensic, geriatrics, hospice and pediatrics nursing, to mention but a few.

Certain specialties and specific practice situations may require particular educational criteria, and so you should find out what is required for the path you have chosen.

BENEFITS OF THE NURSING CAREER

Now more than ever before, nurses are in higher demand all over the world. Thus, the prospects of a career in nursing come with great promise – job security, opportunities for advancement or change of career paths within the latitude of the nursing profession, openings for educational advancement, and so on.

Additionally, nurses may decide to function in non-traditional work settings, if they so choose. Some of these include schools, parks, offices and government agencies. With nursing, the possibilities are almost endless.

For a person with varied interests, the nursing profession may well prove to be a very appealing and exciting career path.

Nurses also earn reasonably good salaries, on a general note, as good healthcare is a highly valued asset. Still, nurses may be able to increase their earnings even more by working overtime or on-call shifts, working in specialties that pay higher by gaining advanced degrees and certifications, moving to states with higher pay rates or becoming nurse educators.

It is important to note, however, that rewarding, respectable and responsible as the nursing profession is, it is most certainly not an easy one. Nurses are faced with challenges and difficult situations on a daily basis. Compassion, listening skills, inner strength, and stress management are highly necessary for anyone who must succeed in this career path.

MODERN STRATEGIES FOR EXPANDING YOUR NURSING RECRUITMENT REACH

The perpetual importance of competent health and medical personnel can never be underestimated, especially in nursing recruitment. The health profession is a highly sensitive sector, requiring properly trained and qualified personnel. Recruitment of registered nurses for healthcare organizations is a vital task for human resource (HR) professionals.

As an HR professional, the ability to provide immediate access to qualified medical personnel is crucial. The healthcare industry is one of the most demanding, in terms of the need for consistent, qualified staff recommendations. By partnering with a professional medical recruitment agency, such as Hire Medicals, HR Directors are able to take advantage of fast, reliable and efficient staffing solutions.

Traditionally, hiring directors are faced with the task of multi-level interaction with each candidate responding to a job search. The emails and phone calls alone can be overwhelming, not to mention the need to review an endless trail of resumés. Add to that, the need to fill a void in staffing often comes at a time when immediate recommendation is essential. Recruitment firms, like Hire Medicals, recognize the importance of providing qualified medical staff at a moment’s notice.

EMPLOY TECHNOLOGY 

Hire Medicals, and other medical recruitment agencies, employ proprietary software and have established hiring processes which serve to quickly identify qualified medical staff. The ability to filter recruits by experience, area of specialty, location, an many other factors, is essential to ensure accurate and efficient staff recommendations.

As part of the staff recruitment process, Hire Medicals handles many of the preliminary tasks required to pinpoint qualified candidates. These medical staffing firms have access to professionals in various specialties and can often recruit staff from neighboring locations or recommend applicants who are open to relocation. Recruits undergo a stringent evaluation and hiring process which includes a thorough review of degrees, licenses, qualifications, evaluation and reference confirmation. Often, by the time a request has been submitted, candidates have already undergone the necessary initial qualification process. This helps to significantly speed up the process of finding qualified medical staff.

ALTERNATIVE RECRUITMENT METHODS

Recruiters and hiring experts recognize the need to employ alternative hiring strategies, such as email automation and social media. These methods have proven highly effective to reach and locate certain candidates, based on demographics.

In reaching out to baby boomers and generation X candidates, for instance, emphasis must be placed on career advancement, guarantees and opportunities, as well as salary, health and retirement benefits. This generation will have job security foremost on their minds. They rely on more traditional employment tools, such as phone calls, emails, national journal publications, job fairs and online job boards.

In interacting with millenials and generation Y candidates on the other hand, be sure to highlight flexible working hours, scheduling, work-life balance and tuition reimbursement. This audience relies on traditional and non-traditional employment tools, including LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, virtual job fairs, texting, school/alumni boards and other networking platforms.

To successfully and effectively reach qualified medical and nursing staff, all of these various communication strategies should be employed.

Recruiting organizations, such as Hire Medicals is adept at reaching candidates by utilizing a variety of communication tools. These firms are able to identify non-traditional methods which have proven to be very successful at locating and recruiting specialized nursing personnel. These firms also make use of comprehensive analytics to pinpoint which methods are most successful at delivering quality candidates. Analytics also determine the most effective content for engaging registered nurses, CNAs and other medical professionals.

Contact with Hire Medicals today to begin taking advantage of our intensive recruitment and hiring process.

7 BEST PRACTICES FOR PATIENT SAFETY

For the past few decades, the healthcare sector has consciously focused on building a foundation for the advancement of patient safety.

Several practices have evolved, based on evidence, to solve patient safety issues in hospitals and health centers. A lot of these practices are basic and must remain at the forefront of healthcare personnel’s working methods, procedures and routines at all times.

Below are some of the top practices to ensure the safety of your patients, as a worker in the healthcare sector.

1. CORRECTLY IDENTIFY PATIENTS

At least two pieces of information must be known prior to the administration of medicines or treatments to patients – their name and their date of birth. This is to ensure they receive the intended care and treatments. The patient’s blood type must also be verified, if a blood transfusion is necessary.

2. CHECK THE SPREAD OF INFECTION

Hands should be washed and sanitized before and after any type of patient contact. Studies have shown that the most commonplace complication in hospitals is related to infections. Almost two million patients are affected by healthcare-associated infections each year, of which an estimated 99,000 result in death.

3. HANDLE MEDICINES WITH CARE

All drugs, including those in cups, basins and syringes, must be properly handled and properly labeled. Extra care must be taken in relation to dosage and administration. There are millions of prescription drugs on the market, and so the possibility of error is significantly high, owing to confusing branding and use of generic names and packaging. It is necessary to ensure proper administration and dosage of any medications, taking special care to minimize risk of drug interactions and complications.

4. APPLY GOOD PRINCIPLES IN HOSPITAL DESIGN

Patient injuries may be minimized by taking into account patient safety, equipment use, room design, and bathroom safety devices. Properly equipped nursing stations allow for easier access to and observation of patients. Equipment and processes which aide in monitoring patient safety help provide peace of mind to nursing staff, minimize injury and may even reduce insurance costs.

5. SET UP BETTER TEAMS AND SYSTEMS FOR SPEEDY RESPONSE

Everyone on the medical team, including junior members, should be encouraged to speak up. Hierarchy is often a serious barrier to good communication on many healthcare teams, and this is too great a risk to take. Every member of the team should be passionate about patient safety and response- and result-oriented.

6. PROMOTE A FREE COMMUNICATION CULTURE

Mistakes can be minimized by ensuring proper communication among doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals. Interactive sessions should be held, in which staff is required to learn and implement emergency protocols necessary to prepare for ever-evolving clinical circumstances. This way, medical staff is fully prepared, from a team aspect, to face any emergency situation with confidence and efficiency.

7. AVOID SURGICAL ERRORS

Wrong-site, wrong-person or wrong-procedure errors are mistakes that medical personnel simply cannot afford to make. Unfortunately, these cases abound. An effective preventive strategy, as proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO), is known as “time-out,” and involves all the members of the team independently verifying an imminent clinical action before it is taken