Conversation with... Jason Lander

The advantages of a one-source vendor management service

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Jason Lander (ShiftWise)

As the company's founder and vice president of business development, Jason Lander applied his industry knowledge to create ShiftWise's one-source vendor management service, which delivers automated staffing solutions to more than 250 hospitals, 10 hospital associations and hundreds of staffing agencies. In the one-on-one session that follows, Landers discusses Shiftwise's role in the ever-changing staffing industry.
 

RT Image: What inspired you to found ShiftWise?

Jason Lander: Working as a sales manager for a number of years for several staffing agencies, I saw, firsthand, the frustration and chaotic staffing process that exists in and between staffing agencies and the hospitals they serve. Part of my job as a sales manager was to seek out the pain points of our clients and work to resolve them. In my dealings with these clients, the main issue I heard them complain about, time and time again, was not necessarily their need for staff, but the process by which they procured this staff.

I believed firmly that there had to be a better way to resolve these process issues for both the hospital and the agency. And I now feel confident in stating that we have found one with ShiftWise.

RT: How does ShiftWise's vendor management service work?

Lander: Our service allows hospitals and agencies to eliminate their manual and paper staffing processes by providing them with online tools to effectively and efficiently manage all of their staffing needs. Instead of spending hours on the phone, sending faxes and sifting through piles of credential paperwork, time slips and invoices, all of this can now be done online with a simple, user-friendly medium with ShiftWise. All of this efficiency results in increased employee productivity, decreased staffing costs and ultimately, better quality patient care.

We analogize our system to Orbitz or Travelocity. In the same way you [can] go online to enter the flight criteria you are searching for when taking a trip somewhere and then choose the best option from the returned results, you can now schedule supplemental healthcare professionals. When hospitals have a need for supplemental staff, they can simply go online to ShiftWise, enter the shift criteria and quickly review a list of matching candidates who can work the shift.

From this list, hospitals now have a choice. Instead of taking a healthcare professional from the first agency to call them back, who may, incidentally, be the least qualified, most expensive candidate, hospitals can now choose the best candidate for each position based on skill set, performance scores, orientation, previous visits, overtime hours and price.

In addition, all of the subsequent actions of staffing are handled through ShiftWise, as well. Hospitals can reconcile and approve time slips and invoices, and track and manage credentials all online. Further, the usage, cost and performance data that can be compiled from reports within ShiftWise is an incredibly valuable tool for hospitals to use to take control over their staffing process.

RT: What makes your company different from other staffing agencies?

Lander: ShiftWise is not a staffing agency. We do not recruit, screen, hire or place healthcare professionals for hospitals.ShiftWise is vendor-neutral in its service delivery.We simply provide a means for both hospitals and staffing agencies to conduct their business in the most convenient, efficient and cost-effective manner possible.

RT: You recently expanded your system to allow hospitals to add their existing staff to the pool of resources that can fill open staff opportunities. How will this further benefit facilities?

Lander: There are many long-term solutions being created to help lessen the impact of the shortage of healthcare professionals across the nation. However, one of the things I've always said is that if you don't have control over your staffing process in the short term, you will have a staffing shortage today. Our ShiftWise Internal Resource Pool (IRP) product allows hospitals to take more control over – and better manage – their staffing process.

Typically, when a hospital has a need for supplemental staff, they don't go directly to staffing agencies. They will first pick up the phone and call down a list of all of their employees to see if any of them can fill this extra shift. Imagine the time it takes to call and leave messages for 20 to 50 employees every time you need extra staff. With ShiftWise IRP hospitals can notify all of their internal staff of open shifts in a matter of seconds.

Our IRP product allows hospitals to implement internal resource pools for the first time or to use the staff in their existing resource pools more effectively. By doing so, they are able to reduce their usage and dependency on outside staff, while at the same time boosting the morale of their internal staff by allowing them to pick up more shifts and have more say over their schedule.

In addition, this product is helping hospitals to look more closely and better understand how to effectively use supplemental staff. This includes agency staff, as well.Hospitals begin to see the value of flexible staff, be they from their own internal pools or staffing agencies, and their overall staffing process is dramatically improved.

RT: Can you tell us a little bit about the shift bidding functionality of the service?

Lander: We have found "shift bidding" to be a slightly controversial topic.Some hospitals love the concept, while others are adamantly opposed to it. Because of this variance in belief, we have built our IRP product to accommodate all of their needs.Our system can be set up to allow internal staff to confirm themselves into open shifts at the hospital.When they do this, based on the preference of the hospital, they can either simply be confirmed at their standard pay rate or they can make an "offer" on the shift. This means that staff can submit a rate, either higher or lower than their standard pay rate, at which they are willing to work the shift.

Another setting also allows staff, for hospitals that choose the functionality, to see the current lowest rate offered for each shift. In addition, hospitals can offer incentives for shifts, set high and low rate constraints for a shift and even make counter offers.

Something that sets our bidding feature apart from many of our competitors is that, at no time, do we allow the lowest bid on a shift to automatically win the shift. We feel that this forces us to make the staffing decision for the hospital and it is one based solely on a monetary value. It isn't accurate to suggest that the lowest paid healthcare professional is the best suited for the shift, and we don't think that patient care should be considered in these terms.

The pay rate at which an individual is willing to work a shift is simply one criteria of measurement when looking at available candidates and should also be considered against skill set, performance scores, orientation, previous visits and overtime hours.Ultimately, with ShiftWise, the candidate selection is always up to the hospital.

RT: While marketing the IRP (Internal Resource Pool) portion of your product, have you had concerns from the hospitals in having their technologists' names and contact information stored with a third-party on a Web-based system?

Lander: This has certainly been a question that our hospital clients have asked. However, we have addressed this concern and have had no issue with hospitals trusting our technology once we move forward. We use the same Internet standard security systems that banks and other Web sites containing sensitive data use to insure confidentiality.

Information security is one of our highest priorities. We use state-of-the-art software and other technologies to prevent unauthorized users from accessing our systems, especially those accessible from the Internet. Some of the measures we take are very apparent – encryption of sensitive data, password protections, etc. Some protocols, although less obvious, are equally effective.

For example, your user ID and password are entered on a page that does not use the https protocol, but the data is encrypted when you submit it. Once you click the "LOGIN" button, we secure the connection to our servers using SSL technology, then transmit your user ID and password. Once received, this information is transported within our systems via an encrypted network.

RT: What are your predictions for the radiology staffing shortage for the next five years? The next 10 years?

Lander: Although there are many organizations, such as state centers of nursing, working hard to create programs to reduce, if not eliminate, the shortage of healthcare professionals, I think we will continue to see the shortage increase over the next five to 10 years. Everyone can see that the demand for healthcare is only increasing, while our population continues to age.

However, as long as organizations like the ones I mentioned keep working toward their goal of ending this shortage and hospitals take action to control their staffing process on a daily basis, I am faithful that this problem will become more manageable. As hospitals begin to implement tools like ShiftWise to better understand and control their process, while also improving the morale of their employees from this modern day workforce, the situation will become more positive.

— Tom Schaffner