The main objective of Health Care facilities is to take care of people. Even if the hours are 9am – 5pm there are still calls, duties and responsibilities outside of working hours. There are those health care facilities that operate a 24/7, 365 day business. For a business to run this way they need staffing, they need people that will make up both a quality workforce and caring medical practitioners.

In California there is Title 22, a patient to caregiver law stating the ratio of patients to nurses. Most 24/7 facilities had trouble adhering to the law before the Covid-19 outbreak. Now, during this pandemic, these health care facilities are scrambling to find good people.

The function and role of Human resources is a full time job consisting of many tasks. Most healthcare facilities are not set up to do this on a full-time basis on a large scale. Generally, they are understaffed and forced to use outdated equipment in a high demand market.  How do they compete? How can they reach quality caregivers in a crisis never seen before?

We created Hire Now to help health care facilities deal with their staffing shortfall and provide valued health care professionals to employ. We focus on every aspect of the process, from beginning to end, no task is too small or too big. This ranges from finding the candidates,interviewing them, handling the credentialing process, and the overall marketing. Each step is important in its own right. It all counts toward the end goal; placing qualified candidates with facilities who have a need for staffing.

The Hire Now program is not a replacement for a company’s human resources. It is meant  to supplement and assist with their current process by alleviating some of the time consuming tasks. It will help these facilities tremendously  to have dedicated professionals working tirelessly to find the correct person for your business.

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1. Know Your worth: Before considering a new position or negotiating an employment contract, it’s important to take a personal inventory of yourself as well as skillset and know your worth. What are your special skills? Do you have any professional certifications? What skills obtained from previous employers can you bring to your new employer and enhance their practice? Audit what you bring to the table

2. What Are Your Wants And Needs?: Health care professionals seem to put others first, they, after all, are caretakers and put their patients’ needs before their own. The needs and wants of those taking care of us are usually set aside. Keeping with this thought process can prevent you from negotiating the contract you are hoping for. Understanding what your goals and wants are is essential. What hours are you willing to work? Will 8, 10, or 12-hour shifts benefit your lifestyle or impede your quality of life? Are you willing to take a salaried, hourly, or per diem position? What types of patient populations are you wanting to serve? If you don’t understand your own needs and wants, how can you expect a future employer to?

3. Do Your Research: The key to negotiating any contract is Research. Before you sit down to negotiate, learn as much as you can about the organization, this can really help you once you get to the negotiation tables. It shows that you are diligent and gives you more confidence and power when it comes to your overall strategy. Some things to look for: What have been some concerns management has tried to resolve? How can you add value or assistance to these challenges? i.e. staffing shortages, inability to see the big picture when it comes to common goals, inability to delegate, handling stress, or lack of interest in what they are doing. By understanding these issues ahead of time you will be able to display you are a problem solver by presenting possible solutions. 

4. Understand the Art of Contract Negotiations: Depending on the role you’re applying for, RN, Charge Nurse, Np, whatever it may be, understand what your responsibilities are. If understanding the revenue to be brought into the hospital is part of your job, learn how to determine profit generation. If your job is to contribute to overall patient satisfaction prepare: ahead of time to explain how you would execute doing this. It’s crucial to understand what your duties may be and how you would go about fulfilling the duties expected of you. Understanding the needs of an organization will go a long way when you get to the interview process and begin to state what you would like in your contract.

5. Getting to the Negotiation Table: Walk in feeling confident and powerful when getting to the negation table. If you want to know how the negotiating process is going, assess their body language, eye contact, and overall engagement ( be aware of your own body language and overall engagement). You did your research, you established your worth, and you understand the needs of the organization and the expectations of the job. Walk in knowing what your personal expectations are. Knowledge with proper negotiating skills is power. It’s important for healthcare professionals to stand their ground and get what they want. 

If all your needs are met in the contract, give it a day or two to think about the offer, but never take a job where you negotiated one thing and the CMO or powers that be changed it at the last minute. If you are not happy with your contract, apply somewhere else. 

One last consideration is to think long term. Now that you’re a negotiating genius, try to include a renegotiation clause. 

After “X” amount of time. Asked to be reevaluated based on performance to secure that promotion or pay increase. During this time, you will be able to showcase what you have done in that time period and what an asset you are to the entire organization.

ultraHealth Agency

Medical Staffing Beyond Expectations

Culture within a business is not spontaneous. It is deliberately cultivated and created. Organizational culture consists  of different  behaviors that  can include routines, rules, and the overall identity within a professional environment. Culture is used as a means of controlling behavior, providing stability, and the employees sense of belonging. Individuals who disrupt cultural controls within their organization run the risk of  being  deemed aberrant. Leaders  develop positive cultural controls in hopes of creating  social norms and a sense of shared values within the organization.

