Staffing Robot - Healthcare Staffing, Marketing and Technology Blog

My Interview on Staffing Talk

Last Friday, Gregg Dourgarian of Tempworks Staffing Software and the blog Staffing Talk had me on his call in show. We discussed several topics such as ShiftWise Healthcare Vendor Management, the current economic state of the healthcare staffing industry, the social media application foursquare, Social Media Marketing (SMM) and staffing agencies and my blog Staffing Robot.

Gregg is an active blogger and continues to try new things. He is definitely helping to further advance the use technology and social media in the staffing industry. Thanks for having me on your show Gregg.

You can watch the show here.

Google Search Getting More "Social"

Seems the rage these days is aggregating content and data from social networking sites. As the web becomes more segmented through various platforms from search to social media, having a single source to search, deliver and index data is becoming increasingly important. Especially when it comes to monitoring and promoting your brand online. Google Social Search is making this easier.

After creating a Google profile and linking your social, blog and other similar sites, you can begin searching your content as well as the content of people to whom you are connected on these sites.

Here's a video that describes this in more detail:

My favorite feature of this new service is seeing the connections and content behind the search result sources. Google lets you drill down into your search contacts and see the various methods by which you are connected to each of them.

Google Social Search will certainly have a further effect on your SEO | SEM campaigns as it puts more emphasis and personalized, social search. More and more, Google is enabling ways for people to search based on their preferences, location and connections as opposed to content in aggregate across the Web.

Google is definitely keeping it interesting.

Largest Healthcare Staffing Firm in the Nation Rebrands - AMN Healthcare

AMN, the largest healthcare staffing company in the nation launched a major rebranding campaign yesterday. According to AMN the effort was put forth to more accurately reflect their interconnected service offerings. The branding campaign has created a new visual identity across all of their divisions including a new logo and design on all AMN Web sites and materials.

"The AMN Healthcare of today has evolved significantly since our inception 25 years ago. During 2009, in particular, we made significant enhancements to our client-focused processes and re-aligned our brands and service offerings to ensure we are focused on what our clients need and value most from us," said Susan Nowakowski, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of AMN.

Right now is perhaps the best time to focus your company efforts or your brand. The heatlhcare staffing industry has seen several changes in the last year so coming out with an improved identity, renewed focus and new service offerings can go along way toward getting clients to notice you.

It's always a risky move to go through a rebranding effort, especially when you have such an established and well known brand as AMN. Further, there's more to a brand than a new logo and website. However, from the looks of it, AMN has done it right and will continue to improve upon their well respected brand.

What's Your Email Address Saying About Your Company?

I have a confession. Yes, I secretly judge people and companies based on their email address. It's true. Granted, I judge personal emails differently than business email - but I still judge.

I won't go into all the thoughts that run through my mind when I see someone with an email address ending in @aol.com. However, I must chime in on business emails.

It's simple, if you have a business you have to have a website. If you have a website you have to have a domain. Purchasing this domain entitles you to an email address of the same name. Use it. If you have not set this up you aren't in business yet. Be patient.

On average I have seen contacts from 5-10 staffing agencies every week for the last several years. This has led to an extensive list of healthcare staffing agencies I've worked with. Of all of these contacts I still see at least 2-3 agencies per month with an email such as 'istaffnursesallday@aol.com' or simply, 'sally@comcast.net'. (These are fictional examples)

Whenever I see an email address like this I automatically think - how can I take you seriously if you don't realize you need a website with a domain and a proper email before you start making business contacts? What else are you overlooking? Further, how is it I can seriously help represent you as a business partner?

The worst is when these same companies actually send information requests. I personally won't send any business information electronically unless it's to a corporate email address. How am I to trust that you're not a competitor? You may not be but your email certainly isn't helping me to know that.

The summary - as a business owner, one of the first things you should do is register a domain and get your email account set up. You can even do this before you have your actual website built. There's no reason to wait. 

Please, use a corporate email address. It's the least you can do.

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!

How Will Google's Recent Announcements Affect Your SEO/SEM Campaigns?

Recently, Google announced two big changes that will have an affect on your SEO/SEM efforts. These changes include:

1. Page load speed
2. Personalized search

Page Load Speed:

Google recently announced that page speed will be a factor in page rank. To assist you with measuring this, Goolge has added a new feature in the site performance report under the “Labs” section of the tool. This report shows you how fast your site loads compared to other sites, as well as your sites performance over time, and provides you with tips on how to improve pages. Google also released a Firefox Add On called Page Speed that works with Firebug.

