For a long time, the leaders at connectRN had a compelling hypothesis:
They thought only a fraction of nurses in skilled nursing wanted more flexibility in their schedules.
“Since our early days in 2018, our hypothesis has been that nurses were being squeezed out of the profession because of the rigidity of their schedules,” says Ted Jeanloz, CEO of connectRN, a leading platform that connects nurses with nursing job opportunities and lets them set their own schedule. “They might be going back to school and need to make time for exams, or they might have a child and need more time for them. What they all have in common is that they need schedules built around their lives, not around work.”
Jeanloz and the team at connectRN initially thought that maybe 10% of nurses fell into that category of wanting more flexibility. And with 6.5 million nurses and CNAs in the United States, 10% of those would be a solid total addressable market.
They quickly learned that assumption was “way off base,” Jeanloz says.
“It turns out that 100% of nurses want flexibility,” he says. “Back in 2019, we just weren’t programmed to realize it was possible, but the pandemic helped show us that flexibility and productivity aren’t mutually exclusive.”
Indeed, nurse staffing and burnout issues existed long before the pandemic. But they’ve taken center stage as the nursing profession becomes more challenging. That’s at the core of what drives connectRN. And it’s how they’ve identified three key ways to deliver that flexibility to nursing staff.
Flexibility in shifts, from bedside to virtual
As connectRN built its flexible model, it did so with both a bedside component and a virtual component. The company brings flexibility to in-person care by giving nurses the ability to choose their shifts: timing, care setting and anything in between.
“They can also use the social component of our platform to elect to work with friends,” Jeanloz says. “They can say, ‘These are the people I like working with,’ coordinate with them on the details then make the shift happen. That’s been working really well for a lot of our nurses.”
The company is also moving toward a world where more care is delivered outside of facilities through RPM or telephone triage. If a nurse doesn’t have time for a full shift on Saturday, now they can do a home health visit for someone in their community.
“We have nurses licensed in all 50 states, so we’ll effectively be able to create an environment where nurses can contribute wherever the system needs them,” he says.
Flexibility through new skills training and education
One of the key ways that connectRN is focused on building around the nurses themselves is by facilitating their education. The company has a ton of data coming in from both the supply side with the nurses and the demand side with the facilities.
“This gives us a lot of visibility into what the market is calling for and where there’s a gap,” Jeanloz says.
By helping nurses with their continued education efforts, connectRN can cross-check the skills that are needed with what’s in short supply, then give nurses a list of next-step credentials that might immediately help their career. If a nurse has a certain set of shifts available to them based on their current qualifications, connectRN can show them exactly how much their opportunity set would expand if they added what’s often a single certification.
“We can hopefully increase their value in the market, increase the talent pool for providers and if we can get all that aligned then it’ll move us to a place where nurses are truly better off,” he says.
Flexibility through hours and pay choice
All of these efforts are great short-term solutions to burnout. But Jeanloz knows that more must be done to solve long-term burnout.
“One of the problems with burnout is that there was this big pandemic shock, and it shocked us into a spiral that’s going to be really hard to get out of,” he says. “It led to short staffing and a lot of nurses getting burnt out, so they ended up leaving, so there’s even fewer people, which creates more burnout and a pretty brutal cycle.
“If there’s a long-term solution, part of it is creating a way to keep them contributing but at a different scale. If we can let them pick their hours, pick their facilities and pick how much they work, then they’re going to be happier when they’re there and be able to deliver better care.
That seems like a better mental health place for everybody and I think we can get there.”
For connectRN, the key to success has been to keep the flexibility and the nurses at the center of everything we do.
“We’re not optimizing for a full-time schedule — we’re optimizing to help nurses build their careers,” Jeanloz says.
This article is sponsored by connectRN. To learn more about how to bring flexibility to your staff, visit connectrn.com.
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