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The Healthcare Staffing Report

Today I'm launching The Healthcare Staffing Report. The Healthcare Staffing Report is a site of aggregated news links, curated from hundreds of industry sources. From my perspective, finding relevant news for the healthcare staffing industry is difficult because the sources are fragmented and in most cases delivered through outdated, subscription models.

The purpose of this site is to deliver useful news content to participants in the healthcare staffing industry – free of charge. If you’re a staffing agency, hospital, healthcare professional, industry association, or a technology/service provider within the healthcare staffing industry, you now have a single source of relevant news links that will benefit you in your career.

The best part? The links on this site aren’t just static feeds from around the web. These links are curated top stories from hundreds of sources such as blogs, associations, news outlets, etc.

Currently, the news links on the site are updated daily and fall into the categories of:

• Today's Headline
• Top Industry News
• Staffing Agencies
• Hospitals & Health Systems
• Healthcare Professionals
• Government & Economy
• Sales & Marketing
• Social Media
• Vendor Management
• Technology
• Healthcare IT
• Just for Fun

The Healthcare Staffing Report also provides several opportunities for you to promote your company in the form of ads and sponsored links that are ‘followed’ to increase your SEO. (The news story links are not followed.)

The sites promotion opportunities include:

• Top Page Leaderboard Ads
• Mid-Page Square Ads
• Sponsored Links to promote your website, press release or other relevant news
• Upcoming Events to promote your webinar, trade show, user group, etc.

If you have questions or an industry relevant link, story or news source you would like to see on this site you can contact me and submit the information to the Healthcare Staffing Report directly.

Click here to learn more about or purchase ads on The Healthcare Staffing Report.

Hospital Social Media Adoption Data Via Ed Bennett

Ed Bennett has updated his hospital social media data on his blog Found in Cache. This time he has dug a bit deeper into the data and produced some interesting findings. He also very kindly provides access to the raw data of US hospital social media use(excel file) to perform your own analysis.

After qualifying the number of hospitals to those over 100 beds and that have open access to social media platforms, Ed suggests that there is now a 53% adoption rate of social media for US hospitals. Without the qualifiers, however, this number is closer to 14% of all hospitals in the US.

Personally, in regard to hospitals embracing social media as a valuable method of promoting and monitoring their brand, we still have a long way to go. If it's true, as Ed suggests, that about 50% of the hospitals in the US are still blocking access to social media there are still some major roadblocks for mass adoption.

Ed also gives some great reasons as to why he believes the adoption rates are higher for larger hospitals.

The disparity should not be a surprise. Smaller hospitals, like those with less than 100 beds, have less resources to invest in most outward facing services. There’s usually only one person responsible for everything – marketing, public affairs, media relations, web development, philanthropy, etc. No wonder social media isn’t a priority.  In fact only 14% (65) of the hospitals on my list have less than 100 beds, and 86% (395) have more than 100.

Top Healthcare Staffing Stories of 2009 and Predictions for 2010

Over the next few weeks both of my sons have birthdays and I plan on spending some down time with my family for the holidays. Therefore, this will be my last post until the new year.

I thought I'd use this post to highlight some of the big events that affected the healthcare staffing industry in 2009 as well as make a few predictions about the industry for 2010. (is it 'twenty-ten' or 'two thousand ten'?)

What the healthcare staffing industry looked like in 2009:

Major downturn in spending on healthcare temporary staff.

The biggest news in 2009 for the healthcare staffing industry was undoubtedly about the downturn in the economy. My second blog post ever was on the reasons hospitals were spending less on healthcare agency staff. The down turn in the economy even made people start asking the question: "is there still a nursing shortage?" From there, leading economists confirmed that not only was the economy bad but that it will take awhile for it to improve and return the healthcare staffing industry to pre-2009 levels. And finally, the Staffing Industry Analysts informed us that the nurse travel industry decreased by 44% this year and we saw this downturn reflected in the revenue loss reported by major public healthcare staffing companies.

