I read about that last week and it was really one of the most evil-on-a-personal-level things I've seen in a…
Readers Write: Healthcare’s Digital Leap: The Game-Changing Benefits of Online Marketplaces
Healthcare’s Digital Leap: The Game-Changing Benefits of Online Marketplaces
By Eric Utzinger
Eric Utzinger is co-founder and chief commercial officer of Revuud.
Digital marketplaces have become a transformative force across various industries, redefining how people transact and interact. From Uber to Airbnb, these platforms have revolutionized sectors and sparked trends like the gig economy and micro-entrepreneurship.
The healthcare industry is experiencing its own revolution. Just as Uber changed transportation and Airbnb altered accommodation, digital marketplaces are shaking up healthcare. With over 150 online marketplaces today, while the concept isn’t entirely new, its application in healthcare is innovative.
These platforms simplify the process of buying, selling, and hiring healthcare resources, transforming how doctors, nurses, medical equipment, medical coding, and IT services are managed. Let’s delve into how these marketplaces are enhancing healthcare’s efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and accessibility.
Boosting Access to Talent: Doctors and Nurses
- A bigger talent pool. Finding the right healthcare professionals used to be a local affair, often limited by geography and specific recruitment agencies. Enter marketplaces like LocumTenens.com and Vivian. These platforms expand the reach, allowing hospitals and clinics to connect with specialists and nurses from all over the country, or even the world. This broader talent pool ensures they can find the perfect fit for their needs.
- Faster hiring. In healthcare, time is of the essence. Traditional hiring processes can be slow, involving multiple steps and heaps of paperwork. Digital marketplaces streamline everything, providing robust platforms where job openings can be posted, and qualified professionals can apply directly. With features like instant messaging and credential verification, hiring becomes much quicker and more efficient.
- Flexibility and scalability. Marketplaces offer unmatched flexibility. Healthcare facilities can easily find part-time, temporary, or per-diem staff, allowing them to scale their workforce according to patient volume and seasonal demand. This adaptability helps manage operational costs and maintain high standards of patient care without the burden of overstaffing.
Revolutionizing Medical Coding
- Access to specialized coders. Accurate medical coding is crucial for billing and regulatory compliance, but finding specialized coders can be challenging. Marketplaces like The Coding Network connect healthcare providers with experienced coders who specialize in various medical fields, ensuring accuracy and compliance.
- Cost savings. Marketplaces offer competitive pricing for coding services, often cheaper than traditional staffing agencies. This cost efficiency is achieved through dynamic matching of supply and demand, reducing the overhead costs associated with conventional hiring processes.
- Scalability and flexibility. Medical coding needs can vary, especially with changing healthcare regulations or peak periods. Marketplaces provide the flexibility to scale coding services up or down as needed, allowing healthcare providers to manage their workload efficiently without long-term commitments.
Advancements in Healthcare IT Services
- Access to specialized IT talent. The digital transformation of healthcare requires specialized IT skills, from electronic health record (EHR) management to cybersecurity. Traditional hiring methods can limit the search for such talent. Marketplaces offer access to a pool of IT professionals with the expertise required for healthcare projects, ensuring providers find the right match for their highly technical needs.
- Cost efficiency. Hiring IT professionals through marketplaces often leads to significant cost savings. These platforms eliminate many overhead costs associated with full-time hires, such as benefits and long-term contracts. Healthcare providers can hire IT experts on a project basis, paying only for the services they need.
- Agility and speed. The rapidly evolving landscape of healthcare technology demands quick, agile responses. Marketplaces provide an efficient way to bring in IT professionals for short-term projects or to address immediate issues like system upgrades or security breaches. This agility is crucial for maintaining the integrity and functionality of healthcare IT systems, allowing organizations to scale their IT departments up or down when needed.
Conclusion
Digital marketplaces are revolutionizing healthcare by offering a more efficient, cost-effective, and flexible approach to managing resources. From doctors and nurses to medical equipment, coding, and IT services, these platforms provide numerous benefits over traditional methods. They democratize access to talent and resources, enhance transparency, and streamline processes, ultimately leading to improved patient care and operational efficiency.
As healthcare continues to evolve, embracing the advantages of marketplaces will be key for providers aiming to stay competitive and deliver high-quality care.
While the first two sections of this article offer examples of online marketplaces for medical professionals & coders, I would appreciate having some examples of online marketplaces for healthcare IT talent. Performing a web search using those terms does not return useful results. I’m doubtful of the claim of cost savings, as most consultants we hire are 3x the cost of hiring an FTE – it would be great to see evidence of this author’s claim in this piece of his article.
Hi Todd! Thank you for your comment. Revuud is spearheading a new category in IT contractor management. We offer an IT talent marketplace that sits within a technology platform serving as a single source of truth for the entire contractor lifecycle. While using our talent management system, clients can engage contractors directly with just a few keystrokes and automate the manual processes a hospital or health system is required to do afterward. By offering direct access, we eliminate agency fees and offer a unique level of transparency into the entire community of experts. We are not a staffing agency, but offer a better way to source, onboard, and manage IT talent. The best part? We offer the same protections and expertise as an agency, so there is no additional risk in this model.
While consultants are typically more expensive per hour than FTEs, they bring extensive expertise that typically gets projects done faster with less of a commitment than an FTE hire(benefits, etc.). We recognize that contractors are not for every healthcare organization, but if you do go down the path of utilizing IT consultants, Revuud is an easier and typically 30% cheaper way to do so. I’d be happy to walk you through specific examples where the contractor route has been more cost-effective than an FTE placement on a call or virtual meeting.
For additional information, please visit our website at http://www.revuud.com or send me an email at khagemann@revuud.com. We appreciate your interaction with our post and hope this response is helpful.
Happy to connect anytime to discuss Todd, I’d love to hear your thoughts. In response to your post. The Revuud platform was built to disrupt a costly industry in healthcare IT staffing and is currently utilized by over 25 health systems. By automating traditional manual tasks and providing direct access to top vetted IT talent along with where clients can negotiate rates, we typically see about a 30% reduction in overall spend. In regard to FTE comparison, it can depend on how you utilize the contract talent as many are getting expertise for 20-25 hours a week and delivering in a way that can be cost neutral to organizations. Allowing clients to flex a workforce as their needs change can reduce FTE burden and long-term commitments.