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Infographic: Highest-paying nurse specialties of 2012

Great infographic by Scrubs Magazine about the highest paying nurse specialties of 2012.

Professional Services Hosts Webinar Series on Preparing for TJC Healthcare Staffing Services Certification

Learn about proper preparation for success in achieving the Joint Commission Healthcare Staffing Services Certification in this free, 4-part series – “Making Joint Commission Requirements Easy” launching Aug 23rd at 2 p.m. EST. Prophecy Professional Services’ Chief Clinical Officer Christine Carrington, RN, MS, will host the free 4-part webinar series discussing proper preparation for success in achieving the coveted JCHCSS Certification.

Achieving TJC certification distinguishes organizations among the elite in the country, as they must meet the highest standards in the industry. Since the Joint Commission standards support best practices that lead to the delivery of safe, quality patient care many hospitals now require Joint Commission certification to participate in the RFP process. In addition, hospital associations and some VMS & MSP organizations are requiring agencies to be certified to participate as a subcontractor.

Carrington, having over 30 years leadership experience in the healthcare industry has a 100% success rate with leading organizations to be TJCHCSS certified. Her success ranges from large, national staffing firms to start-up agencies alike.

The focus of each webinar in the series is as follows:

• Aug. 23rd @ 2pm EST: How Ready is Your Firm?
• Sept. 27th @ 2pm EST: Understanding the Leadership Standards
• Oct. 25th @ 2pm EST: Understanding the Human Resource Standards
• Nov. 15th @ 2pm EST: Understanding the Performance Measurement & Information Management Standards

Reserve your spot for each of the webinars in this series to position your organization for success the first time around with achieving the JCHCSS Certification - a key differentiating factor needed by healthcare staffing agencies in the current competitive market.

About PPS
Prophecy Professional Services - a division of Prophecy Healthcare - was founded in response to the healthcare staffing industry’s need for consultants experienced in Joint Commission’s Health Care Staffing Services Certification. PPS’ consulting services assist healthcare staffing firms prepare for Joint Commission certification and provide cost effective clinical operation and risk management services. PPS consultants are nationally experienced Nurse Executives with 25+ years of healthcare staffing experience and extensive experience and success with Joint Commission Health Care Staffing Services Certification.

Visit http://prophecyhealth.com/professional-services for additional information.

 

Hively Closed Loop Customer Feedback and Employee Rewards

Staffing companies that measure customer feedback and reward employees for delivering outstanding customer service can gain a competitive edge and boost their bottom lines. These companies will see greater customer loyalty, less employee turnover and improved morale.

Hively is the first web based system that offers you a complete ‘closed loop’ feedback system from customer to employee. Our goal with Hively is to create the simplest way for companies to gather and measure customer feedback, and reward their employees for providing exceptional customer service. The diagram below is our way of visually explaining how this process works.

Sign up for Hively today and see the benefits for yourself!

The Healthcare Staffing Report Headline News (08.06.12 - 08.10.12)

 This weeks headline news stories from The Healthcare Staffing Report.

 

Here is a list of this weeks top Headline News:

Monday: Growing Health Issue: Hospital Staffing Shortage

Tuesday: What Hospitals Can Learn From The Cheesecake Factory

Wednesday: Massachusetts Bans Mandatory Nurse OT

Thursday: Shortage: Hospitals Desperate for Specialty Nurses 

Friday: Map of U.S. Hospital Health Outcome Metrics

 

Please follow The Healthcare Staffing Report on Twitter.   

 

 

The Healthcare Staffing Report Headline News (07.30.12 - 08.03.12)

 This weeks headline news stories from The Healthcare Staffing Report.

 

Here is a list of this weeks top Headline News:

Monday: Maxim Healthcare Agrees Pays $12.3M to Recruiters in Class Action Lawsuit

Tuesday: Top Ways Healthcare Staffing Agencies Prepare Employees for Placement Exams

Wednesday: Staffing Firms Report Deceleration In New Orders

Thursday: Could Facebook Recruiting Unseat LinkedIn?

Friday: Nursing Schools Brace for Shortage

 

Please follow The Healthcare Staffing Report on Twitter.   

