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Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Scaling Smarter: How Partnerships and AI Are Transforming Healthcare Staffing
00:18:44
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- [00:00]
A
Hi, everyone. This is Lucas Vaz with Becker's Healthcare. Thanks so much for tuning in to the Becker's Healthcare podcast series. It's great to have you. Today we're talking about scaling smarter, how partnerships in technology are reshaping healthcare staffing. And joining me for today's discussion, very excited to have in Ben Murtis, CEO in Genevis Health. Ben, thanks for taking the time. Thanks for being here today.
- [00:23]
B
Thank you, Lucas. I'm excited to be here and excited to talk with you.
- [00:27]
A
Yeah, great to have you. Could you start off and just introduce yourself to our audience a little bit? Your work, your background in health care?
- [00:33]
B
Sure. I have an experience in health care that, that spans strategy, financial and operations. And you know, across those experiences, I've been in, in staffing in health care services, in practice management, life sciences, as well as clinical research. And, you know, the outcomes from those experiences have included everything from the consolidation of the institutional pharmacy space, multiple mergers and acquisitions, industry leading organic growth, especially when I was in the clinical research space. And I've also successfully led an IPO as well. Most recently. I joined Ingenuvis as CFO in 2021 and was elevated to CEO last year. And those prior experiences I spoke of really helped me understand how the healthcare workforce plays a critical role in delivery to patients as well as the bottom line. And that perspective has supported the inorganic and the organic development to deliver on our purpose at Ingenuvis, which is to build the home for healthcare talent. And today as CEO, my focus remains on strategy, on team development and operational execution so that we can consistently deliver workforce solutions that support healthcare systems and communities across this country. And we truly do find that inspirational and so excited about what we are now doing at Ingenivus in the workforce solutions space.
- [02:20]
A
And we're certainly going to talk about a lot of those things and we're going to tap right on your knowledge, on all of these different things that you're touching and a lot of the trends and things that you're seeing. We know that health systems are navigating a complex set of staffing challenges right now. Rising costs, clinician. Well, being so much more obviously, what are some of the trends that you're seeing in how organizations are evolving their workforce strategies right now? And where do industry partnerships fit in here?
- [02:50]
B
Yeah, it's a great question and one that is front and center, especially with some of the most recent legislation that was passed with the one big beautiful bill. And let me start with a story from dialogue I was recently having with an executive leader from a regional health system. We were discussing that impact from, from the one big beautiful bill and specifically the work requirement for, for Medicaid. And he indicated that they were modeling a 4% loss of coverage to their patient population, which would have a $100 million impact to their bottom line. And, and these types of daunting scenario plans are what's happening across the health care and are going to shape the workforce solutions that are in front of us. And I also think it's important to remember, you know, what's happened over the last few years and what we're staring at now. So if you think about where we were pre Covid, we had a relatively predictable workforce model. Many healthcare systems were running at 70% perm, 15 to 20% PRN, 10 to 15% contingent. And then Covid completely threw that out of whack. And then for the last two years, the healthcare systems have really focused on trying to get back to pre Covid levels, but doing it with a, you know, with a workforce that is dealing with a lot of challenges as it relates to shortages, turnover, burnout, labor actions. And because of this, and because of what we're staring at with some of the legislation that was, that was just passed, industry partnerships between health care systems and workforce solution partners are going to be critical to delivering not just quality of care, but acceptable profitability. So we truly do believe that we're going to see more opportunities for partnerships to take hold so that healthcare systems can navigate these challenges.
- [05:14]
A
Yeah, you've touched on the conversations that you were having with the leader there and that example. I'm sure you have lots of these conversations all the time. And I'm just curious, you touched on the partnership piece a little bit. Can you give us an example of a positive outcome in these partnerships? When organizations decide, okay, we need a good partner, we need that partnership to counter some of these effects. What's an example of a positive outcome that you're typically looking for?