Widespread adoption of healthcare vendor management.

In 2009 hospitals gave a big vote of confidence to vendor management as the preferred model for agency management. VMS has matured in the industry and delivered on its promise of saving hospitals both time and money on their staffing costs.

How healthcare reform will affect healthcare staffing.

The topic of how healthcare reform will affect healthcare staffing couldn't be avoided. Many debates about the pros and cons of healthcare reform occurred on my blog and many of us had the privilege of hearing former Senator Tom Daschle's view on healthcare reform at the healthcare staffing industry conference. AMN even produced results from a poll suggesting that hospital CEO's feel healthcare reform will benefit the healthcare staffing industry.

Technology VMS companies struggle.

Even though some healthcare vendor management technology companies thrived in 2009 as hospitals increased their adoption of VMS, many companies did not fair so well. A few healthcare VMS technology companies had to close their doors this year while some VMS companies struggled to pay their staffing agency partners. Additionally, some VMS companies found acquisition to be the best way to survive the turbulent year.

Increased use of social media.

2009 was the year that many hospitals and staffing agencies began to use social media. Many hospitals, such as Providence St. Vincents in Portland Oregon who found success with their 'pink glove dance video' that went viral, took full advantage of these tools. Some hospitals are still behind when it comes to social media while several hospitals are finding success with tools such as Twitter. Both healthcare staffing agencies and hospitals are now promoting and monitoring their brands online, as the online tools for brand promotion and management are starting to become more prevalent. I've even created some helpful tools for people to search for healthcare staffing industry information and follow companies in the healthcare staffing industry on Twitter.

As you can see, 2009 was a very eventful year for the healthcare staffing industry. So what will the next year bring?

My predictions for healthcare staffing in 2010:

More consolidation of staffing agencies and VMS companies.

After struggling through the economic downturn of the last 1.5 years many companies are now really feeling the effects. I see several staffing agencies closing their doors and many more acquisitions in 2010. I wouldn't be surprised if we even see some consolidation with some of the major players. In addition, I expect we'll see some more acquisitions of healthcare VMS companies.

Continued adoption of vendor management.

Hospitals will continue to choose vendor management for their agency management solution. As the rate of adoption continues to increase, I expect we'll see hospitals still choose vendor neutral healthcare vendor management companies over agency run managed service providers.

New technology players.

The industry has gotten a bit stale in terms of innovation and new technology options. In addition, we've seen a decent amount of consolidation of industry technology companies. Both of these facts suggest to me that new players will enter the market and hopefully they will bring with them some exciting and innovate technologies. As these players enter the healthcare staffing industry I expect we'll see more and more hospitals and healthcare staffing companies embracing technology to improve their staffing process. Stay tuned!

New marketing methods and opportunities.

As budgets tighten many hospitals and staffing agencies will look for more inexpensive and effective methods for marketing their services. Many more healthcare staffing organizations will turn to SEO/SEM and social media for company/brand promotion. 

The market will come back slowly. Kind of.

Even though there are some positive signs for the economy overall and there has been some slight improvements in the healthcare staffing industry I don't see anything that suggests we should get too excited. Earlier this week the Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA) hosted a webinar about the economic outlook for 2010. Their predictions suggested that every industry will improve in 2010 - except healthcare staffing. In fact, they are predicting an overall decline of -1%. Therefore, unfortunately, I believe 2010 will still be a year of struggle. There will be some positive bumps here and there but we won't start fully pulling out of this down turn until early/mid 2011.

What are your predictions for healthcare staffing in 2010? Please share them here if you have any.

I wish you all well - happy holidays - happy new year. See you in 2010!

Healthcare Reform & Healthcare Staffing: The Debate Continues

When I started my blog I promised myself I wouldn't talk about politics. However, since then, the heatlhcare debate went into full swing. This is an incredibly important issue to me and therefore, hard to ignore. I've blasted out several tweets and written some previous posts on why I think we need reform and what changes healthcare reform will bring to medical staffing. This has put me in the middle of a few debates with some people. 

