CASE STUDY
Guaranteed Delivery
Executive Summary
- 100 percent fill rate for urgent RN openings in 10 days
- Case Management RN position required to ensure reimbursement
- Fastaff RNs kept ED open for facility volume
- Fastaff nurses received excellent reviews, and almost all were extended
- By maintaining ratios, hospital stayed operational and avoided lost revenue
Facility Summary
Wickenburg Community Hospital
- Critical access hospital located in Arizona
- Level IV Trauma Center
- Provides services to patients within a rural community of 3,330 square miles
- 19-bed acute care unit
Critical Access Hospitals (CAH) face a variety of challenges including physician recruitment, payer relationships, financial stability, government designation, and nurse staffing. For Wickenburg Community Hospital, a CAH in Wickenburg, Arizona, the facility was unable to compete with the greater Phoenix area for attracting and retaining recent nursing graduates, which led to an urgent need for a variety of positions, including an RN case manager. Fastaff met the needs of the hospital quickly using the unique Rapid Response® model.
In less than 10 days, Fastaff presented qualified candidates for all open positions, resulting in a 100 percent fill rate for the rural hospital. Fastaff solved the facility’s main struggle – delivering qualified candidates in a rural area when the hospital couldn’t compete with salaries in larger cities within the state. Thanks to Fastaff’s deep-database of experienced nurses, high acuity clinicians in hard-to-fill specialties were on the ground within 10 days or less, providing critical medical/surgical, ER, CNA and case management coverage.
The Fastaff nurse in the case management position was a crucial contributor to sustaining hospital revenue, as the role was necessary in reviewing authorizations and addressing denials.
The Fastaff nurse was successful in overturning denials, resulting in a positive impact to the bottom line that would not be achieved if the position remained open during the temporary staffing shortage due to recruitment struggles. Former Director of Nursing Kacie Carroll was impressed with the outcome of partnering with Fastaff.
“Without adequate staffing, our ED would have had to go on diversion more, impacting not only revenue, but also patient satisfaction,” states Carroll. “In the med/surg unit, without adequate staffing, we would need to cap admissions, causing some patients to be transferred out who reasonably could have been cared for in our facility.”
As patient census was continuing to rise, Wickenburg also researched options for curbing overtime costs for core nursing staff. Partnering with the industry leader in Rapid Response® allowed the facility to utilize Fastaff’s 48-hour workweeks with no overtime charged to the facility. Along with flexible-length assignments, as short as two weeks, these unique benefits provided Wickenburg experienced nursing coverage without a significant financial burden. Unlike traditional travel agencies, Fastaff is the only travel nurse staffing solution to offer this much operational flexibly, a critical differentiator for facilities regardless of the staffing challenge.
Critical access hospitals rely heavily on patient volume from their designated area. Losing patients to larger facilities due to a full ER or medical/surgical could be financially devastating to the smaller hospitals, causing severe budgetary burdens to overcome and diminished patient care. When Wickenburg needed experienced nurses fast, Fastaff delivered and contributed to a healthy bottom line.
