Short staffing in the nursing industry is a challenge that preceded the COVID-19 pandemic. As noted by the Office of Health Policy, the combination of an aging workforce and the lack of training availability had effectively reduced the supply of qualified nurses as early as 2016. The pandemic not only exacerbated these difficulties but also drove away valuable talent because of the excessive strain placed on the healthcare system during the public health emergency. Travel nursing served as a passable solution for some time, but that trend is fading.
In the nominally post-pandemic era, healthcare leaders realize the importance of long-term solutions to their nursing shortages. Pandemic-era remedies have proven too costly and ineffective for long-term sustainability. Instead, organizations are looking toward a new approach to a tried-and-true solution: partnering with a specialized staffing agency like Medix.
The 3 Biggest Challenges to Staffing in the Nursing Industry
Below are the three biggest challenges to staffing that the nursing industry continues to face:
High Demand, Low Supply
Demand for skilled nurses continues to outpace supply, especially when it comes to registered nurses. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects only a 6% growth in the registered nursing profession from 2022 to 2032, which is just 3% higher than the projection for all occupations and far below the 38% for nurse anesthetists, midwives, and practitioners. However, the numbers may be insufficient to cover the needs of an aging population, especially considering shortages in nursing school faculty, high attrition rates in nursing, and the number of current nurses nearing retirement.
Hard-To-Fill Roles
The demand for nursing specialists rises in direct correlation with the specific type of experience and qualifications needed to fulfill the role. That’s why some of the most demanding nursing jobs—in critical care, neonatal, psychiatric, and more—are some of the most challenging to fill.
Balancing Your Labor Mix
Labor mix refers to the proportions of different employee types in your workforce. In healthcare, it’s principally about balancing your full-time staff with your contract workforce. Full-timers are a generally reliable group of talent you can more easily incentivize and engage, but they represent higher costs in terms of salaries, training, and benefits. Your contingent workforce is lower-cost and flexible but also transient and potentially more difficult to retain.
How Medix Helps You Overcome Nurse Staffing Challenges
One of the simplest and most streamlined solutions to individual nursing shortages is to hire a staffing agency with extensive experience in the healthcare sphere. Working with Medix, you’re not merely outsourcing your hiring processes but engaging with a partner who offers a proactive, hands-on solution. In doing so, your healthcare organization gains the following advantages:
Industry Expertise
Having more than 20 years of healthcare specialization, Medix approaches nurse staffing with deep familiarity. We apply our industry expertise to identify and vet skilled talent from a pool exceeding 3 million healthcare professionals. With our Joint Commission certification, we ensure high-quality processes as we strive to deliver highly-qualified candidates to your organization.
Culture Alignment
Talent retention relates as much to an individual’s personality as to their skill set. Medix can help ensure candidate alignment with your organizational culture in several ways:
- MyPrint: This assessment tool enables us to identify candidates who are both highly skilled and capable of assimilating into your organization.
- Flexibility: Take advantage of temporary-to-permanent contracts to assess for yourself whether a candidate is potentially a long-term fit.
- Local talent: Medix can connect you with local candidates who may be more interested in long-term opportunities, a driving force that often incentivizes cultural alignment and reduces the need to rely on costly travel nurses.
Dedicated Process Management
Your Medix recruitment team handles the entire staffing process—sourcing, interviewing, onboarding, scheduling, and even payroll management—while continuing to build your talent pipeline. We also provide on-demand access to progress indicators to help you evaluate your talent, including productivity metrics, real-time hour tracking, and project spending.
Without the right nursing staffing solution in place, healthcare organizations face serious risks to their ability to fulfill operations and satisfy patient needs. Having Medix on your side helps you get ahead of those risks. As a trusted and award-winning agency, we take pride in being a dedicated partner that internalizes your staffing needs. We’re determined to leverage our expertise and our nationwide pool of resources to help you reach your organizational goals.
Contact us today and discover for yourself the advantages of a staffing partnership with Medix.