This week I spent some time in Canada and wrote a post about how healthcare staffing works with our northern neighbors based on the conversations I had with some people on my trip. Gregg Dourgarian of TempWorks and the staffing blog - Staffing Talk wrote a rebuttal to this post. I was going to comment back on his blog but my response grew past an appropriate length for a comment. Therefore, below is my response to Gregg's post.

Of course it's easy to find examples of inefficiently run government healthcare systems as Gregg's post talks about. And yes, there are several stories of unsatisfied Canadian’s coming to the states for care, just as there are several stories of unsatisfied American’s who turn to Canada for care and cheaper medications. But lets be honest, you can also find the same inefficiencies in the private sector. It’s fair to say that both solutions are imperfect. However, according to the stats, the vast majority of Canadian's are satisfied with their system of care.

What about the current government run healthcare programs in this country such as Medicare, Medicaid and the V.A.? If you asked people receiving healthcare from one of these sources if they want their “government healthcare” taken away to be given private insurance instead I'd be surprised if you found any takers. When I left the military I received care from the V.A. for several years. It was some of the best, most efficient, cost effective care I’ve received to date. Everything I’ve done since with my private insurance has been a costly hassle.

In regard to my comment on "unnecessary for-profit medical centers." Often times, private hospitals, clinics and imaging centers will establish their entities next to competing medical centers creating a shortage of staff and a glut of beds or imaging equipment such as MRI’s. This equipment and these facilities are expensive. Their cost, as well as the increased demand now created for staff increases our country's overall healthcare costs. In addition, many of these private facilities get money from the government to start their new operations which comes from tax dollars.

These facilities are unnecessary in terms of needing more beds or care options in a particular area that already had a lack of demand. This situation has happened several times here in the Portland market causing situations of vacancy in the newly established medical center, as well as exacerbating those in the centers with which they’re competing. These new centers exist for one reason - to create profits for the individuals that establish them. While often times the newly established medical center offers lower prices and different medical options in order to compete, (thereby providing “the consumer with choice” as it was put in the Staffing Talk post), the greater cost of healthcare to society as a whole increases from these situations. You may personally save a $1 today but you’ll pay $5 tomorrow.

There's no question that having a privately run healthcare system in the U.S. has led to major advancements in healthcare and medicine for the world as a whole. However, what good are these innovations if the vast majority of Americans (or people in the world) can’t afford them and therefore, are denied access to them? I am a big believer in keeping things private and also believe that government creates bureaucracies and inefficiencies in most things it touches. However, the private sector has been running things for years and that is why we are now in this mess. If the private sector could deliver on its promise in healthcare we wouldn’t even be having a debate.

The costs of healthcare are simply too high, the system is broken and we need a new solution. Here's what private companies and a private healthcare system have produced for us over the last 8 years:

• Average family incomes are lower now than they were 8 years ago.
• What employers paid for workers increased by 25%, all due to healthcare costs. These costs are expected to rise by another 10% in the next year alone.
• The average cost of a health insurance policy for family of 4 from 2000 – 2007 more than doubled – from $6,000 to $13,000.
• 62% of all bankruptcies in the U.S. are caused by healthcare costs.
• We spend 50% more on healthcare than any other country and yet:
• • The U.S. is 45th in the world when it comes to infant mortality – behind Cuba.
  • When it comes to life expectancy the U.S. is 50th – behind Bosnia and South Korea. 
  • The U.S. is the only industrialized country without healthcare for its citizens.
  • 47 million Americans are without health insurance, 8.7 million are children.

I appreciate the debate Gregg. And, while although I agree that most things in this country should be run by private enterprise, healthcare is not one of them.

Related Posts:

How Healthcare Reform Will Affect the Healthcare Staffing Industry