How Northwell Health Chose Prolucent’s Flexible Workforce Platform to Integrate Contingent Labor and Drive Efficiency.

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 addresses these challenges by providing a platform that streamlines flexible labor management through neutral, proprietary technology and expert services.

About Northwell Health

Northwell Health is the largest health system and private employer in New York, operating 21 hospitals and over 900 outpatient facilities throughout the greater New York area in one of the most populated and competitive healthcare markets in the U.S.

Situation

In 2014, Northwell developed an internal staffing agency called FlexStaff, built using custom technology to reduce dependency on costly outside agencies and offer employees flexible working opportunities. Although Flexstaff was vital to the health system during the Covid-19 pandemic, in the face of intense competition and the growing demand for healthcare services, Northwell leaned on external contract labor provided by a long-standing staffing agency-based managed service provider ‒ demand that surged even after the pandemic crisis subsided.

The continued high demand for labor coupled with future plans to expand and diversify FlexStaff across additional labor categories would require a new technology backbone that could scale and provide workforce agility across the health enterprise. With over 85,000 dedicated professionals and two million patients under their care each year, Northwell needed a game-changing solution to tackle the staffing complexities of their healthcare landscape. With a focus on scalability and sustainability, Northwell’s leadership initiated a plan to transform its flexible workforce model, recognizing the need to:

Key Objectives

Forge a single, scalable, flexible workforce model

using cutting-edge technology to gain visibility into open positions across the entire health system and deliver a diverse mix of flexible workers to all Northwell locations

Integrate FlexStaff’s custom technology with an enterprise-wide flexible workforce platform

streamlining the sourcing and deployment for both FlexStaff and external agency resources in one seamless workflow.

Implement a vendor-neutral MSP and VMS

aligning with corporate objectives for cost-effective contract labor management and priority use of internal FlexStaff labor.

The Approach

The Northwell team began an in-depth evaluation of VMS and labor management systems to support the company’s growth plans. Potential vendors were evaluated across several functions and capabilities, with a priority on vendor neutrality, the ability to seamlessly integrate with core HR systems, ease of use, and end-to-end order and staff pool management. After a comprehensive evaluation, Prolucent stood out as a holistic, comprehensive solution. A key factor in Northwell’s focus on Prolucent was their vendor-neutral MSP, without any staffing agency affiliation. Vendor neutrality would enable Northwell to access a diverse pool of talent across multiple staffing agencies to source external talent more cost effectively versus other solution providers who were aligned with a single staffing agency.

"Prolucent’s vendor neutrality was a huge plus and key to ensuring the most competitive rates and transparent pricing for sourcing our contingent labor"

Carolyn Doyle, CEO, FlexStaff

Eager to improve operational efficiencies and reduce labor costs that would result from having both FlexStaff and external staffing agencies integrated on one platform, Northwell chose to implement Prolucent’s flexible workforce platform leveraging the LiquidCompass MSP and VMS+ platform. With their cutting-edge flexible workforce platform and deep industry expertise, Prolucent became Northwell's strategic ally for managing both internal and external flexible labor resources on one platform across the enterprise.

Prolucent provides the technology and tools needed for end-to-end order and staff pool management, fulfillment, compliance, invoicing, and reporting to enable the management of all flexible labor on one unified platform, providing:

Efficiency

Streamlined candidate sourcing with a centralized platform and single enterprise-wide system for managing the entire flexible workforce from order approval to compliance and onboarding with automated deployment and scheduling.

Access and Scalability

Customized workflows scale staffing levels up or down as needed, ensuring continuity of care as demand for services fluctuates. Internal resources are used first, then contract labor is sourced as needed from a selection of staffing agencies to ensure competitive rates.

Integration

Integrated seamlessly with time and attendance and other HRIS systems.

Compliance and Credentialing

Automated credentialing process, providing a single source for labor credentialing and compliance and ensuring that all healthcare professionals meet needed qualifications and regulatory requirements.

Analytics

Real-time visibility into workforce data trends, hiring competition, and compensations data. Use of consolidated dashboards, advanced analytics, and centralized reporting on utilization, pay rates, time-to-fill, and contingent labor costs help inform staffing decisions.

Cost Savings

Vendor-neutrality drives competitive labor rates, customizable order distribution and tiered staffing reduces use of contract labor, reduced administrative burden improves time-to-fill for critical positions.

Success Measured

The implementation of Prolucent’s flexible workforce platform has significantly streamlined Northwell Health’s approach to temporary resource management. The innovative platform allowed Northwell to integrate and manage all aspects of its internal resource pool and external contract labor utilization, resulting in several key accomplishments:

over $25M

Annual Workforce cost savings

over 4000

Internal Agency Pool Workers

Increased Visibility

A key benefit of integrating FlexStaff and external agency resources on one platform has been the ability to view all open positions across the health system in order to make the cost-effective hiring decisions for temporary staff sourcing.

Expanded FlexStaff Internal Resource Pool

FlexStaff has grown to over 4,000 workers and will leverage Prolucent's technology platform and operational support to continue to expand service offerings.

Streamlined Use of External Contract Labor

Northwell has successfully streamlined the use of contract agency resources by implementing a single enterprise-wide system with prioritized ordering of temporary staffing requests to the internal staffing pool (FlexStaff) before requesting more expensive contract agency resources. The Northwell team sees Prolucent as the right partner to continue to scale the health system’s flexible workforce systems and processes for improved efficiencies and labor cost savings, estimated to be more than $25 million per year.

Seamless Integration and Reporting

Prolucent's flexible workforce platform has been seamlessly integrated into existing HR systems, enabling Northwell to automate key flexible workforce processes, optimize core workforce platforms, and transition from manual reports to standardized dashboards and automated reports—a big step towards data-driven decision-making. A significant benefit for Northwell has been the real-time, self-serve access to data and analytics on utilization and contingent labor costs.

Enhanced Contract Labor Management

The partnership has resulted in improved contract labor cost controls, compliance processes, and staffing agency payment processes fortifying Northwell's compliance framework, mitigating risks, and optimizing resource allocation.

Carolyn Doyle,
CEO of Flexstaff
"Our partnership with Prolucent has redefined how we approach flexible workforce management at Northwell. Together, we've unlocked new levels of flexibility, efficiency, and cost savings, all while delivering exceptional care to our patients.."

Conclusion

Looking Ahead

Prolucent's agility and tailored solutions met Northwell's evolving needs head-on, ensuring a seamless transition to a future-ready workforce. As Northwell continues to pioneer excellence in healthcare staffing, its partnership with Prolucent will be a cornerstone of its success story. Prolucent's innovative partnership and flexible workforce platform now allow Northwell Health to further scale and commercialize FlexStaff nationally, offering both healthcare job seekers and health system employers a range of temporary and direct hire services. Together, they are redefining the standards of flexible workforce management, setting a new benchmark for healthcare organizations nationwide.

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 LiquidCompass 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 staff
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

Data Engine & MSP Program

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

1
AI 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, built not to replace, but to complement, enhance, and consolidate your current workflows.