Choosing the Right Healthcare Workforce Management System

Rich Miller, chief innovation officer of QGenda, emphasizes strategic decision-making when investing in a workforce management system. The aim is to tailor it to healthcare’s unique needs and boost operational efficiency, staff productivity, compliance, and patient outcomes.

Selecting the right workforce management system for your healthcare organization can be a daunting and overwhelming undertaking. In today’s fast-paced healthcare environment, efficient workforce management is critical to providing high-quality patient care and preventing clinician burnout. 

With so much at stake, how can you be confident that you’ll make the right investment for your organization? The following recommendations will help guide you through the process of assessing your needs and evaluating solutions, vendors, and implementation approaches so you can select the most appropriate solution for your organization’s requirements.

Start by Assessing  the Needs of Your Organization 

Understanding the unique requirements of your organization — and your workforce — is the first step toward selecting the right workforce management system. This can be achieved by evaluating your current staffing issues, labor spend, compliance needs, process inefficiencies, and requirements for integrating with enterprise systems such as EHR or HRIS.

 It is important to define clear objectives for your new healthcare workforce management platform, such as boosting staff productivity, ensuring regulatory compliance, and improving patient care. These objectives steer everyone toward a common goal and increase the likelihood that your system delivers a strong return on investment (ROI).

Prioritize System Features and Capabilities

 Though there are many features and capabilities to consider when evaluating healthcare workforce management platforms, there are some worthy of prioritization that could make or break the success of  the chosen system:

• Purpose-built for healthcare: Many workforce management systems are designed to meet the needs of a broad range of verticals — from grocery stores to casinos. However, in the complex and high-stakes healthcare environment, a one-size-fits-all system just won’t cut it. Only a workforce management system purpose-built for healthcare will effectively optimize your entire care team and operate seamlessly as an integrated part of your healthcare IT ecosystem.
• Flexible scheduling: Effective scheduling is essential for ensuring proper coverage, meeting patient demand, and maintaining compliance, but flexible scheduling is key to retaining clinicians — an important consideration considering the continued labor shortage and rising burnout rates in healthcare. Seek out a mobile-first solution that makes it easy for the entire care team to self-schedule and self-serve. In addition, look for features such as streamlined shift swapping and requests and real-time notifications — which give clinicians more control over their schedules for improved work-life balance.
• Integration and scalability: To achieve desired outcomes, your workforce management system must operate as an integral component of the overall healthcare IT ecosystem to support seamless data sharing and efficient workflows. Ask vendors about out-of-the-box integrations that simplify custom integrations. Another important consideration is scalability. Focus on cloud-based enterprise-grade healthcare workforce management systems that can grow with your organization.
• Dynamic reporting: Automated reporting features not only help ensure compliance, but also simplify the auditing process. Evaluate whether systems provide intuitive dashboards that allow frontline managers and healthcare leaders to access information quickly and easily. Ask about the set of standard reports and dashboards as well as tools for creating reports internally. 
• Mobile access: The healthcare workforce is constantly on the move, making mobile access a non-negotiable feature. Evaluate both the user-friendliness of a system’s mobile app and the range of functionality it offers across scheduling, on-call, time and attendance, room management, and more. 

See More: 5 Reasons Your Business Needs a Workforce Scheduling

Vetting Vendors, Too

During the evaluation process, you’re doing more than comparing products. You’re assessing whether a vendor offers the industry-specific expertise, proven experience, and commitment to customer success that you’re looking for in a partner. Take the time to delve into:

• Focus and approach: Because managing the healthcare workforce comes with unique challenges, it’s best to work with a vendor that focuses exclusively on the healthcare industry. Inquire whether vendors take a schedule-first approach to workforce management that addresses unique care team complexities and provides a complete view of who is doing what, when, and where. 
• Reputation and reliability: Assess the vendor’s expertise and experience in providing workforce management solutions — with proven results. Do they have a track record of successful implementations in leading healthcare enterprises and across a broad range of specialties? Positive feedback from similar healthcare organizations provides validation that the vendor can meet specific workforce management requirements.
• Reference checks: Vendors should provide access to current or past customers for reference checks. Speaking directly with leaders at other hospitals or health systems using the vendor’s solutions offers valuable insights into that provider’s products and customer experience. 
• Customization and support: Because every healthcare organization is unique, it’s crucial to evaluate the vendor’s capacity to configure the system to meet your specific needs. A workforce management system tailored to your healthcare organization’s particular needs ensures optimal functionality and performance. Inquire about the vendor’s support services, including their availability, response times, and support team model. 
• Technology advancements: When you invest in a healthcare workforce management solution, you want to ensure that it continues to deliver value over time. Assess the vendor’s commitment to adopting the latest tools and technologies — both for advancing their product and for improving the customer experience. If the vendor invests in continuous improvement and innovation, you can be confident that their solution will continue to offer best-in-class capabilities that drive results.

Consider Implementation Requirements

In addition to system features and vendor track record, take the time to understand the implementation process. What’s the vendor’s implementation methodology and what’s included? Does the vendor provide training and guide you through change management? What kind of testing is performed prior to going live? 

Answers to these questions will determine the vendor’s ability to complete your project on time and on budget. Here are the 3 vendor requirements:

• Project planning and timeline: Best-in-class vendors will work with your team to develop a detailed implementation plan with realistic timelines and milestones. You’ll need to allocate resources and define responsibilities within your organization. Establishing clear communication and fostering collaboration — both between internal departments and with your vendor — are key to a successful implementation.
• Training and change management: Training and change management are important to driving user adoption. Understand what kinds of training programs the vendor provides for end-users. Inquire whether the vendor offers change management strategies to address staff concerns and ease the transition to the new system.
• Testing: Thorough testing plays a pivotal role in identifying and resolving issues prior to full system deployment. Because vendors offer different testing services, it’s important to do your homework. A detailed testing plan with comprehensive assessments will go a long way toward ensuring data accuracy and system reliability when your system goes live.

Implementing a new healthcare workforce management system is a significant investment of time, money, and resources. But if done right, it’s all well worth it. Performing a careful, detailed evaluation of solutions and vendors will help ensure that you make the right choice for your organization’s requirements, enabling you to minimize disruption, achieve your project goals and objectives, and maximize ROI.

Are you open to exploring these strategies while choosing workforce management systems? Let us know on FacebookOpens a new window , XOpens a new window , and LinkedInOpens a new window . We’d love to hear from you!

Image Source: Shutterstock

MORE ON WMS

• How To Put People First in Your WFM Strategy
• 5 Features of a Good Mobile Workforce Management 
• 3 Ways Workforce Management Systems Improve Your Company’s Budgeting Process
• Top 3 Reasons Why Workforce Management Improves customer Experience