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How Workforce Validate can help navigate the nursing shortage

July 1, 2022
July 1, 2022

According to Nurse Journal, the world is in the middle of a critical nursing shortage. Many factors have contributed to the current situation:

  • Increased demand for care during the pandemic
  • Retiring nurse educators mean a falling number of nursing faculty
  • Nurse burnout from the pandemic
  • An aging population with complex medical needs
  • Nursing staff reaching retirement
  • Greater shortage in rural areas

Addressing nursing recruitment and retention issues is imperative. Unfortunately, the hurdles are impressive – hospital turnover increased overall in 2021 by 1.7% to 19.5%, with nursing turnover specifically increasing 2.8% to 18.7%. Many organizations have sought to remedy the growing nursing shortage by filling the gaps with traveling nurses. According to Vivian Health, a healthcare recruiting firm, the industry experienced record-breaking demand for travel nurses in September 2021. At that point, demand came in at 68 percent higher than demand in September 2020.

We recently sat down with Caroline Shirley, Workforce Validate Product Manager, to learn more about how Workforce Validate can help navigate the nursing shortage.

Q: First off, can you tell us a little bit about Workforce Validate?

A: Sure, simply put, Workforce Validate replaces the manual process of license verification and exclusion monitoring. It helps HR teams, compliance teams and all healthcare administrators automate what can be a very manual process. Workforce Validate can track licenses, flag odd results that you might miss, and perform exclusion checks against state sanctions, state and federal exclusions and OIG/SAM.

Q: How does Workforce Validate support onboarding nurses?

A: From initial onboarding to ongoing monitoring, you can use Workforce Validate to be sure your nurses are clear to be on the floor. The solution uses industry-leading data monitoring and matching algorithms to verify licensure information and spot compliance issues other solutions might overlook.

Q: How do traveling nurses manage licensing?

A: A traveling nurse needs to hold a current and valid RN license within the state of their assignment. Most states participate in the Nurse Licensure Compact (NLC) which allows a nurse to practice in other NLC states, without having to obtain additional licenses. There are 39 states that participate, so as long as a nurse chooses to stay in the network, he or she would not need to get a state-specific license. If they leave the network, they would.

Q: How does Workforce Validate help approve traveling nurses to work?

A: It automates the process of verifying licenses which saves time and gets nurses on the floor where they are needed. Without a tool like Workforce Validate, anyone responsible for license verification would have to manually visit Nursys.com, an online verification site for nurses, or the provider’s state board site to complete verification. This can be very time consuming. type of verification can take as much as two months in some instances.

Q: What are the risks involved with poor validation?

A: Anyone with an expired or invalid license has to be pulled off the floor. This can really impact patient care and both patient and employee satisfaction. It’s just a not a place you ever want to find yourself. In addition to that, noncompliance with sanctions can result in lawsuits.

Q: How does one get started with Workforce Validate?

A: Workforce Validate is easy to install and easy to use. hStream users can use the solution to verify licenses for free and there is a small cost to use it for exclusion monitoring. There is some great information and a video available on our website. From there, get in touch with your Account Manager who can walk you through a demo of the solution. Our team is here to help you navigate today’s nursing shortage.