Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Staying Always-Ready: How Effective Workforce Management Becomes a Strategic Advantage

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Staying Always-Ready: How Effective Workforce Management Becomes a Strategic Advantage · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

• 0:00
  Hi, everyone. This is Lucas Voss with Becker's
• 0:02
  Healthcare. Thanks so much for tuning in to
• 0:04
  the Becker's Healthcare podcast series. It's great to
• 0:06
  have you. An exciting topic today, how effective
• 0:09
  workforce management becomes
• 0:11
  a strategic
• 0:12
  advantage. And I'm very excited to be joined
• 0:15
  by Julie Walker. She's the CEO of Propellus.
• 0:18
  Julie, thanks so much for being here today.
• 0:19
  It's great to have you. Thank you so
• 0:21
  much, Lucas. And everyone, thank you for being
• 0:23
  here. My name is Julie Walker, CEO of
• 0:26
  Propellus.
• 0:27
  And I love finding better ways to bridge
• 0:30
  the gap between technology and the people who
• 0:32
  make health care work.
• 0:34
  At Propellas,
• 0:35
  we back people powering health care so they
• 0:38
  can focus on what they do best. We've
• 0:40
  built the workforce intelligence infrastructure that unifies
• 0:44
  critical links between regulators, employers, and professionals.
• 0:48
  And last but not least, our mission is
• 0:50
  to move beyond static workforce management
• 0:53
  toward a system that is seamless, connected, and
• 0:56
  deeply human.
• 0:57
  And I'm sure we'll touch on a lot
• 0:59
  of this here in our conversation today.
• 1:02
  You come to the podcast with some great
• 1:05
  research, and I'm excited to talk about that
• 1:07
  research specifically
• 1:08
  from your state of workforce compliance in 2025
• 1:11
  survey.
• 1:12
  That showed that 77%
• 1:14
  of health care leaders are not confident
• 1:17
  in their organization's approach to workforce
• 1:19
  compliance. And I'd love to know from you
• 1:21
  and your work,
• 1:23
  what's driving
• 1:25
  that confidence gap right now? Of course.
• 1:28
  Well, the 77%
• 1:30
  lack of confidence
• 1:32
  isn't a reflection of leadership capacity.
• 1:35
  In my opinion, it's really a reflection of
• 1:37
  a systemic mismatch.
• 1:40
  Think about this. We are trying to manage
• 1:42
  2026
• 1:43
  workforce fluidity
• 1:45
  with old,
• 1:46
  infrastructure,
• 1:47
  old technology.
• 1:49
  We've historically operated in what we like to
• 1:51
  call snapshot reality.
• 1:54
  Verifying credentials at the point of hire or
• 1:57
  perhaps during an annual window just isn't good
• 2:00
  enough. You know, in today's mobile environment, that
• 2:03
  data begins to decay
• 2:04
  the moment it's collected.
• 2:06
  For any health care executive,
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  you know, I think about the confidence gap
• 2:11
  is actually most times a visit visibility gap.
• 2:15
  Many of them feel exposed because they know
• 2:17
  their data is static and really needs to
• 2:19
  be dynamic.
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  And often, their manual processes and disconnected workflows,
• 2:24
  they can't keep pace with the speed of
• 2:26
  the modern workforce.
• 2:28
  I like to still remind people sometimes that
• 2:30
  people still send faxes in 2026.
• 2:34
  Yeah. So given the vulnerability that you just
• 2:36
  outlined,
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  what can organizations
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  do
• 2:41
  to become better at this in 2026
• 2:43
  and beyond and become more confident?
• 2:46
  Yeah.
• 2:47
  Great point on faxes. I think the same
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  with paper.
• 2:51
  Really to move towards certainty and to become
• 2:54
  more confident, we must replace guesswork and move
• 2:57
  towards making
• 2:59
  workforce compliance a real time source of truth.
• 3:03
  This means leaders need to prioritize what we
• 3:05
  have learned through our survey and other inputs.
