Staffing Robot - Healthcare Staffing, Marketing and Technology Blog

Revenue Continues to Drop for Major Healthcare Staffing Firms

The top two staffing agencies in the industry continue to see their revenue decline.

Yesterday, Cross Country Healthcare Inc. reported a fourth-quarter revenue decline of 39.7% to $124.1 million from fourth quarter 2008 revenue of $205.9 million. In addition, Cross Country's nurse and allied staffing revenue fell 47.1% on a year-over-year basis to $65.4 million. However, on a slightly positive note, their revenue in this area rose 2.1% sequentially from the third quarter. They also reported fourth-quarter net income of $398,000 compared with a net loss of $161.3 million in the same period in the previous year.

Today, AMN Healthcare announced similar numbers. AMN reported fourth-quarter revenue fell 51.1% on a year-over-year basis to $144.7 million. However, their relative good news was that their gross margins improved, reporting improvements from 25.7% to 28.4% from the previous years quarter. AMN's fourth-quarter nurse and allied healthcare staffing revenue also fell 64.3% to $74.0 million from $207.3 million in the year-ago quarter. Unlike Cross Country, revenue in the segment fell 9.9% sequentially from the third quarter.

"I'm certain most would agree that 2009 represented the most challenging year in the history of the healthcare staffing industry," President and CEO Susan Nowakowski said. "The unprecedented rise in unemployment and severe economic contraction wreaked havoc and resulted in precipitous drops in demand volumes unlike any other time."

Sadly, signs of economic recovery for the healthcare staffing industry still seem distant.

Broadlane Acquires Symbio Solutions

Symbio Solutions, a leading provider of healthcare Vendor Management Services was acquired by Broadlane this week. There were several bidders during the process but Broadlane was the highest bidder.

Symbio filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January of this year after running into financial trouble and failing to pay their staffing agencies in 2009. 

In addition to gaining the Symbio VMS and core staff scheduling technologies, Broadlane secured agreements with Kaleida health, Baptist Health System of San Antonio, Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital and The Cooper Health System through the transaction. It's unclear if the creditors owed the millions of dollars will get any of their money back or if Broadlane now owns the debt to the staffing agencies.

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.

Concerro, Inc. Acquires RES-Q Healthcare Systems

Yesterday, Concerro, Inc., announced their acquisition of RES-Q Healthcare Systems. Concerro, formerly BidShift, has come along way since their inception in 1999. Offering more now than just shift bidding technology, through acquisitions and proprietary software development they also offer incident response and management systems as well as a core scheduling and staffing application for hospitals.

RES-Q Healthcare Systems is one of the largest providers of hospital core staff scheduling systems. They were recently recognized as the 2009 Best in KLAS software market segment leader for Staff and Nurse Scheduling.

The acquisition is a good strategic move for Concerro and will better position them in the market through this rapid expansion of their customer base.

RES-Q’s award winning labor management and scheduling applications are the only solutions that align completely with Concerro’s strategy to help healthcare organizations control labor costs through optimization rather than reduction,” said Graham Barnes, CEO of Concerro.

via www.businesswire.com

What is the Hospital Job Growth Outlook for 2010?

This article in Healthleaders Media talks about some encouraging signs that could point to increased job growth at hospitals in 2010. Interestingly, it also illustrates how dismal of a year 2009 was.

Bureau of Labor Statistics preliminary data show the healthcare sector created 267,000 new jobs in 2009. This is a significant drop from 2008 when healthcare created 363,600 new jobs.

One thing we've learned is that healthcare was not completely recession-proof over the last year and a half as we've seen a number of large-scale layoffs across the board," says David Cherner, managing partner of Health Workforce Solutions, LLC, a San Francisco-based research firm. But, certainly, it is much stronger than any other segment of the economy.

Here's to hoping the healthcare segment stays strong and proves to be a good year for jobs.

Never A Dull Moment: Clearview Staffing Software Acquired by API Healthcare

Before I left for vacation a few weeks ago I ended the year with a post summarizing some of the more important trends in the healthcare staffing industry for 2009, as well as some of my predictions for 2010. However, proving the industry to be full of surprises, a major event occurred during the last weeks of December that certainly would have made it in to my previous post.

Clearview Staffing Software, the leading provider of web-based staffing applications to healthcare staffing agencies was acquired by API Healthcare, one of the largest providers of web-based staffing applications to hospitals in the nation. This new alliance will certainly prove to be a formidable competitor as they present their comprehensive set of offerings to the industry.

With hospital budgets being minimal and their IT focus on electronic medical records, I imagine that API has had a difficult time selling their applications to hospitals over the last year. So, it's interesting to ponder API's strategy here. Was the acquisition to provide more products to hospitals - those that are fully web-based and present a different pricing model? Was it to enter the staffing agency market? Or is their goal to provide an end-to-end solution to the industry?

Watching what they sell, to whom and under what pricing conditions will be very telling. API will definitely be a company to watch in 2010.

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!

Unanimous Vote Creates Largest RN Union in U.S. History

This week saw the formation of the largest nursing union in the history of the U.S. The National Nurses United organizes over 150,000 nurses by uniting the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee with the Massachusetts Nursing Association and some members of the United American Nurses. The goal of the new union is to influence healthcare reform and improve the quality of care through efforts such as extending California’s patient ratio law to other states.

Dec. 7, 2009 - To standing cheers, delegates to the founding convention of the National Nurses United (NNU) today unanimously endorsed the creation of the largest union and professional organization of registered nurses in U.S. history - and projected a major escalation in campaigns to expand union representation of nurses and an expanded voice in healthcare reform.

via www.nursezone.com

Leapfrog Names 45 Best Hospitals in U.S. for 2009

Last week, the hospital watchdog group Leapfrog, whose mission is "to trigger giant leaps forward in the safety, quality and affordability of health care" released their list of the 45 best hospitals in the country.

According to Leapfrog, as well as adding new efficiency standards to its quality criteria, Information Technology use was a key component in the decision making process for determining these hospitals.  

"This year's class of top hospitals not only hits the mark in areas such as medication error prevention and preventing ICU deaths, but they also use their resources wisely, providing excellent and efficient outcomes for patients," said Leah Binder, CEO of The Leapfrog Group. "Regardless of what happens to healthcare reform, these hospitals are the future."

via Healthcare IT News.

Good Sign for the Economy: Demand for Temporary Staff Increasing

Some potentially good news in regard to the economy and staffing: Demand for temporary workers is rising according to the American Staffing Association.

The staffing index of the American Staffing Association has risen in recent weeks. The index stood at 83 starting in mid October and jumped to 85 by mid November.

The 85 reading is still about 10% below year-ago numbers indicating that the job market remains weak. However, demand for workers has picked up 21% since July according to the American Staffing Association.

The staffing industry is considered a leading indicator for the overall performance of the general job market. Typically, a rise in temporary hiring usually precedes an increase in general hiring. With a current U.S. unemployment rate at the highest it's been in 26 years (10.2 %) this is welcome news indeed.