The healthcare staffing industry is complex and unlike any other industry. Having the right software tools by your side can help simplify the ever-growing complexity of healthcare staffing. Between credential management and compliance to calculating pay packages and managing shifts, these essential needs of healthcare staffing can be made easy with the right healthcare staffing software solution. 

The healthcare industry continues to be one of the fastest growing industries in staffing. Whether you currently staff healthcare professionals or are looking to get into the industry, in this article we will discuss how software can help keep your healthcare staffing practices in check. Healthcare staffing software will give you an upper hand to staff healthcare professionals faster, improve your communication with facilities and healthcare professionals, and ultimately grow your staffing business. 

Managing Credentials

Credential management and tracking is essential in healthcare staffing. You need to ensure you are only placing candidates that have the proper credentials for a position.  Managing credentials manually can cause error and can also increase your time to hire.  Credential management tools in healthcare staffing software will help you place candidates with the correct credentials and prevent you from placing candidates that either don’t have the credential or have expired credentials. 

There are many components to credential management.  The first component is the ability to store licenses, certifications, and other necessary compliance pieces, in addition to, dates granted, expiration dates, license numbers, and more. Having this information stored in a candidate profile gives you immediate access to all the information you need to know about a candidate. 

A second important component to credential management is the ability to send automatic reminders through email or text to individuals that have credentials expiring or expired. This alerts the employee of their credential expiration date and will prompt the employee to provide their updated credentials, otherwise they won’t be able to be placed. This helps both staffing agencies stay on top of expired credentials, but also helps the candidate ensure they are keeping their credentials updated.  There may also be a credential expiration report that can be pulled from your healthcare staffing software to further track the employees that have expiring credentials.

The third major component of credential management is the prevention of placing candidates that have missing or expired credentials. This is essential as you never want to place a healthcare professional that doesn’t have the proper credentials. Healthcare software will help prevent candidates from being placed who don’t have the credentials. 

Scheduling & Shift Management 

Scheduling healthcare professionals and managing their shifts is one of the everyday tasks you do most in healthcare staffing. Healthcare staffing software will help you manage shifts and match healthcare professionals with positions.  Some healthcare staffing software solutions may even offer a color-coded shift schedule to help you easily identify which shifts are in progress, pending, open, upcoming, and more.

A major task that healthcare staffing software can help with is managing shifts in bulk. The ability to bulk modify shift start/end dates, start/end times, quantity, reporting information, credentials, skills, and more is important to help manage a number of shifts at one time. Healthcare staffing software that manages shifts in bulk could save you hours of time and increase your efficiency. 

Another tool you may find in healthcare staffing software are “Won’t Go/Don’t Go” tools. If a facility doesn’t want a certain employee or an employee doesn’t want to work at a facility, the software won’t place the employee at that location. This is a great tool to ensure you don’t place a healthcare professional at a facility they shouldn’t be placed at. 

In general, healthcare software allows you to easily search your database for candidates that are the right fit for a position. Using the search features, lets you filter and narrow down your search to find the best candidates, including searching for availability, schedules, credentials, and shift preferences. Without a robust healthcare staffing software solution, this detailed search and matching ability is limited. 

Shift differentials are also very common in healthcare staffing.  You may need to manage rate schedules by facility by role, by shift and unit. Healthcare staffing software can help you manage this and also auto-populate shift orders with the appropriate rates.  It can also help manage special pay requirements such as per diem, stipends, and more. 

Pay Package Calculator

In healthcare staffing, you are managing many different shift types from long term assignments that involve sign-on bonuses to per-diem and other travel perks that require gross margin to be assessed. Calculating pay packages can be time consuming and complicated. 

A Pay Package Calculator that is integrated with the GSA Rates Calculator and built into your healthcare staffing software will be a game changer. This can save hours of time by providing instant calculations.  It will also help you accurately calculate gross margins to drive revenue growth.  

A Pay Package Calculator will provide a detailed calculation and analysis of Pay/Bill Hours, Pay/Bill Rates, Overtime Calculations, Bonuses, Holidays, and more.  The calculation will then provide your expected gross margin percentage and markup. Some built-in pay package calculators will even go a step further and give you the ability to send the pay package to your candidate for approval right from the pay package screen. This makes not only the calculation easy, but it makes it easy to propose pay packages to candidates with a click of a button. 

Communication and Self-Service Tools 

Strong communication between healthcare professionals and facilities is essential in healthcare staffing. One way to streamline communication is the ability to email shift schedules to both facilities and employees right from your software. Depending on the software you use, you might be able to send out daily, weekly, and monthly shift schedules.  The ability to email shift schedules right from your software can strengthen your communication between both employees and facilities and ensure everyone is aware of the upcoming shift schedule.

Text communication with candidates can also be a great way to confirm shifts, offer shifts, or simply maintain relationships. Texts have an average open rate of 98%, so it is likely that your message will be seen.  Having the ability to send text messages in bulk from the software is also a benefit to send shift opportunities to many candidates at once. 

Furthermore, self-service tools for healthcare facilities and professionals can help set your staffing agency apart from your competition. Everyone wants to be able to complete tasks faster, easier, and on their own time. Self-service tools offered through a web portal can give both healthcare facilities and professionals access to everything they need. Mobile friendly web portals can even take it a step further.  Healthcare professionals are on the go and aren’t going to be by a computer often. 

Through an employee portal, employees can be given access to enter availability, time, upload credentials, and view their work schedules. Likewise, facilities can use a client portal to view upcoming shift schedules, invoices, and reporting. These are just a few examples of self-service tools that can be offered.  Not all healthcare staffing software solutions will have a self-service web portal option, so when assessing software solutions this is something to consider.  

Security & Data Protection

In healthcare staffing, you manage highly confidential and sensitive information. Software will help keep your data protected and secure. This can be done through the encryption of information, managing security access, and having your data backed up regularly. 

Additionally, software solutions invest in different levels of security.  When evaluating software, it is essential to ask what tier their data center is, the average uptime, and what data certifications they have to ensure they are compliant with industry standards. 

Healthcare Staffing Made Easy 

The complexities of healthcare staffing are here to stay, but with the right tools, you can work more efficiently and streamline practices. By taking advantage of the technology in healthcare software, you can also improve your communication and workflow with healthcare professionals. There is no need to manage healthcare staffing practices manually when staffing tools are at hand that can help you manage the intricacies of healthcare staffing with ease. 

Ready to take your healthcare staffing practices to the next level? Schedule a demo of Ultra-Staff EDGE staffing software, an award-winning solution for healthcare staffing companies.  Ultra-Staff EDGE is a full front and back office staffing software solution with Web Portals, OnBoarding, Shift Scheduling, and more. Visit www.abd.net to learn more. Read more from Jennifer Roeslmeier Mikels