 

 

New Sites Make Social Recruiting Even Easier

All good recruiters know that social media isn't really about connecting with friends and family. Instead, it's really about finding great candidates.

A recent survey from Jobvite revealed that over 90% of employers will use social media for recruiting in 2012. This kind of data suggests that traditional methods of sourcing candidates are no longer effective. This also mans that traditional tools for finding a job are also outdated. For example, the resume.

Even at our company, the first thing we do when screening a new hire is look at their social presence represented on professional sites like LinkedIn. In today’s economy, most companies can't afford to make a bad hire. You can gain so much more information from someones online profile than you can from a simple summary, tailored and reduced to a single piece of paper.

For a long time LinkedIn has been the go to site for reviewing professional information about potential candidates. Others like Branch Out are gaining traction and Facebook is even rumored to be getting into the job game. However, there's a new site that launched last week from a Portland Oregon company called Vizify that is sure to be a game changer.

Vizify is a stunningly visual way to view a complete overview of someones career, work history, education and overall social presence. (You can check out my personal Vizify profile here). You can see years of experience, topics they discuss on line, and interesting factoids about them. One of my favorite features is viewing their locations page - a interactive guide to where this person has lived. All of this information is laid out in a beautiful presentation that is easy to navigate and incredibly interesting to look at.

As more and more sites pop up that visually represent individuals in interesting and engaging ways, it's only a matter of time before resumes are no longer even requested. Sites like About.me and Flavors.me also offer visual representations and aggregates social profiles. However, we think Vizify far outpaces these services and it's only in beta.

What's your opinion recruiters? Are you still working off of resumes or are online sites taking over that function for you?

Also, what are some of your favorite sites for gathering professional information on candidates? Share them with us in the comments below.

Top 5 Ways Staffing Agencies Can Help Prepare Employees for Placement Exams

For many staffing agencies, the final hurdle that stands between a new hire and their placement is testing. The need for assessing a caregiver’s ability to provide competent, safe, and effective patient care is not the topic of this article. So, let’s jump over that topic and get right to the 5 easy things you can mention to your caregivers to set them up for a positive competency testing experience.

1) Recommend Reviewing all Provided Materials

Typically there will be prep materials offered prior to starting a competency exam. For some caregivers, it may have been quite some time since their last standardized test. So, the #1 recommendation we have for preparing for a competency test it to study the prep materials provided.

Prophecy’s Clinical Assessments either come accompanied with a study guide (for all education modules) or a content outline (for specialty specific competency tests). The study guides contain all of the information needed to successfully pass the assessments. Content outlines, on the other hand, may contain important formulas, conversions, or abbreviation legends to assist the caregiver in completing the assessments, however they do not provide guidance on actual answers. Since the specialty specific competency tests are evaluating the caregiver’s ability to provide the job knowledge, skills, and abilities required on the first day of the job, no prompting should be needed.

2) Remind Them to Read all Instructions

Time and time again reading instructions would actually help us complete daily tasks more efficiently - assembling new furniture, driving on vacation, cooking a new recipe, etc.

Although the instructions do not give a pass for the assessment as a whole, they will set up the expectations for the caregiver prior to launching the assessment. The instructions should detail if the exam is timed, the format of the testing process, how many questions to expect, a pass/fail score, allowed re-entry attempts, etc. All of this information helps ease the caregiver’s nerves as it answers questions that might lead to extra anxiety adversely impacting their potential success.

3) Create a testing environment

Whenever possible, we suggest clients create a proctored testing environment to minimize distractions for the caregivers. However, we know that this is not feasible for every organization – especially if you are working with travel nurses. The ability to test anywhere with Internet access is a definite bonus in certain instances.

If your caregivers will be testing in the comfort of their own home, remind them that they should minimize distractions and set aside ample time to complete the assessments.

4) Clearly communicate testing standard

Each organization should have established guidelines for testing. Share these standards in
advance!

1. Are caregivers offered the option of retesting?
2. If so, how quickly will they be able to retest?
3. Should a caregiver fail the maximum number of times, how long should they wait to reapply with your organization?

Prophecy’s recommendation on retesting is 48 hours between testing attempts. This gives time for remediation on the information answered incorrectly the first time around. Plus, it allows time for the caregiver to get over the initial shock of failing an assessment – something we have all dreaded since the first grade!

