Med Staff On-Call's Innovative Approach to Healthcare Staffing

Company: Med Staff On-Call

CEO: Denise A. Kent PhD(c), RN, APN - CEO

Location: Chicago, Illinois

Positioning is one of the hardest challenges facing healthcare staffing agencies. Comparatively, each agency goes through the same/similar processes for recruiting and placing healthcare professionals at hospitals. This makes it difficult for staffing companies to separate themselves from their competition, typically leaving them with only price or volume as their true differentiators.

Recently, however, I discovered a healthcare staffing agency that has a completely different spin on what it means to be a staffing company. Med Staff On-Call is a fully automated staffing agency that uses technology to change the way their business is run. From recruiting, to hiring, to receiving and filling job orders, Med Staff On-Call has found a way to stand out from the pack. The efficiencies created in their innovative model allow them to contain costs, present competitive rates to their clients and provide an overall better work experience for the healthcare professionals they employ.

Med Staff On-Call has three key aspects of their company that make them unique:

Quality - The Intellimatch™ technology process they’ve created drives the quality of the staff they provide by ensuring that the medical professionals they place are the most qualified for every position. This automated matching process improves satisfaction for their employees by factoring in availability, shift and facility preferences, and credentials when notifying staff of available shifts.

Efficiency – Med Staff On-Call’s web-based staffing solution is much more efficient than a traditional staffing agency. The process is completely automated eliminating phone calls, faxes and other manual tasks associated with a traditional staffing process. Instead, staff post their availability on Med Staff On-Call’s secure website and receive notifications of qualifying positions via text message or e-mail. Healthcare organizations are notified instantly of filled positions. In addition, Med Staff On-Call has interfaced their system with leading healthcare vendor management companies so that job orders are made instantly available in their system.

 

Competitive Rates – Med Staff On-Call is 100% driven by innovation, leveraging technology to streamline the staffing process for their hospitals and medical staff. Their technology allows them to lower their internal costs and pass that savings on to their hospital partners. Efficiencies derived from their technology platform allow them to focus on recruiting and retaining quality medical professionals.

Q&A with Med Staff On-Call’s CEO - Denise A. Kent PhD(c), RN, APN

How do healthcare professionals sign up for your service?

“Healthcare professionals sign up for our service on-line. They complete all of the necessary pre-employment requirements and submit their credentials electronically. We then have their credentials verified by a third party. Once the information for the healthcare professional is validated and approved they can access our job orders, add their availability and sign up for specific job alerts.”

How are candidates submitted for jobs?

“Most of our job requisitions come in through on-line portals such as healthcare vendor management systems. These jobs are sent directly to our software application through the interfaces we have built to these VMS systems. If a job matches the preferences and credential qualifications of a healthcare professional they are alerted via text message or email and can respond through the same mediums for the jobs they want. The confirmations are then sent directly to the hospital.”

Why did you decide to run your business this way?

“We never had any intention of being a traditional staffing agency that’s old school. We knew we could create a competitive advantage by delivering higher quality staff, faster and at a lower cost by leveraging technology. Additionally, we wanted to provide healthcare professionals with a better work experience by giving them direct access and more control over their schedules and job preferences. Technology was the logical direction to go in.”

Do you feel that vendor management companies help or hurt your business?

“They definitely help our business. The vendor neutral vendor management companies completely handle the burden of credentialing, billing and job acquisition with our clients. Their systems improve quality by requiring proper documentation and including features like on-line performance evaluations. Overall the efficiency is completely complementary to our model.”

Do hospitals ever have an issue with your model being 100% driven by technology?

“Our clients love how quickly we can meet their staffing requests. We also have a very thorough screening process for our staff. All of their credentials are verified by a third party and all this information is accessible via our system.”

Do you work with other modalities outside of nursing?

“Currently, our primary focus is staffing nurses and nursing assistants. However, we have begun placing allied staff including pharmacy, PT and OT professionals.”

Do you feel your model has helped you in this economy?

“No question it has helped us. Because of our technology we are able to keep our costs low and offer staff at a very competitive rate to our clients. This has made us the number one provider to some of the largest health systems in the country.”

Conclusion: Med Staff On-Call is offering some of the most innovative solutions in the market to both their hospital clients and the heatlhcare professionals they employ. Such innovations will continue to have a positive impact in changing the way business is done in the healthcare staffing industry.