- [05:39]
B
Sure, of course, you know, our client benefits include things like transparency, improved projections and planning, the ability to establish a more stable workforce model. But, but when we truly engage in, in partnership to create customized solutions, those outcomes can become even more meaningful. And so some of those, some of the, some of the things that we've delivered have included over a 25% reduction in bill rates, over a 30% reduction in year over year spend for certain healthcare systems. With one client, we created an internal resource pool that improved operational efficiency, but more importantly, it also helped improve culture and quality of care at that system. And then we also had an instance where we had a client who was looking to see if they could create that contingent, their contingent labor force as a funnel to their perm workforce. And through some creative program design, we were actually able to convert over 150 nurses from contingent to their PERM staff in one year alone. And so these are the examples of, of, of, you know, what can truly be accomplished and the types of solutions that can be delivered when partnership is put at the forefront of, of the workforce solution planning.
- [07:22]
A
Yeah, I think you're so much for sharing those stats too. I think that's always something that's so important is these actionable insights and these statistics that really back some of these things up, which showed a tremendous impact. And one thing that you've touched on a little bit is also the culture piece, right? Yes, we talk numbers, we talk bottom line, but the culture piece and the human side of this is so important as well. And again, you know that clinicians are at the heart of this conversation, at the heart of the changes that we're seeing. How has their experience evolved in recent years and what are you hearing from them when it comes to adjusting to some of these trends?
- [07:57]
B
Yeah, you know, our healthcare system is 100% dependent on these healthcare heroes. And I think that's a term that, you know, frankly, has not been used as much lately. It certainly was used at the height of COVID And these are individuals who are delivering patient care 24 7, 365. And we owe them a huge debt of gratitude because they keep us healthy and they support our communities in the most dire moments of need. I think we can't say that enough. It's often forgotten. Covid, we talked about how it changed the paradigm for health systems. It did the same, if not more, for clinicians. The challenges that they face in and outside of the workforce are significant. Whether that's burnout, violence, short staffing, administrative burden, career growth concerns, those are all things that are very real and is driving some of that turnover and some of those workforce shortages that I spoke about earlier and our observation and realization from speaking with clinicians every day, we, you know, we see the following. You know, they want flexible opportunities in and around their home locations. They want opportunities that allow them to grow their skill sets. They are very selective about which systems they want to work at and where their skills are appreciated. And the great thing is, as I, as I mentioned before, if we continue to build partnerships with health systems and we're collaborative with them to create solutions, whether that's the internal resource Pools that I spoke of, whether that's contingent labor or other flexible strategies, we can make solutions that are designed to work for healthcare systems, but also meet the needs of what these clinicians want. Whether that's local, whether that's skill enhancement. You know, there's an opportunity to really help show that they are a valued part of the workforce model. And so we think that these solutions are not just solutions for the clients, but they are solutions for the clinicians as well. And when we do that together, it's one that works for all.
- [10:39]
A
Yeah, I think it's looking at the partnership holistically. Again, how does it impact the system itself, I think is a really great point there too. We can't really leave this discussion without touching on technology, specifically AI. I know we have to mention it, right? It's almost a given. It's a cornerstone. It's so important to talk about. I think leaders are moving quickly to really prepare their workforces. You've mentioned the upskilling, the training piece of this for folks. What role do you see digital innovation and AI playing here? And where have you seen it make a difference?
