Healthcare staffing is at a turning point.
We’ve come down from the demand peaks of the pandemic. We’re seeing a high volume of consolidation as agencies of varying sizes assess how to operate profitably moving forward. And we’re in the midst of rapid changes to the landscape of healthcare legislation and talent availability, coupled with persistent impedance to care access driven by a host of factors, some systemic and others situational.
In our research report – 25 Healthcare Staffing Predictions for 2025 – one of the most common and confident opinions among our twenty senior healthcare staffing executive participants was that locum tenens would fare comparatively well as a segment this year and that, simultaneously, access to physician talent remained precarious.
In Episode 9 of Ref Around the Edges, we spoke to one of our predictions report contributors, Dr. John Mehall, President of Innovative ECMO Concepts, former Chief Medical Officer at Curative, and a celebrated cardiothoracic surgeon who practiced for 25 years, completing more than 5,000 surgeries. Dr. Mehall’s perspective is much-needed as he combines a knowledge of staffing agency operating realities with a physician’s worldview.
In our conversation with Dr. Mehall, he discusses:
- Why burnout among the U.S. physician population is endemic, and how to mitigate it from a structural and support vantage point
- The factors behind the increasing demand for locum tenens and advanced practitioners, and whether this demand is sustainable
- The types of physicians most likely to pursue locum tenens work, and how to engage and retain them as a healthcare staffing provider
- What the rise in viability of an allied health workforce means for training, quality, and patient care
- The role of technology and process considerations in alleviating time management pressures among locums physicians and persistent obstacles in resource allocation at facilities
- Why empathy is undervalued, underdiscussed, but of increasingly importance as generational changes among a finite physician population indelibly change how care is delivered
At RefAssured, we are proud to deliver content that is thoughtful, intelligent, and far beyond the obvious. Dr. Mehall’s work is saving thousands of lives and his insight on the challenges faced by healthcare staffing firms, clinicians, and facilities is invaluable. This is a must-listen episode in our opinion.
Please listen to the podcast here: