Our Partner: A Not-for-Profit Healthcare System in the Mid-Atlantic With 5 Hospitals
The Challenge
Like many health systems, our long-term partner struggled with the increased usage of traveler nurses due to the lack of full-time nurses available to fill open jobs within their system. In January 2022, our partner had 325+ open RN roles and was using 514 travel RNs. The extensive use of travel nurses costs our partner millions in premium labor.
Our Solution
Hueman worked with our partner to devise and implement creative tactics to decrease travel nurse usage, decrease the number of open RN roles, and increase the full-time RN population.
Some of the creative tactics included:
- An aggressive ‘Welcome Home’ campaign to target and convert RNs who recently left the health system but were eligible for rehire
- An agency conversion campaign to target and convert current travelers, engage them in the organizational culture, and ultimately convert them to full-time employees (FTE)
- Trial implementation of two internal agencies to support the ED and behavioral health department – the two departments that faced the most challenges when hiring full-time nurses
- Ramping up an international nurse staffing program
Our Results
In 9 months, our partner more than doubled their RN hires and decreased their open RN roles by 35% from 326 down to 211 openings. As a result of the welcome home and travel nurse conversion campaigns, we made more than 50 full-time RN hires. Finally, we decreased traveler usage by 61%, resulting in $48M+ savings per year in premium labor costs.