After 2+ years of Zoom calls and virtual conferences, what an amazing experience to be back out in the real world making in-person connections! Not once did I have to tell people that they were muted or awkwardly wait for someone to set up screen sharing and inevitably ask if we could all see it.
The conference I attended was the Modern Healthcare Transformation Summit in Austin, Texas (May 16-18, 2022). Shout out to Austin - it’s such a vibrant, eclectic city! The food alone is well worth the trip! Delicious brisket and Zoom fatigue aside, here are some of my key takeaways from the conference:
Session: The Path from Start-Up to Scale-Up
- Avoid pilot projects; take steps to effectively set projects up for success (i.e. change management, phased approach, defined KPIs)
- Use peers and channel partners to your advantage - from a resource perspective, this makes the most sense, both in terms of time and cost
- Transformation is a scary word; people are burnt out. Focus on outcomes and nailing the change management process
- Executives at large organizations typically only make 1-2 “big” technology decisions a year
Session: Tackling Staffing & Retention Challenges
- Flexibility is the new currency - Healthcare organizations need tech platforms that enable & allow nurses to work how they want when they want
- Technology can help you predict the number of nurses you will need months in advance
- If you can free up nurses/nurse managers from having to engage in the scheduling workflow process, you can give them 20% of their time back
- In turn, this cuts costs increases capacity and increases the time they are connected to their core work functions
Additional Notes & Observations from the Conference
- Multiple Healthcare execs, when posed the question: “What are your primary challenges?” Answer: “Workforce, workforce, and workforce!”
- Executives are dealing with the realities of the extreme costs related to staffing challenges. One major player in the industry lost $1 billion due to increased labor costs
- Healthcare organizations are limiting the number of apps to reduce tech stack; integration is key: don’t leave the shiny tool on the shelf
Overall, the conference was very informative & enjoyable (as was Austin!) I am looking forward to following up with several connections from the conference regarding their complex scheduling challenges.
I also look forward to attending additional upcoming events with Andgo throughout the year. Hope to see you there!
Additional Thoughts - Moving Forward
The challenges facing healthcare are front and center. Organizations are experiencing firsthand the impacts of inefficient scheduling processes and being perpetually short-staffed and scrambling to fill shifts. These challenges present an opportunity to innovate and evolve staffing processes to better suit the reality of what health systems everywhere are facing.
However, what got us here, is not going to get us there. Healthcare as a whole is more than capable of change and innovation to meet these challenges; ingenuity and innovation are hallmarks of healthcare. Traditionally these innovations are pursued on the clinical side, whereas there is now also a need to apply this culture of innovation to staffing & scheduling.
How Andgo Helps
Automate the entire process of filling vacant shifts with Andgo Systems Intelligent Workflow Automation Suite! Automatically communicate vacant immediate & future shift details to eligible employees – fill more shifts faster with the right people. Transform complex scheduling processes into auditable, transparent workflows that eliminate manual involvement and repetitive mundane tasks.
Andgo Systems offers a full suite of tools that span the employee scheduling lifecycle, leveraging and extending the tools already found in the scheduling system of record, eliminating clicking through procedure sets, call lists, and selecting notification criteria.
Andgo’s product suite includes:
Smart Call - go beyond simply automating shift callouts, addressing all tasks in the process, from dynamically building call lists, routing communications, and monitoring responses. Vacant shift details are communicated in a transparent manner to eligible employees via SMS text, email, and phone per the employee’s notification preferences. Employees can bid simply by responding to a text message or phone call.
Shift Prebooking - streamline the process of filling future vacancies. Employees gain the luxury of applying for available shifts as they are known, providing them with planning capabilities regarding what works best for them and their work-life balance. The organization benefits by filling more shifts in advance, reducing the burden on scheduling teams to fill as many immediate need shifts.
Quick Dial - a streamlined incoming phone system for reporting, recording, and routing unplanned employee absences to scheduling teams via the dashboard, automatically organized by priority and category. These products are supported by centralized decision support guidelines to reference staffing levels vs. baselines just in time when processing shifts. Andgo’s schedule integration capabilities serve to further close the loop on the path of created shift to filled shift. Reduce manual entries and sync all changes with the scheduling system of record automatically.
