Symbio Solutions Files for Bankruptcy

Late last year I blogged about the struggle of several healthcare VMS companies in the industry. Symbio Solutions was no exception. As they began having trouble paying their staffing agencies, organizations such as the National Association of Travel Healthcare Organizations (NATHO) started calling them out.

It looks as though the situation has not improved for them and this week, Symbio Solutions filed bankruptcy. Symbio Solutions was started in 2003 and was a viable competitor, selling workforce management solutions, in the healthcare staffing industry for several years.

And then there was 1...

I do my best to remain objective and not overly promote ShiftWise on this blog but I think it's relevant and fair to point out that, in terms of vendor neutral healthcare VMS systems, ShiftWise appears to be the only company left in the industry. It will be an interesting year.

Comments

[Mike Wheeden]

Hey Jason:

Hope you are well....saw the article on Symbio. They certainly had some false starts around the DC Metro area.

Don't forget about your friends at B4Health as an end to end workforce scheduling/staffing automation tool and VMS...still going strong!

Cheers

Mike Wheeden
301-652-0444

[Jason Lander]

Hi Mike,

I always saw you guys as more of an internal staff scheduling system. If this is incorrect and in fact you also provide VMS to hospitals please let me know so I can be sure to be more accurate in the future.

[Candace Berk]

Jason
Late to respond and relatively new joiner of your blog..

.. But I have to throw in another significant player in the vendor neutral space, my company, COMFORCE.

Comforce has over $2Billion in spend and almost 20 years in VMS - pioneers. Yes, much of the $2 Billion is commercial but our Healthcare VMS solution has been around 8+ years and has a significant list of clients and growing alliances.

With that said, I respect all the significant VMS players. In the end, it comes down to the clients desire for neutrality, full service options, technology, and the relationship.

Keep blogging, this site is great.

Candace

[Jason Lander]

Hey Candace!

Thanks for the comment. Comforce is a big player in this space. However, I don't list them as being vendor neutral because they aren't. Many staffing agencies promote a 'vendor neutral' offering. However, it's just marketing.

If a company is owned by a staffing agency or advocates for a staffing agency over other agencies it is not vendor neutral. Even if the company is truly allowing the orders to be distributed equally they simply cannot be counted as vendor neutral because 1) they still supply staff and make a significant portion of their revenue from doing so 2) They have access to the data of their competitors and own that data since it's flowing through their system.

Companies such as Comforce (and other agencies) started spinning themselves as being vendor neutral when the term and acceptance of the vendor neutral model started gaining traction. I think it was unnecessary, as it didn't help them differentiate their model and better promote their benefits. Now that vendor neutrality doesn't seem to matter so much, it would be nice to see them simply promoting the benefits of their model, as opposed to trying to jump on to the popularity of another.