The healthcare industry faces unprecedented challenges due to hospital staffing shortages. Multiple issues are contributing to the widespread shortage of qualified physicians and nurses.
Fortunately, hospitalist staffing companies provide real, lasting solutions to staffing shortages. Of course, providing talented and qualified medical professionals is the most obvious contribution. But the solutions go even deeper than immediate staffing, as staffing agencies address several issues that drive hospitalist shortages in the first place.
Here are five ways moonlighting and locum tenens staffing agencies cut to the source of the hospital staffing shortages.
1. Specialized Clinicians, Where They’re Needed
When facing hospital staffing shortages, administrators sometimes must assign medical personnel tasks outside the typical range of an employee’s duties. While medical professionals have proved time and again they’re up to the challenges put before them, learning new skills on the fly often takes time—and can lead to time-consuming mistakes.
Thankfully, hospitalist staffing companies provide moonlighting and locums doctors specialized for the roles hospitals are looking for. There’s no need to pull full-time staff away from entrenched positions to cover additional tasks. And by putting the right candidates in the right roles, work can be done most efficiently, reducing labor hours.
2. Reduce Burnout
The past few years, professional burnout has been a leading cause of hospital staffing shortages. As medical professionals have been required to work long hours in taxing conditions, it’s become clear that even the most determined can only handle so much.
Temporary moonlighting and locum tenens staff can help reduce the burden on your full-time staff. They prevent full-time staff from needing to work overtime hours or from needing to take on excessive amounts of work during their standard working hours. Ultimately, hospitalist staffing companies are a great tool to help keep full-time staff fresh—so they can be available for the long haul.
3. Reduce Length of Stay
Understaffed hospitals have been shown to result in a longer length of stay for patients.
That results in two serious consequences. One, patients are not receiving the proper care needed to recuperate as quickly as possible. And two, as hospital staffing shortages increase, the demand for a hospital’s services increases. With more patients remaining in beds, the duties required of an understaffed facility only grow larger—creating a compounding problem.
Thankfully, moonlighting and locums staffing agencies can help prevent hospital staffing shortages at the start before the problem exacerbates.
4. Help with High-Risk Encounters of Front Lines
As the COVID-19 pandemic has shown, a large healthcare staff is necessary to promote health safety and social-distancing practices.
In understaffed facilities, medical professionals may feel the need to push on to provide care, even when they’re feeling ill. That can be a serious problem, as sick doctors and nurses can’t do their jobs as well. They’re also potential vectors of infection.
With adequately staffed facilities, doctors can easily find replacements when they sense they are coming down with symptoms, keeping themselves and their patients safe.
5. Reduce Overhead Costs
The realities of hospital administration can never be ignored. Many hospitals can work on tight margins, and understaffed facilities are inefficient and expensive. In fact, in 2022 alone, hospital staffing shortages are reported to have cost healthcare facilities 19.5 billion dollars. But by incorporating moonlighting and locum tenens medical staff, hospitals can reduce costs while providing better and more comprehensive care.
OnCall Solutions: Helping Prevent Hospital Staffing Shortages
OnCall Solutions is a locums and moonlighting agency committed to helping facilities reduce the effects of hospital staffing shortages. We specialize in providing medical professionals from your local area, which reduces costs and improves patient population familiarity. Trust us to knowably address your healthcare organization’s specific staffing needs.
Are you interested in learning more about OnCall Solutions’ moonlighting and locum tenens staffing solutions? Reach out to us today.
