We’re on top of the (staffing) world…
Welcome back to Locums Digest, Locumpedia’s free bi-weekly roundup of industry news and trends that helps locum tenens agencies make smart decisions.
In this edition of Locums Digest: The latest market report from Staffing Industry Analysts finds that the healthcare staffing market plunged 20% in 2023, but locum tenens was the one staffing vertical that bucked the overall trend. After years of Covid-fueled growth, the market contracted last year for the first time since 2010, with travel nursing dropping 36% and per diem shrinking by 25%. In contrast, locum tenens enjoyed another standout year, growing by 17%, with no signs of a slowdown ahead.
Also in this issue: Wapiti explains how locums make a difference in rural communities; National APP Week starts today; LT.com reveals that half the country lacks access to a cardiologist; All Star announces a new CFO; IMN launches a direct-hire division; locum leaders take part in the SIA Healthcare Summit; CHG Healthcare discontinues its travel nurse division, and more.
In a Cooling Sector, Locums Staffing Remains Hot
September 10, 2024 | Staffing Industry Analysts
The September update of Staffing Industry Analysts’ US Staffing Industry Forecast reports that the healthcare staffing sector declined in market size for the first time since 2010, except for locums, which outperformed other segments and is only expected to continue to grow.
The healthcare staffing sector overall declined by 22% in 2023. This was driven by significant drops in travel nursing, down 36%, and per diem, down 25%. In contrast, locum tenens saw 17% growth in 2023 and is projected to increase by more than 7% in 2024.
Locums had a very strong 2023, and SIA predicts it will continue to grow because of elevated volume and pay rates for certain specialties, such as those that focus on the aging population, including CRNAs, and internal medicine physicians.
SIA corporate members can read the full update at the link.
La Vida Locum
Locums Agencies Provide Consistency for the Changing Needs of Rural Healthcare
August 28, 2024 | Wapiti Medical Staffing
Locum tenens agencies offer the specialized support necessary for rural healthcare facilities to continue providing quality care even when facing staffing challenges. Beyond workforce shortages, rural facilities face additional fluctuations, such as seasonal population surges due to tourism or temporary increases during harvests. Locums agencies make a difference in rural areas in many ways, such as:
- Offering diverse talent in terms of both specialty and cultural fit
- Adjusting to the changing census needs of rural healthcare
- Preventing gaps in patient care
- Alleviating burnout of full-time staff
Through their specialized support, locums agencies help rural healthcare facilities not only survive but thrive, leading to better health outcomes for their communities.
Bridging the Cardiologist Gap: How Locums Address a Critical Shortage
September 9, 2024 | LocumTenens.com
For many Americans, access to timely, continuous healthcare can be a matter of life and death. Yet, nearly half of US counties don’t have a single practicing cardiologist. As a result, patients often face the daunting reality of driving an average of 90 minutes just to get the care they need.
Locums cardiologists are addressing this in a number of ways:
- Offering a solution while the facility hires a permanent physician
- Providing solutions to specific facility needs regarding location, specialty, and scheduling
- Being highly adaptable, as they are experienced in multiple settings
With all the challenges facing cardiology today, locums providers offer crucial flexibility and quality care, especially in communities who have gone too long without this specialty.
Staffing Strategies Should Include Locums
September 5, 2024 | MPLT Healthcare
Much has been written about locums providing continuity of patient care and alleviating the pressures on permanent staff during workforce shortages. To meet all needs more efficiently, healthcare organizations would do well to consider incorporating locums into their staffing strategy.
By doing so, they ensure they’re always ready to step in and fill gaps—whether for predictable, short-term needs like covering a staff member on parental leave or sudden, open-ended situations like a patient surge. They can also offer specialized skills that may be lacking among permanent staff while quickly adapting to changing patient care demands and balancing workloads.
Staying nimble is one of the most essential elements of successful workforce management. With locums as part of an ongoing, long-term staffing plan, healthcare facilities can better attend to fluctuating patient and physician needs.
Locum Leaders
All Star Healthcare Solutions Names New Chief Financial Officer
September 10, 2024 | All Star Healthcare Solutions
Joanna Bonventre has been named All Star Healthcare Solutions’ new chief financial officer and will serve on the staffing agency’s executive team.
She has worked in finance and program management in the healthcare, technology, and services industries for over two decades. Bonventre has a bachelor’s degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an MBA from Northeastern University.
Dallas-based Locums Firm Opens Direct Hire Division
September 6, 2024 | Staffing Industry Analysts
IMN Enterprises has announced the launch of Clinical Magnet, a division that aligns its direct hire efforts under a single brand distinct from its locum tenens companies. The Clinical Magnet team will work to fill full-time positions, including physicians, anesthesiologists, CRNAs, advanced practice providers, registered nurses, allied health professionals, dentists, and dental hygienists.
Locum positions will continue to be filled by ICON Medical Network, Independence Anesthesia Services, and MedAdventures. Notably, ICON Medical Network has been recognized as one of the largest healthcare staffing firms by Staffing Industry Analysts.
