Mouhamad “Mo” Abbas, President of Vendor Management Solutions at AMN Healthcare, joins the show to discuss internal float pools and internal agencies in healthcare. In this episode, we explore why this topic is relevant in the current healthcare landscape, the difference between internal float pools and internal agencies, and their benefits for clinicians. Mo also highlights the critical components of setting up a successful float pool or internal agency, including technology platforms, clinician experience, centralized scheduling, compliance and credentialing, and data analytics. Finally, he shares the success story of a hospital system that achieved cost savings and workforce optimization through implementing a technology platform.
Mouhamad “Mo” Abbas, President of Vendor Management Solutions at AMN Healthcare, joins the show to discuss internal float pools and internal agencies in healthcare. In this episode, we explore why this topic is relevant in the current healthcare landscape, the difference between internal float pools and internal agencies, and their benefits for clinicians. Mo also highlights the critical components of setting up a successful float pool or internal agency, including technology platforms, clinician experience, centralized scheduling, compliance and credentialing, and data analytics. Finally, he shares the success story of a hospital system that achieved cost savings and workforce optimization through implementing a technology platform.
Get your personalized ShiftWise Flex demo: https://www.shiftwise.com/request-a-demo/?utm_source=Partner&utm_medium=Content&utm_campaign=Client_VMS_ShiftWiseFlex_ElevateCare_2024&LO=Content_Website
Download the whitepaper: https://www.amnhealthcare.com/siteassets/amn-insights/whitepapers/amn-three-steps-to-building-an-eff...
IRP Management:
https://www.amnhealthcare.com/amn-insights/technology/blog/managing-internal-resource-pools-internal...
Learn more about the show: https://www.amnhealthcare.com/campaign/elevate-care-podcast/
Chapters:
00:00 Meet Mo
01:27 The Relevance of Internal Float Pools and Internal Agencies
06:22 Barriers to Setting Up a Float Pool or Internal Agency
08:26 Key Must-Haves for Setting Up a Successful Internal Float Pool
13:52 Benefits and Success of Implementing Internal Float Pools
About Kerry:
Kerry Perez hosts the Elevate Care Podcast, dedicated to driving innovation in workforce technology, total talent management, and workforce staffing needs.
As the Vice President, Enterprise Strategy at AMN Healthcare, Kerry Perez leads the design and implementation of enterprise strategies to fuel growth and achieve market leadership.
With over 15 years of experience in various healthcare roles at AMN, including recruitment, marketing, innovation, strategy, and mergers and acquisitions, Kerry established AMN's Diligence and Integration Management Office in her previous role. There, she oversaw the strategic and functional integration of new acquisitions to enhance value.
Guided by principles of customer obsession, ambitious thinking, and tangible results, Kerry's personal and professional mantra is "Be a Somebody who Makes Everybody Feel Like a Somebody." Committed to mentoring emerging leaders and building high-performing teams, Kerry holds Bachelor of Arts degrees in Business Economics and Communication from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
About Mo:
Mouhamad “Mo” Abbas, joined as President of Vendor Management Systems (VMS) in 2022 . In this role, he has responsibility for all AMN’s VMS solutions (ShiftWise Flex, Medefis and b4Health).
Mr. Abbas joined AMN with over 20 years of experience in global talent management and as a SaaS and technology entrepreneur. He believes in making an impact to society by having an exceptional vision beyond the VMS in services and value delivery. He has a proven track record delivering state-of-the-art VMS solutions and has successfully implemented talent solutions and change management with several multi-industry global companies with various technologies.
Mr. Abbas most recently served as the Chief of Operations and Technology Innovations for Simplify Workforce, which he helped co-found. During his tenure there, he developed and drove market strategies, created a scalable model, and led marketing and sales, and implementation to multiple cross-industry clients, while also leading product innovation.
Mr. Abbas earned his MBA degree in MIS from St Edwards University, Austin, TX.
About The Show:
Elevate Care delves into the latest trends, thinking, and best practices shaping the landscape of healthcare. From total talent management to solutions and strategies to expand the reach of care, we discuss methods to enable high-quality, flexible workforce and care delivery. We will discuss the latest advancements in technology, the impact of emerging models and settings, physical and virtual, and address strategies to identify and obtain an optimal workforce mix. Tune in to gain valuable insights from thought leaders focused on improving healthcare quality, workforce well-being, and patient outcomes.
:
Welcome to Elevate Care, the show where health care professionals, visionaries, and thought leaders come together to discuss the endless possibilities of health care innovation. I'm your host, Kerry Perez, and I am joined here today by Mo Abbas, president of vendor management solutions at AMN Healthcare. Welcome Mo. Thank you very much, Kerry, for having me. So excited to have you. So hey, I first have to say I met you a few years ago and we started with the strategic planning process at AMN. And I just have to say, when you walked in the door, I was so impressed with the knowledge that you brought from the VMS space, as well as in the best way possible, you're such a truth teller, and just kind of told everything like it was, it was so refreshing. So thank you just for bringing such this great knowledge to AMN. Would you mind telling us a little bit more about yourself? Sure, sure. Thank you again for having me. I've been in this industry for about 22 years, workforce industry, especially on the contingent workforce side. It started really more on the commercial side, so pretty much kind of done it all MSP. But then the last about 10 years, I focused more on the technology side of things. So I actually co-founded a leading VMS solution on the commercial side. Then actually healthcare started triggering my interest in the last few years. And I found AMN to be the perfect place to come and really move on with my innovative ideas for the healthcare industry. I love that. So speaking of innovative ideas, we are here today to talk about internal float pool, internal agency. And I'm wondering, why is that a topic right now? What has changed in the health care landscape where it makes it relevant? Absolutely. It's a big topic right now because post-pandemic, hospital systems, a lot of organizations start really having some hard time with the cost. And they wanted basically innovative solutions, creative ideas to attract, but also engage with clinicians. So any opportunity that where they can actually bring talents from different kind of sources and channels to deploy them to open assignments, that's basically what the need came from. So it is really the need for speed and cost, reducing the cost as well. Okay. And you know, I hear these terms, interchangeably sometimes internal agency, internal float pool. What's the difference? Yeah, it can get confusing sometimes, right? Let me kind of step back and talk about a little bit about the definition, right, of what we call an internal resource pool. Number one, it's not a new thing. It's basically been in the market for a long time. And simply an internal resource pool, Kerry, is a talent pool that our clients or hospital systems, usually they... Attract and Engage. And let's focus, we're going to focus a little bit later on the word engage, because that's going to be a very key one. So they attract them, how do I attract them from different sourcing channels? Could be somebody who worked there before, could be a retiree, it could be somebody who applied for a full-time job through their ATS. So they basically have that talent pool that they can actually deploy them to different kind of engagements. So that's what we call an internal resource pool. Now, this is where you get into then, you know, What's the float pool and what is internal agency? They're very, actually very, very similar, right? They are a part of that internal resource pool. It's just the way you engage with the clinician, that's the only difference. The float pool is when you deploy that clinician for a more shift-based engagement, while the internal agency is when you deploy the clinician on more longer-term assignments. So if I'm a nurse, do I know the shifts that I'm going to, or am I kind of figuring that out on a daily basis? How's that experience for the nurse? or the clinician. Absolutely, absolutely. Historically, that experience has not been very good. And that's why really the needs and the challenge for that hospital systems are really faced with is, how can I actually deploy that nurse rapidly, quickly? You know, that nurse is ready to go. How can I actually go and direct that nurse to an open shift immediately? And that's what we're probably gonna be talking a little bit more about is how the technology have been evolving in the last couple years. to really speed up that process of deploying the nurse into open shifts. OK. And does the nurse maintain a full-time position, or are they full-time in this resource pool? That's a good question. Usually, they are a full-time employee for the client or for the hospital system. It's just the way they're deployed, from how it sounds floating. So they float from. one hospital to another. For example, the hospital system might have 10, 15 locations. So that clinician might take one assignment or one shift tomorrow with hospital A. Next day, they might take another shift with hospital B. That's... 10 miles away, right? And they are a full time, but they're just, they're deployed in a, you know, as needed basis and they just don't go to the same job in the same location every day. Okay, and so it saves the client money because they're able to utilize this nurse in multiple different shifts, as opposed to having to find a single nurse for each one of these shifts? 