Dartmouth Health targets workforce challenges and reduces contract labor costs with Prolucent Health.

Introduction

Healthcare has been facing workforce management challenges like shortages in staff, higher turnover rates, compliance, and varying localized market conditions. It has become crucial to balance costs and integrate technology for efficient operations to ensure employee and system well being. This case study explains how Prolucent Health addresses these challenges by providing a platform that streamlines flexible labor management through neutral, proprietary technology and expert services.

About Dartmouth Health

DH is New Hampshire’s only academic health system and the state’s largest private employer, with over 13,000 employees. It is anchored by its academic medical center, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) and owns and operates 5 other acute care hospitals and a network of related healthcare facilities throughout New Hampshire and Vermont. DHMC is consistently named the #1 hospital in New Hampshire by U.S. News & World Report. DH currently operates a system-wide internal resource pool in partnership with Prolucent, with over 100 RNs working as per-diem or full-time internal travelers.

Situation

DH is primarily located in rural areas of NH, where it faces perpetual RN and clinical worker shortages that are even more severe than those faced by most major academic medical centers in the U.S. This has been compounded by DHMC’s recent addition of a new 65-bed patient pavilion, high cost of living, and very low unemployment in the Upper Valley region of NH. These factors have resulted in DH relying on RN travelers in some areas to continually maintain its very favorable staffing levels and deliver the high level of care that is core to its mission.

Elevated, ongoing traveler utilization led DH to determine it needed a comprehensive system-wide flexible workforce strategy, IRP operation, and technology to actively recruit and deploy internal and external flexible resources in an optimal manner. DH leadership’s goal was to meet the following key strategic objectives:

01
Address the immediate financial and workforce challenges DH was facing.
02
Build a scalable and sustainable flexible workforce model that is designed for a future that will increasingly rely on the ability to hire and deploy a growing mix of flexible workers.
03
Expand the DH employee value proposition to include a portfolio of flexible work opportunities that help recruit and retain permanent employees that are looking for something other than unit-based full-time work.

Key Challenges

Some key challenges that the DH and Prolucent teams have had to collectively address in the design and management of this solution include:

Building an IRP to float across hospitals with high variation in acuity and services

DHMC is the region’s only level-one trauma center and has very high acuity and specialization in most of its inpatient units. Some of the other DH locations are community hospitals with lower levels of care and acuity. The team has addressed this by actively recruiting clinicians who have the backgrounds and desire to work in this variety of environments, in addition to developing an orientation and training model in which staff are prepared for success and growth in all environments.

Implementing a system-wide IRP and flexible workforce strategy in a decentralized health system

DH has grown over the past decade through the acquisition of established hospitals to add to the DHMC family. While DH wholly owns its hospitals, each location has traditionally operated independently in terms of clinical operations, leadership, workforce, and a variety of key systems. This IRP and flexible workforce initiative has been one of the first truly system-wide operational initiatives. The Prolucent team has deep experience in implementing system-wide workforce initiatives across large decentralized IDNs and regional health systems. We have actively leveraged this experience to work with DH leaders at the system and local level to successfully implement a flexible workforce program that is thoughtful and inclusive of all key stakeholders and requirements.

The Approach

DH partnered with Prolucent to accomplish its goals. Specifically, Prolucent provides the following services and technology to DH:

IRP Services and Resources.

Internal Resource Pool (IRP) strategy, IRP operational development and ongoing operational support for the DH IRP team and 100+ nursing IRP workers.

Flexible Workforce Platform (FWP)

Deployment of the Prolucent FWP to enable DH to manage all aspects of its IRP and external contract labor utilization, with integrations to all core workforce systems including time & attendance, scheduling, and ERP.

Recruitment Marketing and Digital Front Door Technology

Recruitment marketing services and technology to help DH IRP and talent acquisition teams recruit flexible and all system and unit-based permanent workers.

Vendor-neutral MSP and VMS

Services and technology to help DH manage all its staffing agencies and all aspects of contract labor requestion, fulfillment, compliance, and payments with standardized workflows and reporting. Done in a manner that seamlessly identifies, prioritizes, and deploys IRP workers before external agency workers.