Hire Power
Industry Leaders Set to Take the Stage at SIA Healthcare Staffing Summit
November 6–8, 2024 | Staffing Industry Analysts
Staffing Industry Analysts has announced their speaker lineup for this year’s Healthcare Staffing Summit, which leans heavily on culture and transformation. They will do a deep dive on everything from new technologies to insights and strategies, drawing on their diversity of experiences. The event will include keynotes and panel discussions featuring many locums leaders, including:
- Melissa Campbell of Jackson + Coker
- Earl Dalton of Health Carousel
- Jarin Dana of Fusion Healthcare Staffing
- Robert Dickey of Medicus Healthcare Solutions
- Tim Fischer of Jackson + Coker
- Chris Franklin of LocumTenens.com
- Liz Hale of MPLT Healthcare
- James Hauser of Aya Healthcare
- Shane Jackson of Jackson Healthcare
- Robin Johnson of AMN Healthcare
- Tom Mclain of Medicus Healthcare Solutions
- Erik Schumann of Health Carousel
- Michael Skovira of OnCall Solutions
- John Sebastian of Health Carousel
- Tyler West of CHG Healthcare
Leveraging AI in Locums Recruiting: Enhancing Efficiency While Keeping the Human Touch
August 20, 2024 | CHG Healthcare
Using powerful AI tools, locums agencies can free up their teams to focus on the human-to-human aspects paramount to recruiting. Repetitive and data-heavy tasks are common in recruitment and placement, taking up valuable time. CHG Healthcare’s guide to using AI to enhance the locums recruiting process outlines:
- AI Uses: Technology can help with everything from sourcing passive candidates and matching physicians with assignments to automating workflow actions and drafting and editing communications such as job postings and surveys.
- AI Management: It is important to be intentional about how and when to integrate AI. Agencies need to maintain a strong connection with candidates and members of their locums pool. They must also recognize that AI carries the biases of the society it learns from; AI must be monitored so that it helps its agency meet diversity, equity, and inclusion goals.
AI can feel like a magical solution to several challenges, but it is a tool like any other. It can provide indispensable help that allows locums recruiters to focus on what humans do best. There must also be defined reasons for using it with a plan for execution in place.
McKinsey Survey Reveals Key Strategies for Attracting and Retaining Physicians
September 10, 2024 | McKinsey & Company
McKinsey’s recent US physician survey sought ideas for attracting and retaining talent in a challenging labor market. In their analysis, four areas crystalized as crucial for healthcare organizations to prioritize:
- Compensation and incentives
- Physician well-being
- Physician input in decision-making
- Staffing and support systems
According to physician respondents, supporting a healthy work-life balance is just as crucial as offering competitive compensation. Facilities and agencies can both play a role in implementation. One idea may be to consider instituting or upgrading clearly stated performance-based incentives that align with institutional strategies for patient care and physician retention. Another area to be mindful of is schedule flexibility, including considering virtual options, which is on both the facility and the agency.
Responding physicians also crave opportunities to provide feedback on strategic goals, particularly those that affect their day-to-day efforts, and meaningful leadership roles within their organizations. They also want more help delegating administrative and other support tasks.
There is no one solution to preventing physician turnover or attracting new hires. Instead, facilities and their agency partners should deploy various strategies, focusing on these four areas to start and conducting their own internal analysis to customize their hiring and retention process.
Making the Rounds
RNnetwork to Cease Operations in Early 2025
September 10, 2024 | CHG Healthcare
CHG Healthcare’s travel nurse division, RNnetwork (RNN), will close effective March 2025. The company has found new positions for approximately half of its RNN employees. CHG, the largest physician staffing company in the US, will strengthen the focus on locums and allied professional staffing as well as healthcare technology. RNN has placed tens of thousands of nurses and other providers in healthcare facilities nationwide since CHG acquired it in 1998.
Workplace Culture Continues to Be a Priority for Physicians
August 26, 2024 | Becker’s Hospital Review
A recent Medscape survey of more than 1,200 physicians across 29 specialties reveals nine areas of workplace culture that physicians would like to see improved in the workplace:
- Consulting physicians on organization and policy decisions
- Commitment to work-life balance for physicians and staff
- How management treats staff
- Maintaining a positive atmosphere
- Teamwork
- Creating core organizational values that align with physicians’ own
- Offering enough promotion opportunities
- Providing physician mentors/leadership programs
- Ease of access to mental health programs
Beyond these specific areas in the workplace, the study also looked at the importance of culture when making a job change. More than 90% of physicians surveyed said that prioritizing culture when considering a job offer was either important or very important. In fact, respondents reported that workplace culture was equally or more important than compensation in physician retention.
With workplace culture figuring heavily into physician retention, it is important for agencies to consider which of these items they can address within their own organizations and, to the extent they can, work with client facilities to help improve the experience of their locums.
National APP Week Is September 23–27
September 23–27, 2024 | National APP Week
Celebrated every fourth week of September, National APP Week recognizes the contributions of PAs, NPs, CRNAs, and other APPs. These providers elevate the fields of medicine and nursing to ensure patients and communities receive safe, high-quality, evidence-based care.
This year there will be a free virtual event to Innovate, Elevate, and Celebrate the Power of APPs! The 2024 opening keynote speaker is Clair Kuriakose, vice president and chief advanced practice officer for the Center for Advanced Care at Stanford Health Care. The closing keynote is Sara Ross, founder and chief vitality officer of BrainAMPED. In addition to presentations, there will be awards for APP leaders.
Sponsored Content
How Much Does it Cost to Recruit a Physician?
September 11, 2024 | OnCall Solutions
One significant cost for the healthcare ecosystem is physician compensation. To help organizations make informed decisions about budgets, and then recruitment strategies, OnCall Solutions has prepared a comprehensive guide on the Average Cost to Recruit a Physician. This comprehensive guide draws the connection between understanding costs and long-term success.
Readers will learn about:
- Recruitment costs—Direct, indirect, and by physician specialty
- Budget allocation strategies—Using locums strategically, prioritizing high-impact roles, etc.
- Tips for cutting recruitment costs—Optimizing job postings, enhancing employee satisfaction, etc.
As an agency, understanding the cost burden that a facility is facing, and more importantly the ways in which locums can bridge the gap during permanent recruitment, is crucial to supporting client needs.