100%. The client basically deploy these flexible float pools when they actually have... all of a sudden an open shift needs. So let's say somebody on maternity leave, somebody goes to a vacation, somebody basically out in an unexpected way, they have that float pool who are very flexible. Who can they just block into these shifts? And then sometimes why it's attractive has been, especially in the last couple of years, it's actually still a cost savings versus utilizing an agency, a staffing agency program fulfill the shifts that they have. Got it. OK, so they are sort of operating the float pool. Yes. OK, fantastic. So you mentioned it's been around for a long time, but it might not be as easy to set up. What are some of the barriers that hospitals maybe face in setting up a float pool or internal agency? That's a great question. It's basically the barriers is really around not having the right technology, right? Historically, when we looked at our clients, pretty much a lot of them, they have been managing their internal resource pool. There's no consistent way, number one. Sometimes they don't even have the right skill sets and the right setup to even manage it. But then the technology, right? Some of them, they actually manage it just on an Excel and email, right? Some of them, they manage it utilizing their HRIS system that sometimes it's not really fully, you can use it for that specific purpose. So they have not really been a really consistent and innovative way to actually manage it in an effective way. And that's why since the post pandemic, that's really the innovation that has been happening. That's really the big change happening in the float pool is really these old new technology platforms that actually manage effectively, number one, effectively the float pool. And number two, very importantly, is combine it with the management of your contingent workforce program is key. Historically, they actually manage them separately. So even if they had to travel a program, let's say an external MSP, they always manage their floatspool separately. And that's all, you know, managing two separate things is always kind of created a lot of a lot of issues because you really don't have that visibility and control over just one system. Increase speed to fill while reducing costs with ShiftWise Flex, a fully configurable VMS that leverages the power of artificial intelligence. Visit ShiftWise.com to learn more. Okay, so I've heard technology is key, the ability to sort of manage and see things sort of holistically. What are some other key must haves that a hospital has to have in order to get this kind of up and running? That's a great question. So since we start talking about technology, I'm going to start talking about technology. So workforce technology platform is key here. And that technology platform could be, you know, as simple as a vendor management solutions. But, Kerry, nowadays the VMS is way beyond the VMS, not just the VMS, right? So having the right components of a vendor of a technology platform is key, especially when that technology platform can actually plug into the clients or the hospital systems back office system to automate and create a lot of efficiency. A couple of examples is one, it's automated with their HRS system, automated with their time and attendance system like a Cronus, for example. The client can actually incur a lot of what we call a soft dollar savings by actually automating some of these processes. So that's technology. Number two, when you get into really the other must haves or the other things is clinician experience. The way you engage with the clinician, remember a minute ago we talked about ability for the client to attract but engage. The engagement is key here. because the way you engage the clinician is after you attract them. If you don't keep engaging them, especially between assignments and shifts, they might just go work somewhere else. So having a really good technology like a mobile application where you're keeping to engage the clinicians, push auto matching, for example, the clinician with open jobs, even the ability for the clinician to have the freedom to schedule themselves, to book themselves, to have a... really nice view in a mobile app where they can say, okay, I'm taking a shift tomorrow, I'm skipping the day after tomorrow because I'm going to be off. So let them manage their own schedule, but they need a technology to do that. They can submit their own credentialing, for example, in that mobile application. So, and then even beyond the shift management that clinician experience really also involve even pushing to them some kind of like a community updates or any updates that really they have around where they live or around where they work. So the clinician experience is very key here. A third part of this is the compliance and credentialing. Compliance and credentialing of course in hospital or in the healthcare staffing is as you know, is a very key, right? Usually clinician cannot work for a hospital system until they're fully credentialed. And the credentialing and the compliance carry is two parts. Part of it is the technology itself. So having an easy technology that can give the clients the visibility to manage the credentialing, but even the ongoing management of the credentialing, give you an example, you know, push a, you know, manage an expiration date for, you know, for a credential and the compliance. But then this is not just a technology play carry, it's also wrapping up the process, the approach. around the technology. So compliance and credentialing is a third component. A fourth component is a centralized scheduling platform. And this is where the hospital system have a really holistic view of scheduling. So it's really a nice view of, it's kind of part of the technology where you can look at the schedule and it's going to actually easy find out, okay, I have an up and shift here, so it's actually easy to go fill it, right? So, So that visibility, that scheduling platform visibility is very key also for the components part of managing a float pool. And then finally, part of it is, which is you're hearing