It may seem strange that Google is making page speed a criteria for page rank. However, page load times significantly contribute to user satisfaction. If a site is difficult to navigate or takes too long to retrieve information from it, the user experience is lessened and contributes to things such as increased bounce rates.

Additionally, Google is releasing a public DNS resolver. WTH is that right? It's basically a system that enables computers to read the name of your website URL. This process can contribute to some latency when loading pages so Google has created a system that will perform this process faster and increase your page load speed. They provide step by step instructions on how to switch your site to Google DNS servers if you're interested.

Personalized Search:

Google has always given its users the ability to record and save their search results and web traffic history. However, this is something you basically had to sign up for. Now, Google will personalize the search results of all users, regardless of whether you've signed up to use their previously existing personalization feature. Don't be too alarmed, you can opt-out completely of the feature if you choose.

It's interesting to think how this will affect SEO/SEM. Google will now change the page rank of content based on the end users preference. For example, if you search for 'books' online and consistently choose Powell's bookstore in Portland over Amazon, Google will learn this behavior and present Powell's to you ahead of Amazon in the returned search results. Even though Google claims that they will not change the page rank of all sites based on user preference, they won't fully disclose how much of a change they will make. So, in this example, even though Amazon's SEO/SEM tactics worked well in the past, they could start to lose their page rank on a user by user basis

What does this mean for your hospital's or healthcare staffing agency's marketing efforts?

First, if you haven't improved your website in at least the last 3 years - it's over due. Many web coding standards have changed in this time and not keeping up can put your website at risk for quickly becoming invisible to Google, having poor page speed performance and ultimately, decrease your page rank. Additionally, if your site is over bloated with images, text, Flash or design in general it might be a good idea to consider how to simplify things.

Second, I'm really curious to see how SEO/SEM professionals will respond to Google's personalized search changes. At some level I would assume that some new tactics will have to be employed. Personally, I would monitor my PPC campaigns a bit more closely over the next several months and see if anything is changing as well as consider doing some new keyword research in this same time frame. However, I wouldn't worry too much because I would also expect that certain things will stay the same. Most likely, effective PPC campaigns will remain effective and, most importantly, I'd always keep in mind that good amounts of quality content will produce positive results every time.

I welcome any thoughts, insight or experience anyone has on this topic.

Many Hospitals Are Still Behind When It Comes To Social Media

Over the past two years I've attended several hospital, human resource/recruiter trade shows and conferences where social media was a hot topic. Unfortunately, each session on the topic has been a disappointment. In some cases it was because the presenter was not up to speed on their information in this space. I've listened to speakers who were giving out very inaccurate information and admitted they didn't use social media themselves. However, the biggest disappointment typically comes from the questions and responses of the crowd participants as a whole.

 

Many hospital employees present at each of the shows admitted that their organization had no social media presence and typically gave the same reasons why – either their hospital had a policy prohibiting employees from using social media or the hospital was absent a policy permitting such usage.

 

Hospitals are fairly traditional institutions when it comes to marketing, technology and communication. Add to it the brave new world of social media and the issue becomes even more complicated. Here are some of the standard objections I hear as to why hospitals tend to avoid social media:

 

What if someone talks about our organization in a way we can’t control? Guess what – they are talking about your organization and you can’t control it. However, you can monitor it, be aware of it and participate in the conversation in an effort to help guide and keep it positive. If you do have an employee that says something negative or that violates one of your policies you can of course address this just as you would in any venue outside of social media. But first you have to know how to actively monitor your hospital's brand online and get your employees to promote this brand in a positive manner. The same rules for your employees apply to the web as they do within your own hospital walls. Establishing and fostering a positive means of communication is the way to go. Attempting to prohibit them from talking about your organization online or fully controlling the situation is a game you won’t win.