• 3:08
  There are really three key shifts.
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  The first one that we think about and
• 3:12
  talk about often is workforce visibility.
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  Confidence requires
• 3:17
  a unified
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  real time view of essential data. That means
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  licenses, certifications,
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  hard cards,
• 3:24
  health and safety status,
• 3:26
  employees' competencies, and other credentials. There's a lot.
• 3:30
  And you need it for, really, your entire
• 3:33
  workforce.
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  When you centralize this intelligence, you move from
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  the reactive auditing, oh my gosh, they're here,
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  to proactive workforce management
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  that ensures every member of your team, whether
• 3:46
  at the bedside
• 3:47
  or otherwise, is verified,
• 3:49
  safe, and ready to work.
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  The second item that we, focus on is
• 3:54
  ongoing verification.
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  The industry
• 3:57
  is quickly moving toward a gold standard
• 3:59
  of automated and continuous checks.
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  They do this because they need to detect
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  any change of information,
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  particularly changes that can be adverse
• 4:08
  or otherwise avoided, such as sanctions and exclusions
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  that truly require immediate action
• 4:16
  and decisions.
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  And then relying on manual periodic checks and
• 4:20
  audits really creates
• 4:22
  a level of vulnerability that I think most
• 4:24
  health care organizations want to avoid. And number
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  three is operational velocity.
• 4:29
  We have to eliminate unnecessary friction for our
• 4:32
  workforce in order to optimize
• 4:34
  where they're deployed,
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  how they're working. And a great example is
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  really
• 4:39
  you know, there are typically complex layers
• 4:43
  of requirements in order to
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  move a clinician from one facility to another
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  across state lines, and there really is a
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  tremendous opportunity to increase this operational velocity by
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  automating these complex
• 4:55
  requirements.
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  We need to be more confident when we
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  deploy our workforce
• 5:00
  where they need to be safely, compliantly, and
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  really instantly without the guesswork.
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  I'd love to dive a little bit deeper
• 5:07
  into some of these challenges. You outlined some
• 5:09
  of them. They're obviously connected to experience as
• 5:09
  well, both for patients and employees, which is
• 5:10
  really, really crucial.
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  Experience as well, both for patients and employees,
• 5:13
  which is really, really crucial.
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  What are or to you personally, what are
• 5:18
  the most prominent workforce related compliance challenges
• 5:22
  right now for organizations too? And then again,
• 5:25
  how does that impact
• 5:26
  everything else, including patient and employee experience? Yeah.
• 5:30
  Lucas, let's let's be really clear. Managing
• 5:33
  today's health care workforce
• 5:36
  is no easy feat. It is incredibly challenging.
• 5:40
  And the way I see it is really,
• 5:43
  what I'd like to call a triple burden.
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  It's administrative, it's operational, and it's costly.
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  First, you know, from an administrative weight perspective,
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  administrative costs now account for over 40% of
• 5:56
  total hospital expenses. Think about that. Much of
• 5:59
  this is still manual.
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  A good example being our survey found was
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  that 81%
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  of organizations
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  still verify
• 6:08
  required credentials quarterly,
• 6:10
  maybe annually, or only at the start of
• 6:12
  hire because it's
• 6:14
  too burdensome. It's too overwhelming,
• 6:16
  for them and their employees.
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  This leads directly into number two, the operational
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  burden. When checking for compliance is periodic,
• 6:25
  health care organizations end up in a really
• 6:27
  reactive cycle.
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  A good example is when they're forced to
• 6:32
  pull a nurse or a doctor from the
• 6:35
  floor right before their shift or even mid
• 6:37
  shift because they just realized that their license
• 6:39
  had expired.
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  As you can imagine, this creates
• 6:42
  chaos.
• 6:43
  It creates dissatisfaction with the workforce,
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  and it also impacts those who are on
• 6:48
  the floor, with increased workloads
• 6:51
  and, of course, can directly impact patient care.
