This article is sponsored by connectRN. This article is based on a discussion with Kalyn Weber, Senior Vice President of Clinician Experience at connectRN. The conversation took place on April 20, 2023 during the Skilled Nursing News Clinical Conference. The article below has been edited for length and clarity.
Skilled Nursing News: Kalyn has over a decade of experience in healthcare, ranging from state-level public health to health technology. She’s been at connectRN, a platform connecting tens of thousands of clinicians with per diem shifts since 2019. In that time, she has helped lead the company through 10X growth and current runs the clinician experience, growth, and partnership teams for the skilled nursing business. I’m wondering if you can share how connectRN balances the needs of a two sided marketplace with the clinicians you hire and then the facilities you partner with.
Kalyn Weber: Yes, absolutely. I could talk about the fun dynamics of a two-sided marketplace all day, but I guess I’ll get started with one of our connectRN values, which is empathy. I have the privilege of working with over 50,000 nursing professionals across the country, close to 1,000 skilled nursing communities, and overseeing the teams who are directly supporting them.
Something that we end up talking about a lot is that working in healthcare is really, really hard. We all have friends in other industries and – their jobs might be hard too – but there’s something really special about working in healthcare that’s like, it is extra hard right now especially. That is true whether you are an agency CNA, or a top level executives like folks in the room here.
So getting back to our approach of delivering products, services, and support to a two-sided market place really stems from seeking a deep understanding of where folks are feeling most challenged, what are the pain points they’re trying to solve and what are solutions that end up benefiting both sides? It turns out, a lot of the frustrations or friction that exists in the healthcare system stems back to really similar problems or trends experienced by both sides of the marketplace.
One example of this is an initiative that we call “schedule stability” at connectRN. For our facility partners, attendance and presenteeism of staff is priority number one. If a clinicians signs up for a shift, they’ve got to be there… and when a failure there happens it creates a ton of other downstream issues.
At the same time, for the clinicians we work with… It can be really difficult to be that “agency” staff member and be the one who’s the first to get canceled on. If you’ve set up child care, or you’ve arranged for transportation, or if you turned down another opportunity because you’re intending to work that shift, getting canceled on last minute can be a pretty devastating experience.
So – How can we use our platform and data to create behavioral nudges, incentives, and programs for both sides that are going to alleviate some of that volatility in the system and really connect folks at the right time, at the right shifts, and ensure that we are meeting the needs of clinicians and the facilities we partner with. We’ve made a ton of progress here
SNN: connectRN has been around for a number of years, how have you adapted to market conditions pre, during, and post pandemic?
Weber: Something that was very clear to us in early 2020 is that although we were not built for something like a coronavirus pandemic, we were actually uniquely positioned to deliver real value to the industry during that time.
We had this incredible platform already built. We had this engagement network to tens of thousands of clinicians. We were able to use that technology to make connections that wouldn’t be possible in more traditional arrangements. We sprung into action very quickly there. Folx will remember what that was like early on.
I have a public health background, so I spent a lot of time attending CDC webinars, contacting the local Department of Healths for the many districts we operated in, talking to our facility partners and clinicians… You all remember it was just total chaos.
No one knew what was going on. I think folx were looking for what best practices can we put into place right away. It was clear to us at connectRN that we could be a trusted partner to help distribute information and implement best practices at scale as quick as possible. Something that I’ve really appreciated going from working in state government to working in the technology industry is you’re usually able to be much more nimble and adaptive in the tech world. I’m really proud of connectRN’s response during that time.
In March 2020, we had already launched an in-app COVID-19 screener and training for clinicians take before their shift. And I like to think we’ve continued the innovation from there: staying nimble and responsive to what the changing needs our communities, the industry, and what incoming regulation may dictate… which as you know seems to be changing all the time.
For post-pandemic – it seems weird to call it that but I guess that’s where we are now. A lot has changed, but I think some of that is just getting back to basics. With some of the crazy volatility we’ve seen in the labor market, it has and remains very important for us to be a consistent partner to both facilities and clinicians in offering fair, sustainable, and consistent pay.
