A fully configured vendor management system could be part of your answer This year hospitals have until March 15 to complete HHN’s Most Wired Survey, a series of about sixty questions that aid an elite panel of hospital and information technology leaders in determining which U.S. hospitals lead the pack in the adoption and implementation of innovative healthcare technologies. The idea behind the survey is to recognize hospitals for unique healthcare IT projects that improve the wellbeing of patients, staff and stakeholders. What’s different about this year’s Most Wired Survey is the heightened emphasis on hospitals’ use of analytics and reporting, business processes reshaping the way healthcare does business in an era when performance, measurability and accountability are the new kings of conscientious hospital CEOs. For example, the survey question: “What management tools are available online?” which asks survey takers if they engage an enterprise management solution, shift-bidding, or a workforce management tool that measures staff productivity and cost trends. What would your answer be? Would it be: "Yes, my hospital vendor management tells me how much my contingent workforce costs me in a click of a mouse." or "No, you’ll have to give me a day [+]

Healthcare facilities of all sizes can contain costs, track contingent workforce activities and optimize healthcare staffing spend Human resource professionals find oasis in Vendor Management System contingent labor technologies You're a human resources leader at a busy hospital facility. The pressure is on to make every healthcare staffing penny count, and with healthcare reform expanding patient populations and restructuring reimbursements, higher ups are calling on you to support healthcare staffing decisions with ROI. Enter "Vendor Management Systems" or VMS. A means of tracking patterns in staffing volume, quantifying the performance of contingent workers and managing all costs associated with a contingent workforce of nurses, doctors, therapists, PAs, interns, orderlies and volunteers. It's free to implement, and peers in the profession have told you their vendor management system saves time and money. It's tremendous, say peers, to view and manage all of their healthcare travelers, per diems, locum tenens and scope-of-work contractors in real time and with just an Internet connection. Having access to a highly competitive healthcare staffing environment, where staffing agencies bid on postings and where volume pricing with preferred vendors can be negotiated. “Whereas one staffing vendor agency may have a stated  bill rate of $64 an hour  [+]

Simulation testing gaining in healthcare employer nurse training circles With healthcare reform’s focus on patient safety, lower readmission rates and reduced medical errors, it makes sense for healthcare employers to conduct nursing simulations as a means of assembling surgical checklists, timing procedures and correcting flaws in protocols, equipment and training before something goes awry in the real world. What nursing simulation does for nurse training, say hospital administrators, is give nurses the opportunity to practice in virtual environments where they aren’t “under the gun,” so as to better familiarize nurses with how to prioritize in critical situations. Additionally, nursing simulation allows practitioners to train on new clinical processes and to enhance individual and team skills before encountering patients in the real world, where stressful situations can lead to medical errors. Though simulation testing is nothing new to the nurse training world, the process an ideal way for healthcare employers to evaluate where patient care delivery can be streamlined and made more convenient and safer for the patient and medical staff. One Abington Pennsylvania healthcare employer reported great success with nursing simulation when developing an ER program to improve upon the hospital’s left-without-treatment rates.  Another relied on nursing [+]

Higher levels of education in healthcare have been tied to improved patient safety, outcomes and satisfaction. The demand for nurses with advanced degrees, such as the Advanced Nurse Practitioner, is increasing in clinical and educational settings, and even physical therapists are finding their skills in high demand, especially DPT's in sought-after specialties. The growth in outpatient care and the profession’s thirst for direct patient access, means that the DPT (Doctorate of Physical Therapy) is becoming the minimum for entering the field. Employing the best-educated, experienced nurses and therapists can make all the difference in quality patient care, no matter the type of facility. Consequently, hospitals and outpatient centers have begun increasingly upgrading the educational levels of their staffs and searching for caregiver graduates with terminal degrees. For this reason, healthcare employers choose to utilize the services of  Candidate Direct Marketplace TM (CDM) - a web-based, leading-edge technology that enables nurse managers and administrators to fulfill contingent workforce needs and to source candidates from anywhere in the country. This simplified workforce management solution helps healthcare organizations increase fill rates, decrease staffing spend, and, perhaps most importantly, significantly reduce time to hire. Product Development Manager for Candidate Direct, Sue Higgins, said [+]