• 6:54
  And then finally, there's a cost burden. The
• 6:57
  cost of nine noncompliance, we've learned, is three
• 7:00
  and a half times higher than men maintaining
• 7:03
  a proactive environment between fines,
• 7:06
  cost of contract labor to fill the gaps.
• 7:08
  Our partners, our health care organizations, they're losing
• 7:11
  millions that could also be avoidable.
• 7:13
  But my opinion,
• 7:15
  the real tragedy is the human impact.
• 7:18
  Again,
• 7:19
  a good example that we've learned is nurses
• 7:21
  are now spending, on average,
• 7:24
  up to 25 percent of their shifts. So
• 7:26
  think about
• 7:27
  two plus hours every day on administrative
• 7:30
  tasks.
• 7:31
  By making compliance invisible through automation,
• 7:34
  we can give caregivers their time back and
• 7:36
  their focus back. And, you know, from a
• 7:38
  health care organization perspective,
• 7:41
  we can then move from a culture policing
• 7:43
  of the I gotchas of the world to
• 7:45
  that of proactive safety,
• 7:51
  Yeah. I think bringing in the human element
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  to the conversation is so crucial. I know
• 7:54
  we look at spreadsheets. We look at the
• 7:56
  ROI, the financial piece of it, which is
• 7:58
  very, very important, but that human element that
• 8:00
  you just touched on is so critical as
• 8:02
  well.
• 8:03
  As you're looking to 2026
• 8:05
  and all of the things that you've just
• 8:07
  outlined, right, what's the one thing
• 8:10
  for you that needs to shift in an
• 8:12
  organization's approach to compliance
• 8:14
  right now
• 8:15
  to make sure that this isn't an issue
• 8:17
  long term?
• 8:18
  Yes. This is a great question.
• 8:20
  I believe the fundamental shift for 2026
• 8:24
  is truly moving from
• 8:26
  workforce compliance as a safety net to it
• 8:30
  being a strategy for clinical excellence.
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  I think for too long, we've treated
• 8:35
  compliance as a I've gotcha.
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  Nobody feels good in those types of scenarios,
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  and that's more of a mechanism to avoid
• 8:42
  fines,
• 8:43
  accreditation marks, stuff of that nature. But one
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  thing I think is important to point out,
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  as of 01/01/2026,
• 8:50
  the joint commission's national performance goal 12,
• 8:54
  really has officially elevated staffing and competency
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  as a core safety metric.
• 9:00
  It is no longer about just having enough
• 9:03
  people on the floor. It's about proving these
• 9:05
  people have the specific structure, the credentials, the
• 9:09
  skills, the competencies
• 9:11
  required for the patients they serve.
• 9:13
  I think this is really a huge competitive
• 9:15
  advantage. We know retention is the number one
• 9:19
  concern for leaders right now. We saw that
• 9:21
  a spotlight on that during our survey. And,
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  again, by having clear,
• 9:26
  proactive visibility
• 9:27
  into your workforce or credentials or experience or
• 9:31
  skills and everything that I highlighted before,
• 9:34
  leadership can really start using this as a
• 9:36
  bridge to identify opportunities, upscale,
• 9:39
  retain, and advance their workforce.
• 9:43
  Julie,
• 9:44
  we're certainly
• 9:45
  not the only ones that are having this
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  conversation.
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  These conversations are happening for organizations
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  across the country,
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  and and people know that this is something
• 9:55
  that needs to be addressed
• 9:57
  present and certainly in the future.
• 10:00
  As we wrap up our conversation today,
• 10:02
  why do you think
• 10:04
  this remains
• 10:06
  such a persistent challenge in health care, specifically
• 10:09
  looking at workforce compliance?
• 10:11
  And, again, you you briefly touched on this,
• 10:13
  but I wanna elaborate.
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  What role does leadership play in prioritizing this
• 10:18
  and making sure that it goes above some
• 10:20
  of the other demands that exist for health
• 10:22
  care systems across the country?