In healthcare, many of the larger facilities claim to promote individuality, but in reality, create an environment of conformity, many of which are expected behavioral norms within the organizations.

Social norms within an organization are considered unwritten rules of behaviors that determine how employees may  react to specific situations. Typically, these are applied by peers through different social acts. For example, if your workplace has an unwritten rule of not addressing unethical practices, then the employee  who speaks out against it may be ignored and excluded from future group activities.

As a new employee, there are different ways one could get insight to the company’s culture and overall method of behavior controls. One may be the employee handbook,  that can consist of  nondisclosure agreements, anti-discrimination policies, expected work schedules, standards of conduct, and general information. Another way to gage culture is through onboarding and training. Usually a manager will train you and how they do so can speak volumes. Leaders must act in a way that reflects the organization’s values, otherwise, employees can  become cynical and resentful.

An understanding of an organization’s rules and regulations should always be integrated into the company culture and even become rooted in the shared values and social norms of the culture (HBR).

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Medical Staffing – Beyond Expectations

Our home state, California have taken steps to lessen the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, so that the healthcare system won’t be overwhelmed by new patients. Right now nurses across the country are at the frontline of this pandemic. At a time where they should have every resource at their disposal they are feeling the frustration of equipment shortages putting their health and that of their patients at risk as the coronavirus continues to spread. Nurses are having to deal with equipment shortages, understaffing, and a lack of coordination on protocols between health systems and the government. In many cases , before coronavirus, hospitals were already crowded and nearly filled to occupancy. On March 10th , the National Nurses United union called on the White House and hospital systems to ensure that nurses have enough protective equipment. A union survey found only 30% of nurses reported having enough equipment to deal with the outbreak. Right now, nurses are working extra shifts on top of their normal consecutive night shifts. There is also a fear of nurses getting sick creating understaffing a greater problem and the possibility of lost pay. These nurses are putting their lives at stake and are at the front of the line.

Why is this Important?

It’s still uncertain how much demand will swing, but medical staffing agencies such as ultraHealth and hospitals are leveraging crisis teams and disaster protocols in the meantime. If the COVID-19 outbreak grows significantly, it may worsen ongoing labor shortages. Staffing agencies and hospitals are preparing that they’ll be running at higher capacities.

Health and medical organizations are in a predicament, if they are already on the hunt for new team members, the chances of securing top talent plummet, as these skilled workers are called upon to assist in an emergency response. Indeed, some of the organization’s current team may be asked to assist elsewhere, further exacerbating the talent shortfall. And finding themselves on the frontline, hospitals may only have days to find dozens of extra workers to cope with a sudden influx of cases.

While this place on the frontline means that hospitals understandably take precedence in such a situation, supplementary health providers, who are otherwise seen as equally important, can find themselves falling down the priority list in terms of talent allocation. Skilled nursing, home health providers, assisted living and hospice facilities can all see a drain on resources that is out of their control.

The coronavirus outbreak is placing intense strain on the already-taxed healthcare industry, exacerbating the existing workforce shortage which, before the virus, was expected to reach a scarcity of 1M nurses by 2030. a A survey for nurses conducted by IntelyCare of gathered information to determine the biggest needs, and project the potential impact of the virus on the workforce. It found:

– 74% of nursing professionals are still willing to work

– 55% of nurses want to limit exposure to multiple facilities and want to know if a facility is infected

– 26% of nurses would consider reducing or stopping work to avoid infection

Health and medical organizations may not just be dealing with shortages of doctors, nurses and other skilled medical practitioners either. Health administrators bring just as valuable a skillset in emergency response situations, and demand for these professionals can therefore be just as high. So, the question is how do health and medical organizations combat the challenges of finding workers during a global disease outbreak?

ultraHealth Agency

During these times it’s important to have skilled staffing professionals to assist you in acquiring talent when it’s least available, but most needed. ultraHealth Agency is capable of identifying, attracting and securing top talent even when resources are scarce. We understand the current challenges of this situation and have the resources to to provide experienced when needed. This enables health and medical organizations to focus on their vital work, rather than hunting for people to do it. ultraHealth realizes the importance of having an experienced workforce during these times.