a lot, and that's really one of the big innovative things that we have been seeing in the last couple of years is smart analytics and market insights. And especially when you provide it in a self-service. So using really the... an AI for data analytics, really supporting the client with data to really give them the information they need to make informed decisions on their workforce strategy. So having that reporting and data analytics on more self-service base, and then it's basically really finding out what's going on with their program. We talked a minute ago about combining your internal resource pool. with your own contingent workforce to really give the client that holistic management and view and visibility and control also of their workforce strategy. And then you have market insights. Market insights, especially during the pandemic, a lot of hospitals systems during the pandemic felt that they made too much money, right? They basically said, did we actually overpay? And this is where the need starting for a really true... visibility into market insights. So now having a dashboard that really gives the client a market insights around, okay, am I paying on market, above market, below market, and then really they're looking at the data themselves and making a decision on really changing the rates that they wanted to provide. And carry all of these components that we talked about, it serves two things. Number one is the speed. So speeding of deploying the clinician. Number two is the cost. And then as you know, there is a hard dollar, and a soft dollar cost savings that they can achieve there. Super great overview. A lot to take in, not to put you on the spot, but could you rattle that list off just in the list order of what the must haves are? Sure. So number one is a technology platform, a workforce technology platform. Number two is the clinician experience. Number three is the centralized scheduling platform. Number four is the credentialing and the compliance piece of it. And then number five is the data analytics and the market insights. Perfect. Super helpful. One last poll on that clinician experience. Why is this a great kind of choice for a clinician? Why are they attracted right now to Float Pool? It's the freedom of building their own lifestyle. It's the freedom of basically really managing their own schedule, right? You know, you have the, and that's why we keep saying the engagement of the clinician, they go, they can book themselves for the next five weeks, or they can book themselves for the next two days and then block off their calendar for a couple of days. So it's really their freedom of doing the work whenever they wanna do it, and it's at their base, basically. Have you seen any sort of success from a hospital where you can actually kinda talk to the savings or whatever those key metrics of success are for them? 100%, yeah, there's basically a few of them, but the one that's basically in my mind is we basically have a client in the East Coast. They are basically a multi-location, large academic medical center. At one point they were managing two separate programs. One program which is their external traditional MSP and then they had also internally managing their internal resource pool. They're having a lot of issues with basically just visibility or managing two different pieces that really kind of they should be really together. What we did is we basically brought this program. We basically custom built a technology platform for them. And they basically went from external management of an MSP to actually more a self-service. So we give them, we armed that client or that hospital system with the technology. We basically also integrated with their back office system. So they actually immediately gained a lot of efficiency. And again, this is what we talk about, the soft dollar savings there. So part of this, you know, deploying the workforce technology for that. for that client, they achieved many things. Number one, they were able to still manage about 80 suppliers. They were actually able to save about 20% on their contingent workforce spend by really doing the proper utilization of their workforce. And then this is basically all around the workforce optimization that they went through. They were actually able to fill an average of about 17,000 per DM shift per month. And then while managing, they had about a 700 internal resource pools that they basically attracted and they were able to really keep engaged for the long term. That is excellent. Mo, thank you so much. I have one last sort of personal question. Why are you hopeful about healthcare today? I'm very hopeful because there's a lot of innovation happening in the healthcare sector there. end of the day, our goal, Kerry, is to provide our clients and the hospital systems with really the best solutions to really end of the day, continue providing excellent patient care. I think that's end of the day. That's what's the goal. You know, if you ask what's the overall goal of a hospital system, they just want the right clinician in the right time and the right price, right? So we, you know, we're here to help our hospital system focus on what they do better, which is patient care. Fantastic. Such great information today. Thank you for keeping innovation going at AMN and within the healthcare industry. Thank you for joining us today on Elevate Care. If you found this episode valuable, please consider sharing it with a colleague and subscribing to our show on your favorite podcast platform. You can learn more about this episode and our show on our website at amnhelfcare.com and follow us on social media to stay updated on new episodes and the ever changing world of healthcare.