There is a shortage of nurses. Older nurses are retiring while younger generations of nurses are facing extremely high rates of burnout. Registered nurse job vacancies continue to remain high, despite an aging population and growing need for healthcare.
In order to address this ongoing shortage Avant Healthcare Professionals recruits, trains, and places much-needed nurses from abroad into the U.S. healthcare system. Commissioning and onboarding Healthcare Professional’s (HCP) from overseas is an increasingly complex and highly regulated process. Previously, Avant Healthcare Professionals had relied heavily on spreadsheets to track and manage recruitment, onboarding and active assignments of nurses. This process became cumbersome as the pipeline of candidates and placements quickly grew.
To scale with demand, while effectively managing data security and compliance, Avant Healthcare Professionals Chief Financial Officer Spence Lloyd, and his team built an enterprise resource management (ERP) solution entirely on Quickbase. It not only automates tasks and workflows, but also adjusts to constant change across such areas as immigration law, work visas, and state-by-state certifications.
To manage the complexities of onboarding new nurses, Avant needed a highly-customized solution. Quickbase provided the company with a fast, flexible platform for building robust business applications that has allowed the company to expand and support a 300% growth in its nursing pipeline.
Challenge
- A complex HR onboarding and placement operations was slowed by spreadsheets and manual processes
- An increased demand for healthcare professionals requires greater agility and efficiency to meet growing needs
Solution
- Built an ERP entirely on Quickbase to support HR onboarding of W-2 HCPs from overseas
- Created an application with built-in security and governance features to help maintain compliance
Benefits
- Business agility and flexibility to support 300%+ growth in nursing pipelines
- Expanded the business by 60% in one year because of streamlined processes
- Efficiently able to manage the moving pieces of onboarding, training, certification, and placement
- Able to build and create solutions in a matter of hours or minutes instead of days or weeks
- Optimized HCP onboarding facilitated a positive experience and successful engagements
Dealing with the Nursing Shortage
The United States is struggling through the worst nursing shortage in its history, and it’s only expected to intensify as demand escalates, graduate numbers shrink, and more nurses retire. According to the 2017 Journal of Nursing Regulation, one million RN’s are expected to retire by 2030.
Avant Healthcare Professionals was founded to help healthcare facilities close staffing gaps by recruiting and placing skilled nurses from around the world.
Commissioning and onboarding HCP’s from overseas is a complex, highly regulated, and continually evolving process. To track and manage the recruitment, onboarding, and active assignments of nurses, Avant relied heavily on spreadsheets. That approach became increasingly cumbersome as the pipeline of candidates and placements quickly rose.
Spence Lloyd, Avant’s Chief Financial Officer, had a solution. He had used Quickbase before starting at Avant in 2011 and saw a way he could use the platform to address many of the challenges the company was facing.
I immediately saw its potential to help us streamline and automate the massive amount of HR paperwork and logistics needed to onboard and oversee an exponentially rising number of program participants in a highly regulated industry.
Shortly after implementing Quickbase applications, in Lloyd said the company was able to expand the business by 60% in one year.
Supporting Core Processes
To scale with demand, Lloyd and his team built the Avant Business Management System, an enterprise resource management (ERP) solution entirely on Quickbase.
The ERP supports all of Avant’s core processes, from recruitment, to assignments, to client relationship management. It not only automates tasks and workflows, pulling from more than 2,500 fields of continuously updated data, but also adjusts to constant change across such areas as immigration law, work visas, and state-by-state certifications.
Quickbase also offers Avant the flexibility and scalability to continuously improve and grow.
We can develop and deliver a new solution in a matter of hours or days and update in minutes—a big improvement over traditional database builds that take weeks and months.
“People Who Like Solving Problems”
There is a lot that goes into preparing an overseas candidate for success. There is recruiting, exam preparation, immigration, licensure, placement on assignment, clinical and cultural acclimation, and plenty more.
Just navigating immigration laws and getting work visas involves many steps and authorizations, not to mention matching HCP’s and credentials required by different states.
The manual processes Avant was using was becoming too complex.
The company turned to Quickbase to automate these processes to more easily and efficiently track processes with custom dashboards and alerts. Automating these processes helped corporate employees better deal with increasing transaction volume.
Automating and streamlining their processes allowed the HCP’s to no longer spend time dealing with complex paper work and stressful transitions. Avant’s improved processes instead allowed HCP’s to focus on preparing for and improving the health of their new communities.
It is very rewarding for all of us to help our HCPs fulfill their dreams and come to America doing what they do best. Hospitals and healthcare facilities also benefit from these skilled professionals joining their staffs.
Quickbase has helped Avant make significant gains in reducing the nursing shortage while also growing a vibrant and successful business. Today the company has close to 3,000 candidates in its recruitment pipeline and more than 600 HCPs on active assignment.
