Why sound workforce planning & optimisation is key to the success of healthcare providers

As health service providers continue to see greater numbers of people due to the increasing life expectancies and a wider range of medical cases presenting in their numerous departments. It’s no secret that the costs of running healthcare services are increasing to record levels across the world. In the UK and Ireland, governmental healthcare costs have peaked, rising by over 10% in the past 5 years alone.

A number of research papers have been commissioned in Ireland and the UK exploring the issues faced in healthcare as well as the appropriate levels of nurses/doctors to patient ratios and recently in the USA a number of States have followed California in actually mandating a nurse-patient ratio which whilst allowing greater attention and a more consistent level of care to their patients, will only serve to further strain the already overextended financial budgets of healthcare organisations.

Even with appropriate ratios in place, without a sound workforce planning methodology, there might not be a comparative return on the levels of care with the number of feet on the ground. Softworks has accumulated over 25 years of experience in assisting organisations across many different industries, large and small in maximising their workforce utilisation. With all that know-how, our systems are proven to have enabled not only labour cost savings ranging from 5-10% annually but also improved efficiencies across the entire employee base. And if that’s not enough, the users of our systems can enjoy flexibility in their working arrangements, visual representations of their employment and ease of scheduling and rostering all on the go to mention but a few benefits. A win for those who set the budgets and a win for the employee that uses the software every day.

However, above all the cost savings and effectiveness of our systems, we understand that even a small saving in terms of time for any person engaged in the healthcare industry can literally be the difference between life and death. This has been a key aim in the development of our healthcare workforce management software, reducing the time spent by the frontline staff on administration tasks. To provide a completely automated workforce environment to ensure the complex process of managing staffing levels is not only more cost-efficient but easier to use enabling employees to focus on the things that really matter.