5) Ask for comfort level

Take a moment and ask each caregiver for any outstanding questions they want to run by you before testing. They may be trivial, or they may be doosies! But, at least you will give them the opportunity to be honest and open about their comfort level prior to starting their assessments.

Testing providers may have additional resources you can make available to caregivers wanting extra support. Prophecy offers training videos on the caregiver login screen and makes a step-by-step instructions PDF available for all clients.

Bottom line - you are all on the same team! Although you want to steer clear of the liability exposure of unqualified applicants, in a perfect world you are hoping they all pass their assessments with flying colors. So, take a few extra minutes to mention these 5 tips and you may just see those passing rates on the rise!

About Prophecy Healthcare®
Originally founded in 2004 as NurseTesting.com, Prophecy Healthcare® got its start as the first online Pre-Employment Testing Company exclusive to the Healthcare Industry. Initially focusing solely on clinical assessments measuring clinical competencies, efforts to exceed industry expectations led to isolating critical competencies missed in traditional testing initiatives, such as stress tolerance, critical thinking, and teamwork skills. The Prophecy approach offers the ability to find candidates with the clinical hard skills, personality attributes, and desired soft skills to match each organization.
For more information about Prophecy, visit http://www.prophecyhealth.com or call 336.802.1070.

 

The Healthcare Staffing Report Headline News (07.23.12 - 07.27.12)

 This weeks headline news stories from The Healthcare Staffing Report.

 

Here is a list of this weeks top Headline News:

Monday: Healthcare staffing company in Nebraska sued in Hep C case

Tuesday: Hively Announces Employee Rewards with Kudos!

Wednesday: Hospital Robots Link Doctors and Patients

Thursday: Registered Nurse - Best Job in U.S.  

Friday: Hospitals Ignoring Requirements to Report Errors

 

Please follow The Healthcare Staffing Report on Twitter.   

 

How Staffing Agencies Can Reward Employees For Exceptional Customer Service

Customer service is the key to success for almost every business - especially when it comes to staffing agencies. Your employees spend hours every day talking to your customers and candidates. Their interactions can make a huge difference in your customer satisfaction and ultimately your bottom line. 

Measuring customer happiness for your staffing company is critical. However, motivating your employees to provide great customer service is also something you should should focus on. If you're like a lot of companies though, it can be difficult and time consuming to know where to get started with all of this.

Look no further! Today we are happy to announce the simplest way to instantly motivate and reward your top performing employees for providing exceptional customer service. Introduction Kudos - a new feature in Hively!

What are Kudos?

Kudos are a simple way for employees to give each other feedback or for managers to reward employees. Think of it like a ‘thanks’ or a ‘pat on the back.’ 

Just like with Hively customer feedback, if you receive a Kudo you will be instantly notified and have the Hively Kudos badge prominently displayed on your leaderboard profile for your team to see. You will also receive +1 count for each Kudo you receive. Kudos are separated from customer feedback and don’t effect your customer happiness scores.

But we didn’t stop there!

What’s better than getting a Kudo? Getting a Kudo with a gift card reward! We recently partnered with Tango Card to enable our customers to provide real time rewards to top performing employees. Tango Card provides virtual gift cards that can be redeemed for cash or other gift cards like Amazon, Starbucks, Nike and Zappos. If you’re a Hively team member, simply sign up with Tango Card and you can start adding gift cards to any Kudos you send your team members.

To learn more about the other great features we released in Hively today check out the full announcement here and let your staffing company get started with rewarding your employees! Sign up for Hively. It's free to try!

 

The Healthcare Staffing Report Headline News (07.16.12 - 07.20.12)

 This weeks headline news stories from The Healthcare Staffing Report.

 

Here is a list of this weeks top Headline News:

Monday: Hot Areas for Healthcare Staffing

Tuesday: Index of Staffing Prices Edges Up Over Year

Wednesday: Most Connected Hospitals 2012

Thursday: New Nursing Schools Up All Over the Country

Friday: Hospital Heavy Lift Machines Lighten Load For Nurses

 

Please follow The Healthcare Staffing Report on Twitter.