There is too much liability with social media. Every industry has the potential for lawsuits. Healthcare is not unique in this way. Imagine if every industry were similarly afraid of such liability that it led to the same avoidance and  inaction – we’d be getting no where. Your legal department needs to be educated on the realities of social media just like all of your departments. Your hospital legal department will gladly write you books on all the potential issues and liabilities that exist for you on the web. They’re lawyers and that’s what they do. I’m certainly not trying to dismiss their advice (or provide my own – I’m not a lawyer). However, the incredible adoption of social media as a means of communication and networking mean that ignoring it or prohibiting its use won’t make it go away. The risks and potential threats need to be discussed, recognized and thought through.

 

What about ads from competition? This is a question that bothered a lot of people at one conference. Many social networking sites contain ads. These hospital HR managers were concerned that if their employees went to their organization's social media pages they would be lured away by the ads from their competitors. The fact is that your employees are seeing these ads all over the place already and if an ad is going to make them jump you're at risk for losing them anyway. But being absent from the web is only going to ensure they see the ads of your competition and not any of your organizations promotions.

Our IT Department has firewalls permitting us from accessing social media sites. Being in healthcare your hospitals are held to incredibly strict standards in order to protect health information. Of course it’s necessary that IT has these firewalls in place. However, just like your other departments, IT too needs to be prepared and brought into the loop regarding your organization’s social media plan. If the bigger concern here is employee productivity (or loss of, due to usage of these sites) you can address this in your policies just like anything else, or simply allow access only to select individuals within your walls.

 

We don’t have a policy allowing us to use social media. I’ll be honest, hospitals are the only institutions I’ve interacted with where both the presence of a ‘No’ and the absence of a ‘Yes’ mean the same thing. This can create an environment of inaction. If you don’t have a policy I certainly don’t want to suggest you put yourself in a situation where you will get in trouble or fired, but I will suggest you start pushing for getting a policy in place STAT! If you don’t know where to start, there are many examples of social media policies out there to draw from.

 

Conclusion:

Promoting and marketing your brand using social media is not a fad and it’s not going away. In fact, if you are not already doing it you’re late for the party. Hospitals and health systems have a tremendous opportunity to get their departments and employees motivated and engaged with tools that help promote their organizations in many new, exciting and effective ways. Social media can help people learn about your hospital culture, help you communicate more effectively with patients and staff and even afford you new recruitment opportunities for healthcare professionals and staff.

Everyone you come into contact with is using social media – your staff, your patients, and yes, even your competition. If they use these tools more effectively than you, you will soon be losing patients, business and employees (if you're not already). Join the conversation and help direct it positively. If there are any negative issues, address them, resolve them and move on.

 

Kudos to those hospitals already engaged with social media. To the rest of you – it’s time to embrace these new platforms for what they are – the most effective communication and networking mediums that exist today.   

 

 

 

Follow the U.S. Hospital Twitter List Created by Ed Bennett

Ed Bennett keeps a great list of hospitals using social media. He recently created a Twitter List for all the hospitals on Twitter in the U.S. Following this list will let you see all the tweets from these hospitals. He has a page on his site that organizes all of these hospitals by state and also lists the childrens hospitals separately.

Don't forget to also follow the Twitter List I created a few weeks ago of healthcare staffing agencies on Twitter.

St. Vincents Medical Center Gets It Right With Their Video That's Going Viral

The video below is an exceptional example of a hospital using a catchy, fun video to promote their hospital. The video features the entire staff of St Vincent’s Medical Center in Portland, Oregon dancing in pink gloves for breast cancer awareness. I've personally known several women from family members, to friends, to co-workers that have all survived breast cancer so I found this video inspiring.

From a marketing perspective this video is perfect. This is exactly the kind of marketing that can go viral and really promote your hospital or healthcare staffing company. Interestingly, nothing is being sold here. There is no pitch, no "contact us today."

So what makes it great?

Basically, this video sends the message that the staff at St. Vincent's Medical Center in Portland are approachable, real people. From the healthcare professionals, to the lab techs, to the service employees, this video makes you feel that these people are fun, thoughtful and caring. It leaves the viewer with the impression that both the employees and the environment at the hospital are upbeat and inspiring. They make their sale without overtly selling anything.

If you're considering making a video to promote your company do yourself a favor and take some notes here. Kudos to the St. Vincent's Medical Center.

Social Media Revolution

I found this video fascinating. It asks if you think social media is a fad. It then goes on to show you several statistics (in a very interesting way) to suggest it is anything but.

What's your social media strategy?

via www.youtube.com