- [11:14]
B
Yeah, AI is going to continue to drive health care and we're focused on how it can drive improvement for our three stakeholders, our clinicians, our clients and our employees. So first, for our clinicians, we've developed AI enabled tools with large language models that can create highly predictive assessments in seconds for orders that best fit their preferences based on where they want to, you know, where they want to be, what time, you know, what shifts they want to work, whatever it might be. We've created, we've created models that, that really do allow us to determine which orders that they're the best fit for and most likely to get an offer for. And so this creates an opportunity for us to support clinicians career aspirations in unprecedented ways relative to the past. For our clients, our tools work in a very similar way. We can educate them on the ability to fill their roles and orders that they have with the right personnel, at the right cost, utilizing current and the most relevant data. And we do this with partnerships and investments with other technology companies as well as our own homegrown tools, so that, you know, we can bring together the data to provide the most actionable, actionable insights to our clients and their leadership teams. And so this helps ensure that they minimize, you know, workforce and coverage gaps and allow them to actually maximize their profit, profitability potential, but most importantly, their quality of care as well. And I think it's always important that we have that patient in mind as we think about how these tools can enhance the process and the outcomes. And then finally, because of those two things, because of how we're supporting our clinicians, because of how we're supporting our clients, these tools mean that our employees are faster, they have a higher likelihood of success in their recruitment efforts, which means they have more opportunities for career growth as well. And those, those AI and data efforts, they don't just end with our production teams. We're leveraging them for our back office solutions reporting so that our teams across the company are spending more time creating value and less time on repeatable administrative work. So it continues to be a huge focus for us. But you know, the responsibility that I and we as a leadership team at Ingenuous take is ensuring that we're using these tools to help clinic, both our clients and our clinicians have the outcomes that, that they're looking for.
- [14:29]
A
Yeah. Again, coming back to your point earlier. Right. Actionable insights, actionable pieces that, that make a difference for everybody involved. For sure. I'm sure AI is going to be invol, but I would love to know what your personal top priorities are heading into 2026 and the rest of 2025. What are you excited about, Ben? What are you closely watching? What are some of the things that, that interests you?
- [14:54]
B
Yeah, I mean look, we, we play a critical role in, you know, our nation's, you know, health care solution to, to whether that's to hospital systems, whether that's to clinicians, whether that's to our own employees. My priorities for Ingenuous are ensuring that we're going to lead that future of healthcare staffing and most importantly the workforce solutions that support this healthcare system. And so we're focused on excellence, we're focused on know, supporting patient care and ensuring that we are the, you know, the most reliable partner to both our clinicians and our clients. So we're focused on three priorities. First and foremost, as I mentioned before, creating customized tailored solutions for our clients and ensuring that our collective brands at Ingenivus can deliver on a, on a, on a comprehensive solution set to our clients. So it's, it really is integrating the capabilities of, of what we built here at Ingenuous Health across travel, nurse allied and physician to be able to deliver to whether that's an urban, rural or other healthcare setting. And then we're also iterating, you know, number two, we're iterating our delivery model based on some of those, those impacts that we expect from the, whether it's the legislative, legislative action that's come out impacting Medicaid or otherwise. You know, we're, we're, we're ensuring that we have a low cost delivery model to be able to deliver creative solutions to our, our clients. And then finally, you know, as the delivery model and those workforce solutions evolve, we're also ensuring that we're building out our clinician ecosystem and the supporting recruitment capabilities and technology solutions, as you mentioned, AI so that we have the, you know, we have the nurses, we have the allied techs, we have the physicians that we can, you know, deploy at the right time to the right opportunity to truly deliver exceptional outcomes to our clients. And so there's, as I said, there's a lot of, a lot of uncertainty in front of us. But we're here to be part of the solution and we take that responsibility very seriously. And we do that by ensuring that those health care systems and those communities have the clinicians that they need to deliver at the time that they're needed most. It's truly inspirational and we're excited about what's ahead.
- [18:14]
A
Bring back talking about healthcare heroes. Right?
- [18:17]
B
Exactly right. Like I said, it's not said enough these days.
- [18:21]
A
Yeah, bring it back. Ben, thanks so much for your time and insights today. This was a fantastic conversation. It's great to have you.
- [18:27]
B
Thanks, Lucas.
- [18:28]
A
And we also want to thank our podcast sponsor, Angenovis Health. You can tune into more podcasts from Becker's Healthcare by visiting our podcast page@beckershospitalreview.com.