Vendor management systems and managed service providers have been misunderstood for too long.
So says Trevor Strauss, Vice President of Business Development for HWL, which offers a customizable suite of technology solutions and advisory services built to simplify and standardize human capital management.
“The big misnomer with an MSP in healthcare, whether overall or within the locum tenens space, is that it’s not always a true managed service provider,” Strauss says. “If you look at who some MSPs are, it’s an agency-led program, more like a managed staffing program.
“The positioning was that the VMS was your tech, and the MSP was a managed service provider, but you had to have a supply [of providers] yourself to be an MSP. In my mind, that’s not my definition of an MSP. That’s a staffing-led mindset.”
He and the team at HWL envision a world where the two systems work together in perfect harmony to give clients control with transparency. At the same time, the agencies get access and credit for delivering providers to facilities. The VMS is your technology and reporting stack in this framework, and the MSP program helps clients reduce their workload. This combo would transform an agency into a “strategic partner,” to help clients meet their needs while staying visibly connected to the client.
This image is what Strauss highlights when discussing the benefits of HWL to healthcare facilities. HWL’s suite of offerings is called “HWL Works.” HWL offers solutions and advisory services across the entire labor continuum, from external staff management to a solution they call “SourceDirect,” which helps facilities hire talent faster.
Built for Locum Tenens
HWL manages different labor categories, but Strauss says they built their VMS to address the specific workflows, technical specifications, and critical processes of locum tenens. The VMS helps clients manage efficiencies and integrate disparate processes. HWL also offers hybrid or fully managed MSP support to help clients manage the entire process from end to end.
Strauss tells us that HWL helps companies find the right solution that works for them by delving deep into each company’s mission, vision, and strategy — those intangibles that make each client unique. The team tries to look through the lens of a company engaged in the process of purchasing a software and reporting solution that will empower them to do their job efficiently. Then they ask, “What do they need in a partner?” Strauss says HWL looks to be the intermediary in the business, making suggestions and helping bring all the tools required to drive delivery and help the client achieve their goals.
“What HWL does is blend technology and people. We couple them together in a service that, if you just buy something because of an acronym, it can get lost,” Strauss says. “We went through a lot of due diligence internally to get to that spot, and we have skilled people on our executive team that have worked the entire labor continuum to ensure delivery. We feel that an MSP is so much more all-encompassing if you’re a true workforce and human capital partner.”
To make their locum tenens delivery possible, the company emphasized hiring people who understood the world of locum tenens and physician recruitment — people like Karen Little, VP of Locum Tenens Account Services for HWL. Little has more than 15 years of experience in locum tenens and has been with HWL for the past five years. Once the company hired Little, they used her locums experience to mold the platform to do what healthcare facilities needed.
“My team and I build our partnerships having the experience of being former in-house recruitment team members and locum delivery experts,” Little tells us. “That means we know what our partners are going through each day and can help customize it to ‘bake in’ the program to their processes.”
Little says that HWL is large enough to be effective yet small enough to be agile, so they could get into the program and “work efficiently” in the way a locums client would need to benefit from the software.
Helping Enhance Delivery
When it comes to locum tenens, Strauss feels the adoption of VMS and MSP solutions is lagging the nursing and allied world by a few years. In his days as a competitor working with a locums agency, he says he actively worked to sell his services against MSP or VMS products. He claims this was because, at the time, he genuinely felt the programs “weren’t sophisticated enough” or built the right way, a notion that fostered confusion among facilities and agencies.
Strauss believes if a VMS or MSP is done right, it doesn’t become a commodity that’s interchangeable with any other program on the market. Instead, it’s a unique offering companies consistently use because it makes their job easier and helps them place providers quickly and efficiently. So, Strauss says HWL focuses on developing close-knit relationships with its clients to ensure they give them a product that helps fulfill their staffing needs. That focus on serving clients above anything else drives Strauss and HWL.
“The reality is to help hospitals today, they don’t need Karen and Trevor telling them which agencies they should use,” Strauss emphasizes. “They need data and analytics to see that companies are delivering. Transparency is empowering for health systems, and we’re here to get the client back in control of what’s happening in the market.”