According to a staffing industry article dated April 11, 2013, sixty-seven percent of U.S. healthcare providers, including hospitals, have problems attracting experienced IT employees. This is based on the Towers Watson survey, “Closing the IT Talent Gap in Health Care.” Additionally, 38 percent reported retention issues. The problem escalates for Epic-certified professionals, with 73 percent of respondents reporting difficulty hiring these individuals to help gain compliance with new electronic medical record requirements.
Due to the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, which in turn is part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), demand for EMR consulting is on the rise and providers need help attesting for meaningful use (MU) Stage 1 and beyond. Most have not yet attested, and many who originally decided to tackle MU implementations, optimizations, and other projects on their own are feeling overstretched and overwhelmed and are scrambling for third-party assistance. Often times the same candidate resume will be submitted to the same position by multiple third-party EMR suppliers and all at varying bill rates. Yet most managers will select candidates on the basis of who appears to provide the best candidate at the time regardless of the rate or the supplier relationship.
Having a strategic Managed Service Provider (MSP) partner can help hospitals source and retain qualified EMR consultants in all areas of meaningful use. By utilizing a supplier focused approach, HC Select is able to create purposeful staffing partnerships between third-party vendors and client hospitals that provide significant results in both cost savings and quality placements. In one instance, a Southern California based hospital was able to save over $200K in consultant fees for a 2011 EPIC implementation. A strategic MSP partner like HC Select will help negotiate competitive bill rates, increase quality of placements, enhance supplier performance as well as ensure all third-party compliance with hospital policies and expense reporting. By building solid relationships with key suppliers and working with managers on identifying detailed staffing objectives, healthcare providers are better able to manage EMR implementation timelines when they employ a “client centered” MSP partner.
The HC Select team has over 40yrs of combined experience in MSP and staffing experience alongside with serving 70+ hospitals in the last 12 years. We are experts at providing strategic contingent workforce solutions with a client centered philosophy unique to the industry. Through our years of experience and benchmarking we have gained valuable insight as to what motivates suppliers in the market place and despite the most obvious answer… it’s not always price!
Please go to the consulting page of our website and view our business case study for more detail regarding the 2011 EPIC EMR implementation.
Original Article: HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS STRUGGLE IN IT RECRUITING