Healthcare Working Smarter Blog

Using Big Data to Solve the Nurse Scheduling Problem

06/25/2020Jackie Larson

Jackie Larson, President, Avantas Nurse scheduling may be one of the most challenging staff schedules to complete given the requirements that must be met. The nurse scheduling problem can be a major headache when creating schedules week after week that will likely leave some staff unhappy. This in addition to all the other demands of...

Accelerated Nurse Staffing Solutions for Healthcare Organizations

05/25/2020Jackie Larson

Jackie Larson, President, Avantas The inception of COVID-19 has highlighted and introduced a new set of challenges to healthcare organizations. Emergence from this situation in the strongest position possible and returning to more normalized operations quickly require a deliberate recovery strategy. While each strategy must be tailored to each specific healthcare organization and location, there...

Four Ways to Help Healthcare Managers Lead Through a Pandemic

04/10/2020Jackie Larson

Jackie Larson, President, Avantas Several months into the novel coronavirus, there are still many unknowns about COVID-19 and its impact on the human population. Doctors and researchers are learning more about it every day, and our society looks forward to a hopeful future. But, it is human nature to fear the unknown. Feeling anxious is...

Four Staffing Strategies to Implement

03/10/2020admin

March 10, 2020 – Talent acquisition and retention goes through peaks and valleys. The reality is that the job climate has changed a lot in the past 50 years. With unemployment rates at historic lows, organizations are pulling out all the stops to deploy staffing strategies to bring in workers and keep them there. Many…

There’s More to Love about Healthcare Analytics Technology

02/24/2020admin

Love is in the air. Can you feel it? In the world of advanced analytics, it’s easy to get lost in data and what the numbers are trying to tell you. And while we think predictive analytics is pretty cool, it’s the purpose behind the technology that reminds us why we do what we do....

Leveraging Hindsight for 20/20 Foresight

01/14/2020admin

Not only did we ring in a new year in 2020, but a new decade as well. As we look internally over the past ten years and see how far we’ve come and what steps we took to get here, we can’t help but acknowledge our past to set our future goals. We’re not immune...

3 Ways to Reduce Agency Nursing Usage

12/03/2019admin

Low unemployment rates and an aging population are just a couple circumstances lending to the nursing shortage felt across the U.S. Provider organizations are grappling with what they can do to keep up with patient demand when they feel staff are constantly undersupplied. This climate of scarcity has been a prime driver for travel nursing....

Workforce Optimization is more than Cost Savings and Efficiencies; It’s Got Heart

11/20/2019admin

Here at Avantas, we love what we do. We love partnering with healthcare organizations to optimize their workforce and help them reach their ideal state. Their goals are our goals. But it’s so much more than that. It takes grit and endurance to be a nurse. It takes the mind of a scientist, too. And,...

Staffing for Patient Safety

10/15/2019admin

Reducing adverse patient events, such as infections or falls, is a critical focus point for hospitals and health systems. Not only does reducing medical errors have positive outcomes for patients, it is also important from a financial perspective, as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has begun to implement value-based care models that...

Predictive Analytics: Somewhere Between a Black Hole and a Unicorn

09/25/2019admin

It was a historic moment for physicists and humankind when the first image of a black hole was captured by researchers from the Event Horizon Telescope. The image of the phenomenon dubbed as the “point of no return” where nothing, not even light, can escape was the result of a years-long effort by dozens of...