Data-Driven Technology Suite Drives Cost Savings & Transforms Staffing Operations
Southern Illinois Healthcare (SIH) is a not-for-profit health system serving the southernmost counties of Illinois with four hospitals: 162-bed tertiary care Memorial Hospital of Carbondale, 114-bed acute inpatient and outpatient Herrin Hospital, 25-bed critical access St. Joseph Memorial Hospital and 77-bed Harrisburg Medical Center.
Seeking effective strategies to modernize decision-making and compete in the talent marketplace, the rural health system partnered with us to implement a VMS solution and Workforce Planning Dashboard, part of our WorkWise™ technology suite, to support enterprise transparency, fill positional needs, and manage operational costs and efficiency with a vendor neutral approach.
Beginning with a sunset rollover, the customized technology solution enabled SIH to leverage actionable market data and expand their reach—successfully filling 102 open positions with diverse and qualified candidates, while reducing average bill rates by 21%.
Challenge
- Limited visibility and governance with their previous program
- Struggling to fill open positions
- Looking for cost reductions and efficiencies
- Lacking partnership and industry guidance
Solutions
By analyzing workforce data, SIH gained a clear picture of current staffing trends and identified the ideal workforce mix to balance clinical and financial goals. Through workforce analysis, leadership was able to uncover staffing inefficiencies, identify areas of overreliance on contingent labor, and align workforce strategies with projected patient demand. The Workforce Planning Dashboard provided a consolidated view of core and contingency staff utilization, vacancy trends, labor spend, and future resource demand, enabling more proactive workforce planning, smarter hiring decisions, and greater operational oversight.
Key initiatives include:
- Utilized workforce analytics to evaluate staffing utilization patterns and optimize workforce mix
- Implemented a VMS technology to meet geographical challenges of their rural location
- Leveraged an open marketplace model to expand their reach
- Collaborated on a sunset rollover plan for continuity
- Established enterprise-wide visibility into labor demand, fill rates, contingent labor utilization, and spend
Outcomes
- Aligned staffing resources to patient care needs through the workforce analysis
- 81% of all posted jobs received a submission in 24 hours or less
- 9.4 average candidate submissions received per job posting
- 21% reduction in average bill rates $115 to $91
- 92% fill rate over the last quarter and 102 total positions filled
- Visibility into workforce supply, demand, and labor spend across the organization
- Enabled data-driven staffing decisions that supported both cost containment and workforce stability