For growing cities with high patient populations, ensuring safe staffing numbers over the past few years has proven difficult. The COVID-19 pandemic contributed to nurses and health professionals experiencing high rates of burnout, leading to a significant number of healthcare workers leaving the field altogether. Combined with the number of seasoned nurses who are now reaching retirement age, finding a sustainable, long-term solution for filling these gaps has created challenges. Some facilities end up overworking their own nurses and health professionals to fill gaps, leading to burnt out and unsatisfied staff. Costly agencies are another option, but as budgets continue to be cut and patient demands increase, only using agencies is an unsustainable solution. But thanks to Medely’s innovative staffing solution, thousands of facilities across the country have been able to create a sustainable strategy for staffing, leading to less burnout, better patient outcomes, and increased revenue. Now, we’re excited to announce that we’re launching a brand new market in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Charlotte nursing shortages
The American Association of Colleges of Nursing predicts that North Carolina will be among the top ten states most impacted by the nursing shortage, with a projected 13% shortage by 2035. With it being one of the top ten states, creating a plan for addressing the shortages is critical before the demand reaches a point where facilities aren’t able to catch up.
One of the main contributors to North Carolina’s shortages is the number of people over the age of 65. According to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, “By 2028, one in five North Carolinians will be 65 and older. By 2031, there will be more people 65 and older than children 0-17.” An aging population often leads to increased demand for care as both long and short-term health problems become more prevalent in advanced age.
Not only does an aging population create more demand for health professionals providing care, but it also means that more seasoned nurses will start to retire as they hit retirement age, leaving even more gaps in the healthcare workforce. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2023 over 760,000 nurses were over the age of 55. And as they begin to retire, seasoned nurse mentors with decades of experience will leave the workforce, leaving younger nurses with fewer experienced mentors. The American Nurses Association highlights some of the benefits of having nursing mentors, including “more career satisfaction, ongoing direction, support, and advice, reduced stress associated with transitioning roles, and feeling less overwhelmed on the job.” All of these benefits can lead to a less stressed, burnt-out younger workforce. According to Medely’s nursing sentiment survey from May 2024, 60% of our respondents shared that they were overwhelmed and exhausted at work, which can lead to burnout and turnover quickly.
Entering the Charlotte market
With over 3,500 nurses and health professionals in our top five most-requested positions signed up to pick up shifts in Charlotte, we’ve found that our network of nurses and health professionals are eager and ready to pick up shifts and assignments when facilities post them. With a current fill rate of 87% in Charlotte, facilities can rest assured knowing that they’ll be able to find suitable replacements and fills for any open shifts that arise. Medely is currently partnered with several facilities in Charlotte, including OrthoCarolina and Sono Bello, and we’re excited to expand access to even more facilities.
How Medely combats staffing shortages
Medely addresses staffing shortages by utilizing local nurses and health professionals to fill shifts at facilities. By not using expensive travel nurses or health professionals, facilities can save money and support the local healthcare community.
Medely makes it easier for facilities to fill shifts with an all-in-one platform, facilities don’t have to hassle with individually calling staff or their float pool to find someone to fill a shift. Facilities can post a shift through Medely in just a few minutes, which sends a job posting notification out to all eligible nurses and health professionals on the Medely platform in their area.
Facilities have two different options for posting shifts through Medely. They can utilize just the Talent Marketplace, which provides facilities access to a network of over 300,000 nurses and health professionals nationwide. When needs arise, they can simply post a shift to the Talent Marketplace where one of Medely’s verified, credentialed nurses and health professionals can pick it up at a moment’s notice.
Our second offering is our more robust extended workforce offering, Talent Fusion. Talent Fusion makes it easy to keep track of all a facility’s extended workforce, including personal float pool, Medely’s Talent Marketplace, and any agencies a facility uses through our Vendor Management System. It works the same as posting to our Talent Marketplace, but our Talent Fusion offering helps facilities get the most cost-effective solution possible.
With our waterfall feature, the shift will go through the most cost-effective solutions first, starting with a facility’s internal resource pool. If nobody in the internal pool can take the shift, it’ll then be pushed to our Talent Marketplace where Medely nurses and health professionals can pick up the shift. If neither of those options allows the shift to get picked up, it will get sent to a facility’s agencies through our Vendor Management System
Why Medely is more effective than other solutions
Medely offers advantages over solutions like agencies for filling staffing gaps because of our state-of-the-art technology and data-driven platform. We use technology and AI to consolidate lengthy, complicated spreadsheets that have important information like a health professional’s experience, specialties, or number of years worked, and cut out manual processes facility managers went through to get a shift filled, like calling, emailing, or texting their float pool individually to find someone to pick up a shift.
Medely also keeps track of critical data, such as the number of shifts that have been filled with Medely, the average hourly rate per shift, and the facility’s personal fill rate based on the number of shifts posted and how many were filled through Medely. With this data, our technology can help forecast when more staff might be needed based on past staffing needs and shifts posted.
With Medely, facilities aren’t committed to posting a certain number of shifts in a specific period of time. Simply post shifts when there’s a need, and they’ll be sent out to our network of nurses and health professionals who have the credentials, skills, and experience required to fill the shift effectively. No retainer fees or hidden costs–just pay the nurse or health professional for the hours worked.
We also give facilities access to our favorites feature so they post shifts and assignments first to nurses and health professionals who did a good job when there are shifts in the future. And if a nurse or health professional is not the right fit for the facility, facilities can easily block them from seeing any shifts posted in the future.
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