• 10:24
  Yeah. Thank you, look Lucas.
• 10:26
  For all those listening to the podcast, you
• 10:29
  know very well that compliance is a challenge
• 10:31
  because it is a moving target. It's continuously
• 10:34
  changing
• 10:35
  and evolving, and we're dealing with the shifting
• 10:38
  of regulations
• 10:39
  across multiple states,
• 10:41
  managed by a workforce that is more mobile
• 10:44
  and perhaps more exhausted than ever before to
• 10:46
  keep up,
• 10:48
  with those requirements.
• 10:49
  And,
• 10:50
  you know, I I think it oftentimes, it's
• 10:53
  treated as a seasonal event.
• 10:56
  It is an ongoing
• 10:57
  event
• 10:58
  and how we can really continue to keep
• 11:01
  a pulse on the changing environment.
• 11:03
  And at the end of the day, a
• 11:04
  health care organization's
• 11:06
  most valuable commodity
• 11:08
  is its reputation.
• 11:10
  You know, of course, fines are painful, but
• 11:12
  losing the trust of your community
• 11:15
  is an existential
• 11:17
  crisis. And,
• 11:18
  you know, ultimately, leadership's job is to bridge
• 11:21
  the gap between compliance and clinical integrity.
• 11:25
  We believe that when you prioritize a seamless
• 11:28
  proactive system,
• 11:30
  you're sending a clear message
• 11:32
  to your staff, your patients, your community
• 11:35
  that we value their safety
• 11:37
  enough to build it into the fabric of
• 11:40
  their very operations.
• 11:42
  We also believe that it's about moving from
• 11:44
  a culture of hope to one of great
• 11:47
  certainty,
• 11:48
  ensuring the brand promise that you, as a
• 11:51
  health care organization, make to the world
• 11:53
  is always kept by every single person in
• 11:56
  your organization.
• 11:59
  You touched on a on a number of
• 12:00
  things I think that are very important for
• 12:02
  leadership in general
• 12:03
  no matter where where you are, in this
• 12:06
  conversation itself. Well, Julie, it's so fantastic to
• 12:09
  have you on. I I wanna turn the
• 12:11
  floor over to you and specifically reflecting on
• 12:13
  the conversation that we just had. Had. Right?
• 12:15
  If there's one thing that you want the
• 12:18
  listeners to to walk away with from this
• 12:21
  conversation today, we covered a lot of ground,
• 12:23
  what would that be?
• 12:25
  I want to leave everyone with one simple
• 12:28
  truth.
• 12:29
  When you protect your people,
• 12:32
  they can protect your patients and your organization's
• 12:35
  future.
• 12:36
  The real value, I believe, in our conversation
• 12:39
  today isn't just about 2026
• 12:42
  readiness or passing an audit.
• 12:44
  It's about recognizing that every minute a clinician
• 12:48
  spends on a manual compliance task is a
• 12:51
  minute lost to a patient or a minute
• 12:54
  lost to the rest that they so desperately
• 12:56
  need.
• 12:58
  My final takeaway is this,
• 13:01
  make workforce compliance management invisible
• 13:04
  so your people can be visible.
• 13:07
  Use technology as that silent partner that handles
• 13:10
  all the data decay and the paperwork
• 13:13
  so your clinicians, your entire workforce
• 13:16
  can reclaim the human work that technology can't
• 13:19
  do.
• 13:21
  Thank you again so much, Lucas. It was
• 13:23
  a pleasure to be here.
• 13:25
  Yeah. It's so great to have you on,
• 13:26
  Julie. And we also want to thank our
• 13:27
  podcast sponsor, Propellis. For more resources on what
• 13:30
  we discussed today, check the podcast description for
• 13:33
  links, and certainly visit propellis.com.
• 13:36
  You can tune in to more podcasts from
• 13:38
  Becker's Healthcare by visiting our podcast
• 13:40
  page at beckershospitalreview.com.