Measuring Nursing Agency Utilization – Why It’s Important

You know the saying, “If you Don’t Measure it, You Can’t Manage It”. Agency Utilization within a healthcare facility is no different. How much does your facility spend?

Some of the factors contributing to the inability to track Agency Utilization Data within a healthcare facility are:

• Lack of contracts with Agencies and not controlling how many agencies are providing service to the institution
• Decentralized staffing functions, with each Patient Care Unit making its own “buying decision”
• No aggregate data accumulation on Agency Hours by Patient Care Unit, by Job Description (dollars spent may be tracked, but not hours used)
• Mixing agency expenses within a facility’s total wage costs, rather than segregating them into a separate cost centre such as “Purchased” or “Contracted” services
• Lack of time and/or clerical staff to track such expenses, when day-to-day patient care issues take priority.

Agencies with computerized scheduling software should easily be able to provide the client with useful, timely Utilization data. Why do it yourselves, when the agency can and should be able to report this data for you. Most certainly, the agency is tracking statistics for their own recruitment and business needs – so why not ask them for it!

Speak to your agency Account Representative for the data that you need. Then you can measure:

• Is our facility using more or less agency staff than last year?
• How does this volume compare to our utilization targets?
• Which Patient Care Units use agency staff?
• What Job Descriptions are being used the most?
• How many of our Requests for staff has the Agency been able to fill?
• How many of our Requests did we end up canceling before and after the agency filled the Request?

Having sound data will help you put in perspective your agency utilization as a percentage of total paid hours within the facility, and the level of service your agency is providing to you.