In early 2024, Medely asked healthcare leaders about the current state of their workforce and how they address labor shortages. Medely discovered that 74% of the 260 surveyed healthcare leaders say they are either understaffed or fully staffed but unable to cover any absences.
Here’s a breakdown of what else we discovered about staffing levels at healthcare facilities across the country:
- 37% of healthcare leaders surveyed say their facility is understaffed
- 37% of those surveyed say their facility is fully staffed but not able to cover vacations and call-outs
- 45% of those surveyed use their part-time or full-time staff to cover shortages
- 19% of healthcare leaders say they are fully staffed and can cover call-outs
Although a healthcare leader’s initial reaction to understaffing may be adding more in-house staff, recruiting or reducing staff can prove to be an inflexible way to accommodate absences or patient surges. With in-house staff, the cycles of adding and removing staff to suit the needs of your patients and facility are too slow and laborious to be effective. Being unable to meet your facility’s needs quickly is a consequence of a workforce strategy that relies on inflexible labor sources.
Not only is recruiting full-time staff more inflexible, but in-house staff can also be an expensive labor source for most healthcare facilities because of all-in costs, including recruiting, retention, training, orientation, and benefits.
A recent case study of a surgical center in Maryland found that Medely saved their facility 18% on labor costs versus hiring full-time staff for the shifts they covered via Medely.
How Medely can help
A talent marketplace like Medely is a resource that you can add to your labor mix that can save time and costs and give you more control over your staffing.
Medely helps thousands of facilities nationwide to address the healthcare industry’s staffing shortages. Our talent marketplace of thousands of independent nurses and allied healthcare contractors for dozens of specialties can help you meet patient demand without burning out your existing staff. Best of all, Medely’s flexible staffing solution allows healthcare leaders to use Medely as much or as little as they need to fill shifts and assignments.
Instead of adding more full-time or part-time staff, which can increase your facility’s overhead and be financially detrimental during low census periods, a flexible staffing solution like Medely can save your facility on labor costs while helping your facility provide quality patient care.
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