Organisational leaders have a significant task on their hands when it comes to effectively managing their people. Healthcare providers tend to rely heavily on staffing agencies to manage the fluctuating level of patients and the level of care required.
With the Healthcare industry consisting of many subsets of worker-type and with a significant portion of casualisation and agency work, job types within Healthcare vary widely. Typical Healthcare roles include the likes of; counsellors, dieticians, doctors, nurses, social workers, occupational therapists, pharmacists, physiotherapists, psychologists and speech pathologists (and the list goes on…).
Contingent workers also tend to carry out their care duties at multiple sites, whether within hospitals and clinics, or in the homes of their patients. Healthcare professionals generally work to a shift pattern, right around the clock. HR leaders manage employee records well and yet since the onslaught of the gig economy there are shortfalls when managing contract workers. This risk is increased for those working within Healthcare, consider if in your organisation if managers have visibility over:
- Who their health contractors are?
- Their credentials – are they qualified for the job?
- Does the individual understand the processes of the care facility?
- Do they have professional indemnity insurance?
- Who is liable if they don’t have insurance and someone dies under their care?
This level of fragmentation creates complexity for HR and people leaders. Errors and oversights can easily occur without a system that can control workflow and mitigate risk. It’s imperative to effectively manage the record keeping of individual qualifications, along with their validity. Training requirements need to be mapped, for instance with the upkeep of adequate CPD points. With large organisations it is challenging to track required and recurrent training. What are the common required training topics within healthcare? Kineo Courses has identified that its top 5 playlist of courses for healthcare professionals are;
1. Hand Hygiene for Healthcare Workers
2. Identifying, reporting and responding to the abuse of older people in care
3. Basic Life Support
4. Manual Tasks in Aged Care
5. Bullying Harassment for Employees
Understand more about the objectives and learning outcomes of these Healthcare specialist courses in Kineo’s blog: Kineo Courses playlist: 5 courses for healthcare professionals
Digital systems data management
How is it possible to successfully manage and monitor workers, for their safety, accountability and ensure compliance?
The shift from basic data capture using spreadsheets and other disparate methods to record and report on individual workers is a recent one. Digitisation has contributed to the creation of systems (CMS) that can solve many organisational pain points. The main purpose of a CMS is to handle contractor management requirements in a single system, yet the capacity extends to onboarding, training delivery and the management of site access incorporating visitor management.
In ‘Credentialing health practitioners and defining their scope of clinical practice: a guide for managers and practitioners’, published in 2015 The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Healthcare highlights the need for assurance in the safe documentation on the authenticity of the workers’ skills and training, license validity and process management with orientation and the need for practitioners to:
…establish an appropriate system to review and validate the processes for credentialing, defining and managing scope of clinical practice and ensuring these are diligent and effective
Extract from 2. Develop a framework for credentialing, determining a health practitioner’s scope of clinical practice, and managing issues that may arise in maintaining an agreed scope of clinical practice
What are your contractor management challenges?
Primary pain points can be realised through our experience of working closely with clients within the industry and through industry partner relationships such as The Hospital and Healthcare Association (AHHA).
If you are a healthcare organisation looking to improve your processes around the onboarding and management of your people, do these points relate to your needs around employee and contractor management?
- All contacting companies and employees to be appropriately inducted
- Manage administration of individual worker qualifications
- A system to record required insurances and licence
- Automated worker information
- Easy to administer tool to register and complete pre-qualification stage of the onboarding process
- Automated notifications for worker licenses and renewals
- Peace of mind for managing worker and contractor compliance and mandatory information in a single place
- Managing risk with automated notifications for renewals
The significance of workforce management software for Healthcare
Sitepass is an established workforce management system that provides a solution for all employees, contractors and workers that can register and complete the pre-qualification stage of the onboarding process. All contractor information, insurances, licences and other mandatory information is managed on the single platform. Sitepass serves 27000 verified suppliers and 250000 verified individuals each year across 41 countries.
In the case of our partnership with an extensive hospital and health service network, Sitepass’ proof points can be seen in the efficient onboarding of all contractors and health staff. After an initial 3-year contract in 2015 and with the subsequent implementation of Sitepass, the client renewed for a further 5 years, with services extended to include other hospitals under the network.
What are the future predictions for the healthcare industry and how does it affect the worker landscape?
In Deloitte’s 2020 Healthcare sector analysis realise more about these wider challenges and implications to help navigate the changing face of Healthcare that will inform the digital management systems supporting us and our people into the future.
“Rising health care costs. Changing patient demographics. Evolving consumer expectations. New market entrants. Complex health and technology ecosystems. Health care stakeholders need to invest in value-based care, innovative care delivery models, advanced digital technologies, data interoperability, and alternative employment models to prepare for these uncertainties and build a smart health ecosystem.”
Take action
Are you ready to take a Sitepass demo? Understand more about how Sitepass can meet your specific organisational needs. Not sure? Read our blog or join our LinkedIn community.
