With the aging baby boomer demographic and a current labor shortage in the United States, every healthcare staffer should be considering the future carefully. It’s important to have several pathways or strategies to maintain adequate staffing ratios, so if you need it the pipeline to acquire staff will already be established.
Luckily, with the combination of stronger technology, staffing agencies, and improving trends in student enrollment, the future of healthcare staffing looks bright. However, it will still take a concerted effort on the part of administrators to make sure that their facilities stay on top of staffing. In this article, we will look at the future of healthcare staffing and how healthcare administrators can ensure that their facilities don’t fall short or fail to achieve the ultimate goal of caring for patients in a way that provides them with the best quality of life possible.
Future Trends in Healthcare Staffing
Using staffing agencies to fill gaps.
One factor that became indispensable for administrators during the Covid pandemic was staffing agencies. Increased workloads, decreased staff, and new guidelines and restrictions meant that healthcare facilities across the country were struggling to find enough workers. In fact, the healthcare field was one of the top four areas out of the entire labor section hit the hardest by the labor shortage.
Since the pandemic, this need hasn’t gone away, and many workplaces still utilize this powerful and convenient resource to find staff when necessary. Only a staffing agency can provide you with the specialized staff you need when you need it, and provide workers that can begin working the day they arrive. Staffing agencies take care of many of the hardest parts of acquiring staff, like hiring, completing paperwork, payroll, and other jobs, making them the most convenient way for you to provide staff in the future.
Using technology to increase procedural efficiency.
Technology can benefit healthcare staffing in many ways in the future, with telemedicine innovations like instant prescriptions online and online medical certificates.. Processes can be automated, and training courses can be completed remotely or online, rather than in-person. Making it easier to get certifications and training allows companies to hire and promote from within, making it easier to fill higher-level spots on the floor.
Healthcare automation tools can be used more and more, which frees up money for facilities to use for recruitment or hiring processes. Using technology to automate and track coverage and employees makes the process of hiring and filling in holes easier, and technology is only forecasted to be used more and more in the healthcare field.
Streamlined onboarding paperwork.
One area that can improve the future of staffing for your facility is looking into how to streamline the paperwork necessary to bring workers on board. Going from stacks of paper to a digital process can save time and money, and make the process more enjoyable for everyone.
During the pandemic, many facilities lowered requirements and obstacles to hiring, due to the desperate need for staff. Some are retaining these new processes because they found them to be an overall better process. Trimming restrictions when possible will help bring more staff to work, improving overall staffing ratios.
Increased student enrollment in healthcare fields.
One promising trend that bodes well for healthcare staffing in the future is a surge in student interest in the field post-pandemic. Some are calling this a “Fauci effect”, after the ubiquitous government doctor we all grew familiar with during the Covid era. Regardless of the cause, the fact is that medical schools and nursing schools alike are seeing a surge of applicants, which will help bolster low employment rates across the country.
Self-serviced staffing agencies.
More and more, healthcare staffing agencies are using technology to streamline their processes, as well. Rather than making potential employees and employers deal with each other through a middleman, they are making it easier for them to reach out to each other directly. This makes it easier to get the staff you need when you need them.
On the worker’s side, they are often making it easier for the applicant to edit and add their own data as well, like what certifications or degrees they have. This makes the whole process more user-friendly and accurate, allowing you to get a clearer picture overall of who is available to work and what type of work they can accomplish.
Like many other industries, the future of healthcare staffing has challenges to overcome. However, by making student enrollment more desirable, offering incentives to potential workers, and using technology to their advantage, leaders in the healthcare field have many means and tools at their disposal to overcome these challenges.
With a renewed focus worldwide on the healthcare field due to the pandemic, now is the perfect time for healthcare leaders to step up and make changes that will have lasting benefits in the future. We all rely on the healthcare system, and together we can make it work for everyone.