SNN: I’ve seen connectRN use the term “radical flexibility”. Can you tell me a little bit more about what that means?
Weber: I love the term radical flexibility because flexibility is just so not healthcare-y in a lot of ways. Healthcare is one of the most regulated industries there is, there’s bureaucracy and variance state by state and care setting to care setting that makes disruption and flexibility to change really difficult. Radical flexibility is really challenging a lot of those norms.
When we think about radical flexibility at its core, it starts with the nurse and the schedule that they build. Clinicians are and will continue to opt out of working in the healthcare system because the way they’ve been historically forced to work has become personally unsustainable.
It turns out that with radical flexibility you can pull a lot of clinicians who are sitting on the bench back into the workforce by allowing them to build a schedule around what works for their life. This gets back to empathy and remembering that we are all people-first. The last panel we talked about leading with love, caring for the humans as humans who are caring for other humans… Humans who have lives at home, who have kids, who have parents to care for, who are going back to school to better themselves and strengthen their careers.
For a lot of other industries this concept of flexibility in work-life balance has just become the new normal. That is obviously much more difficult in healthcare where we have to show up for our patients… but not impossible..
SNN: Thanks Kalyn. Then what do you believe are the three most important factors to sustainable staffing?
Weber: Obviously we’re a technology company so I would echo what other panelist said earlier that I do think technology (particularly automation and innovation) is really important. That said, I think a lot of folx in healthcare are burned out on technology so let’s acknowledge that not all technology is good technology.
We should be looking at solutions that are really driving scale or efficiency. If you’re just giving someone on your team more work to do by clicking another button or using another tool without creating more efficiency in the system, that’s probably not great technology. Like I said in the beginning, we really look at our solutions as ones that can either take the friction, take the work off of folks’ plate and make their lives easier. If we think about a larger burnout culture and all of us being asked to do more with less, I think focusing on those key areas of improvement is really important.
Next when I think about sustainable staffing for our partners, I think about financial controls and protections. I talked a little bit about connectRN’s pay platform and how we’ve built strong controls for administrators but we haven’t talked about the employment status of agency workers yet. While there are other models out there, we recommend that facilities work with staffing partners that support W-2 employment of their clinicians given some of the signals from the DOL regarding the use of 1099 contractors in healthcare delivery. All clinicians who work on our platform are W2 employees of connectRN and understanding your risk profile of working with a different type of partner is important.
Lastly, we talked about talent pipeline and retention efforts we talked about in beginning and I know that’s at the forefront of what’s in everyone’s mind today.
At connectRN, we talk a lot about how we can bring back the joy (we call them “moments of delight”) into nursing? Most nurses didn’t original get into nursing for the money… there was some deeper calling there that we want to help them reconnect with.
That’s not to say that pay doesn’t matter. Pay is super important. You have to be precise about pay. We use a lot of real-time data to make sure that we’re constantly assessing this what fair and competitive wages in market looks like.
But pay ultimately ultimately comes back to value: one way – and important way- that we all feel valued in our jobs is pay. We try to think about this holistically: It’s not just what you make, it’s what you take home. How can we help accelerate your lifetime earnings together? What does upskilling look like?
And of course, there are other ways that you can help make someone feel really valued in what they’re doing outside of pay. Some of that comes back to culture creating that more welcoming environment where we upend this idea that “nurses eat their young” and workplace bullying is far too common. That comes from stronger leadership and acknowledging that nursing professionals are an incredibly diverse group so there’s not a one size fits all approach there.
Then, make sure those retention programs and feedbacks into your pipeline efforts too. At connectRN we try to use more data-driven approaches to find those profiles of clinicians who are really thriving in our community and use analytics to again make those connections engage them on platform. Again, hopefully creating more supply that will benefit the entire ecosystem from our partners, clinicians, and the patients they serve.
connectRN is the leading nurse community reimagining a healthcare system where nurses and healthcare partners thrive. Created to provide nurses with flexible work opportunities, and help eradicate the healthcare staffing crisis, connectRN is a trusted advocate and workforce ally for nurses and healthcare partners.To learn more visit http://www.connectrn.com
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