Software enables nurses to bid for extra shifts
Hospital's answer to staff shortages
AYER -- Registered nurses at Nashoba Valley Medical Center are doing what few of their counterparts anywhere can do: logging on to their computers and bidding on working shifts that have openings.
The hospital unveiled an unusual staffing software product called eShift in the spring and early summer, in an effort to manage nursing shortages more effectively, enhance patient-care continuity, give staff nurses opportunities for extra pay, and cut down on the costs of hiring nurses from temporary agencies, chief executive Andrei Soran said in an interview last week.
Under this system, the hospital posts shift openings and the highest hourly rate it is willing to pay. Nurses willing to work at least four shifts a month then may bid on the work and pay, as long as their bids do not exceed the maximum pay offered. Successful bidders are notified by e-mail. "More than 50 percent of our nurses are now using this software," he added, noting that the 41-bed hospital has 130 full-and part-time nurses, most of whom work on medical and surgical floors.
Nurses committed to this unique method of getting additional work include Lynn Arsenault of Leominster, Monica Gill of Ayer, and Glenn Polley of Groton.
"I really like this system because I have a very busy lifestyle and it gives me flexibility," said Arsenault, 26.
Gill, 29, said she sees the setup as a "win-win situation. The hospital gets nurses to fill open slots and nurses get extra work and extra pay."
Polley, 43, said he often seeks work on his off-days because "of a son who's starting college."
Moreover, Nashoba is the first hospital in New England to permit nurses to bid on open shifts, according to Soran and others in the health-care sector.
But the bidding process is a phenomenon that the Massachusetts Nurses Association, for example, views with a jaundiced eye.
"This is a Band-Aid approach to the nursing shortage, a way to get nurses to work for the lowest dollars. So, our union nurses wouldn't accept it," asserted David Schildmeier, spokesman for the association, which he said represents nurses working for 65 percent of the state's acute-care hospitals.
Soran countered: "This is shared governance" between management and the nursing staff.
The eShift program used by Nashoba is a good example of using computer technology and "taking it to a higher level, or, in this case, giving nurses control over their schedules," said Karen Moore, president of the Massachusetts Organization of Nurse Executives, a Burlington-based group.
Moore also said that the bidding process does indeed address the nursing shortage. Last year, she said, there was a 8.5 percent vacancy rate for registered nurses statewide, and she expects it to be less this year, though she did not have a figure available. Soran keeps Nashoba's vacancy figures close to his vest. "If we could, we'd like all of our 130 nurses to work full-time," he said.
The eShift program has been marketed since the first of this year by a Chicago firm, Flexestaff, and Spartanburg (S.C.) Regional Healthcare System, which developed the software.
Nashoba and Mount Sinai Hospital of Chicago are the only hospitals using the software, said Rod Hart, president and an owner of Flexestaff. "We'll have eight hospitals signed up by the end of this month and an additional 10 hospitals using the product by the end of the year," Hart said, declining to name specific hospitals and their locations. "However, we have had discussions with another hospital in New England," he said.
His company, Hart said, has two competitors for this type of staffing software. "But we think that ours is the most user-friendly system."
"User friendly" was also the description used by Arsenault, the Nashoba nurse, who works in the medical-surgical unit. "I usually make a bid once a week, which is very easy to do," she said, noting that the top hourly rate is $37.50. And more often than not, she said, the top rate is obtainable.
And that's also been the experience of Gill, an emergency room nurse. "I always try to go for the top ER rate of $42.50 an hour, and so far, I've had good luck getting it," she said. An ER nurse who wants "to lock in" her rate at $37 an hour automatically gets work when a slot opens up, she said.
Soran said he couldn't discuss hourly rates for proprietary reasons. The hospital's for-profit parent is Essent Healthcare Inc., a private company based in Nashville. Essent acquired Deaconess-Nashoba Hospital from CareGroup Inc. of Boston on Jan. 1, 2003, for $8.6 million. 