How to Assemble a Nurse Float Pool for Fast, Cost-Effective Shift Fulfillment
Hospitals have long struggled to build and manage internal nurse float pools effectively, often depending on manual processes and outdated tools like Excel. These practices hinder effective scheduling coordination, credential tracking, and real-time responses to staffing changes, resulting in costly, inefficient, and hard-to-scale float pool management. Sound familiar?
If so, your hospital can achieve a remarkable turnaround with the right mobile workforce management (MWM) technology. ShiftMed Flex, for instance, offers everything hospitals need to establish and maintain an adequate internal nurse float pool. Acting as a crucial bridge between your core nursing staff and external labor, float nurses help boost job satisfaction for your full-time nurses and reduce reliance on expensive travel nurses.
Top 5 Hospital Float Pool Advantages
Before diving into how to build an internal nurse float pool within your hospital or health system, let’s first explore the many benefits it can offer.
1. Fill Gaps Fast
Direct access to an internal float pool allows hospitals to quickly fill gaps across various departments, ensuring consistent care during peak times or unexpected absences.
2. Reduce Labor Costs
Internal float nurses reduce reliance on external staffing agencies and overtime pay, allowing your hospital to control labor costs while meeting fluctuating patient demands.
In April 2022, the American Hospital Association reported that hospitals spent a median of 4.7% of their total nurse labor expenses on contract travel nurses, which skyrocketed to 38.6% in January 2022.
3. Enhance Care Quality
Internal float pools are more familiar with your hospital's protocols and culture, leading to smoother workflows and better patient outcomes than temporary agency staff.
4. Boost Staff Satisfaction
Float nurses reduce the burden on full-time staff, lowering burnout by alleviating the need for excessive overtime and providing support during high-demand periods.
5. Improve Operational Efficiency
Your hospital can standardize training for internal float nurses, ensuring they’re prepared to work across multiple units, enhancing flexibility and readiness.
According to a 2023 survey conducted by Kaufman Hall, 66% of hospital respondents reported staffing shortages required their organization to run at less than full capacity at some point over the past year.
5 Tips for Evaluating Mobile Workforce Management Technology
Building a successful internal nurse float pool starts with finding the right mobile workforce management technology for your healthcare staffing needs.
1. Focuses on Nurse Preferences
Most nurses seek job flexibility and a better work-life balance, so it's essential to leverage mobile app technology that gives them complete control over their schedules. The app should make it simple for nurses to claim shifts, track their hours, manage their schedules, and communicate seamlessly with your team.
In the American Nurses Foundation's 2023 assessment survey, 58% of nurses highlighted work-life balance as the top factor influencing their job satisfaction.
2. Streamlines the Credentialing Process
Verifying a nurse's qualifications, experience, and professional standing requires time and effort. While it demands thoroughness, choosing workforce management technology that can help streamline credentialing and expedite float nurses into shifts quickly is crucial.
3. Automates Staff Deployment
You want workforce management technology that automates staff deployment, instantly broadcasting shift vacancies to float nurses with the required credentials and competencies through a mobile app.
4. Monitors Credentials and Compliance
Staying current with complex healthcare regulations and frequent legal updates is a constant challenge. That’s why it’s crucial to select technology that proactively tracks when nurses need to update their credentials before expiration or to meet new professional requirements is crucial.
5. Provides Visibility and Data Analytics
Complete visibility over internal float pools allows hospitals to manage staffing efficiently, ensuring shifts are filled with qualified staff while optimizing resource allocation. It helps monitor utilization, maintain compliance, control costs, and respond quickly to patient care needs.
Tips for Recruiting and Retaining Float Pool Nurses
Once you've implemented the right mobile workforce technology into your operations, the next step is to recruit and retain a committed team of internal float pool of nurses.
Float Nurse Recruitment
The good news is that today's nurses prioritize flexible scheduling and work-life balance more than ever, and working in a hospital float pool is an ideal way to achieve both. By offering total job flexibility, your hospital can tap into the local latent nursing workforce—nurses who are available to work but remain unemployed due to an inability to commit to full-time hours or are underutilized in their current roles.
A latent workforce often includes experienced nurses who are not ready to retire fully, nurses who want work that fits their family schedules, and nurses who prefer the flexibility of shifts without the commitment of traditional PRN work.
Float Nurse Retention
To keep your internal float pool engaged, it helps to offer the following:
Competitive Pay and Incentives: Compensate your float nurses fairly and provide unique incentives such as same-day pay.
Positive Work Environment: Create a supportive, collaborative environment where float pool nurses feel valued and recognized by their colleagues and leadership.
Predictable Scheduling: Offer predictable and consistent scheduling when and where feasible.
Wellness Support: Offer resources such as counseling services, stress-relief programs, or wellness activities tailored to helping float pool nurses manage the demands of their role.
Solicit Feedback: Use regular surveys or focus groups to collect feedback from float pool nurses about their work experience and identify areas of improvement.
How ShiftMed Flex Supports Internal Float Pool Development
ShiftMed Flex is our award-winning nursing job app technology that's customized to align with your hospital's branding and workforce requirements. It enables your facility to effortlessly and cost-effectively incorporate flexible scheduling into your staffing operations.
Seamless and Scalable
The app seamlessly integrates with your existing scheduling, payroll, or HRIS systems and is scalable to accommodate growth and changing industry needs. Best of all, there are no integration or licensing fees. Your hospital only pays a 6% routing fee for shifts claimed and worked through the app.
Optimized Staffing
The app allows float nurses to work on their terms—when, where, and how often they choose—and claim shifts 24/7. By leveraging advanced technology and the power of AI, ShiftMed Flex intelligently matches qualified nurses with open shifts in just a few clicks.
This dynamic solution quickly identifies nurses with the proper credentials, competencies, and licensure and connects them with shifts in the areas of highest demand—ensuring seamless coverage and optimized staffing throughout your various departments and/or locations. It also prioritizes the most cost-effective options in your float pool to prevent unnecessary spending.
Cloud-Based Credentialing
When combined with our credential cloud technology, ShiftMed Flex enables nurses to easily upload their credentials into your system from anywhere, eliminating the hassle of paperwork and manual submissions.
Additionally, you can customize credential requirements by worker type and location, ensuring compliance with regulatory standards while streamlining the onboarding process to fit your hospital's unique needs.
Unique Incentives
In-app incentives such as Instant Pay, and Guaranteed Shifts® can elevate your workforce operations and boost shift fulfillment rates.
Conclusion
Building an internal nurse float pool powered by mobile technology is a transformative step for hospitals aiming to enhance flexibility, reduce labor costs, and ensure high-quality care delivery. By using an app to tap into the local latent workforce, facilities can reduce reliance on costly travel nurses, boost staff satisfaction, and improve patient outcomes through consistent, familiar care providers.
ShiftMed Flex is a versatile solution designed to streamline float pool management by integrating effortlessly with existing hospital systems. It automates credential tracking, enhances visibility into real-time staffing needs, and provides fulfillment tracking to ensure optimal staffing coverage.
Additionally, hospitals can use ShiftMed Flex to offer nurses the flexibility and control they desire over their schedules, making it easier to attract and retain a dedicated team of float nurses who can support core staff whenever needed.
Schedule a workforce consultation to see if ShiftMed Flex is the right solution for your healthcare staffing needs.