Workforce strategy consulting and workforce analytics services

Prolucent provides strategy and analytics services to DH clinical, HR, operations, and finance leaders on a variety of key DH workforce initiatives including market competition and benchmark analysis, core TA functions and unit-based staff budget balancing.

Success Measured

Prolucent has helped DH achieve all the objectives outlined above through the deployment of its modern, proprietary technology and expert services. Not only are the cost savings significant for the DH system, but also the program has had great success recruiting new flexible workers to the organization while helping Dartmouth Health retain full-time workers who were leaving the system to find flexible opportunities.

Workforce cost savings

over $30M

IRP workers that are NEW to Dartmouth Health

90%

IRP nursing staff

Increased pool by 100+

Reduced annual turnover by

10%

Our Story

Why Prolucent

Workforce is evolving

As much as 50% of the workforce predicted to go flexible...

More Career Control
Explore new specialties
More Flexibility
Earn Extra Money

Employers are responding with:

Leaders lack confidence in the long-term viability and cost of these options.

Agency MSP and VMS
Traditional and Gig agencies
Existing or new core tech
Point Solutions

Best practices of a viable solution

Do they seem achievable with your current options?

Job that appeal to all types of workers
Does not compete with you for talent
Improves costs.
Enhances your core technology systems.

Why we built Prolucent

Gives you the tools to win the workforce.

Engage your entire workforce.
Make you the employer of choice
Reduce labor costs
Enhance your core technology

Prolucent’s transformative solution

A workforce building ecosystem, to address your whole workforce, without rip & replace or margin lost to agencies.

Our Platform

The tools you need to build your whole workforce

Including core staff, internal flexible and external flexible.

Talent Digital Front Door

Recruitment marketing, job search, and applicant experience technology for all your work options for all employment types.

1
Integrated to your ATS
2
Integrated to all your existing, plus new applicant sources.
3
Modern job search focused on candidate experience.
4
CRM tools to promote higher conversion rates and engage past applicants
5
Your jobs promoted in liquid compass marketplace (mobile App, web and 300+ affiliate sites)

Flexible Workforce Platform

We do not profit from employing the workforce you need. We help you “own” flexible labor and build your workforce for the future.

1
Integrated to your Scheduling and Time & Attendance so you can manage flexible staff like you do core stff.
2
Designed to help you build a robust internal agency.
3
Address all specialities for contract and per diem.
4
Manage the entire order life cycle from order management to compliance, to time, invoicing and reporting.
5
Built to help you reduce reliance on outside agency.

Date Engine & MSP Program

Whole-house, data, reporting, product features, and managed services aimed at delivering a lower cost workforce.

1
At Engine analyzes and normalized all data from jobs, orders, workers, interactions, and more to enable for your workforce.
2
Compares core talent acquisition efforts against flexible labor utilization to drive actionable cost reduction strategies.
3
Measures all workforce sources, volume, event and conversion efficacy to drive engagement tactics.
4
Integrate custom data extracts to your core BI reporting.
5
MSP Services to help develop and implement strategies, provide execution support and achieve goals.

Technology Consolidation

Deep two way integrations with your WFM, HRIS and ERP systems not to replace, but to complement, enhance, and consolidate your current workflows.

WHAT WE ACHIEVED

Conclusion

Prolucent Health is focused on streamlining workforce
management processes with unique technology and expert services to address staffing challenges, reduce labor costs and optimize staff allocation. Prolucent’s work allowed advancement in scheduling, better management of contingent labor and helped Dartmouth Health maintain its high patient care standards. Prolucent health has provided the flexibility needed to adapt to changing demands in healthcare, while making more informed decisions for long term sustainability.

This is a highly collaborative partnership between DH and Prolucent teams. Our collective teams believe this cannot be a static strategy because of the highly dynamic and evolving nature of today’s healthcare workforce. Our teams work together to actively manage flexible workforce strategies to ensure continued success.