The ever-evolving world of healthcare IT often forces hospital and health network executives to don several hats, resulting in overloaded work schedules and less-than-optimal results. A handful of companies are looking to make that job easier by automating performance and talent management, giving healthcare administrators a paper-free method of evaluating, hiring and retaining qualified staff.
“Hospitals have to know who the nurses are, they’ve got to pay them well and they’ve got to give them a career path,” says Greg Nash, vice president of healthcare at SuccessFactors, Inc., a San Mateo, Calif.-based vendor of on-demand performance and talent management solutions which launched its healthcare division this past January.
Cornerstone OnDemand, based in Santa Monica, Calif., recently hooked up with Integrated HR Solutions, Inc. to produce a suite of talent management solutions geared to the healthcare industry. Tim Armstrong, Cornerstone’s vice president, says the company “recently identified … that there’s a need in the healthcare space” for an automated solution.
“We wanted to make this simple, and we wanted to bring value quickly,” he said.
“They are desperately in need of technology,” says Lisa Goodman, IHRS’ president and COO. “They’re faced with this burdensome paper process, and they have another full-time job providing quality patient care.”
Talent management tools like those used by SuccessFactors and Cornerstone/IHRS allow healthcare executives to compare employee qualifications against a common set of benchmarks, developed both internally and by the Joint Commission (JCAHO). Supervisors can not only measure the capabilities of prospective new hires and conduct performance evaluations, but also track an employee’s progress toward further accreditation.
“Even a scrub nurse or an OR nurse, their skill set is constantly changing,” points out Nash, whose product offerings contain hundreds of job descriptions and thousands of competencies.
Goodman says healthcare workers “need to be up-to-date on new technology at all times” not only to meet JCAHO standards but because that expertise can save lives.
Among the healthcare institutions making use of SuccessFactors is Lancaster General Hospital in Lancaster, Pa. In a press release, Edward Albee, the hospital’s chief human resource officer, said the hospital’s goal “is to continually strive to increase the performance of the hospital through our people.”
“By automating manual and spreadsheet-based performance and talent management processes with SuccessFactors technology, healthcare organizations can increase manager and individual accountability, move towards creating high performing, highly motivated workforces and, overall, increase an organization’s ability to provide the highest levels of patient care,” Albee said.
Goodman says the ideal goal is to train healthcare workers from the onset, so that they, in turn, can become good trainers themselves.
“We like to say 80 percent of the work is done for them,” she says.
