When you think of the large group purchasing organizations, it's easy to image logistical coordination for medical technologies and supplies. But what about people?

Broadlane has taken on management of health care providers' greatest asset, their human resources. Broadlane has offered workforce management solutions since 2001 and has recently launched a new brand, Prolucent™ Workforce Management, dedicated to this business. Many clients tap Broadlane specifically for its workforce solutions.

As administrators know, payroll often accounts for more than half of hospital expenditures, the preponderance going toward clinical staff. And it's only getting worse.
"In terms of spending, staffing costs will grow over time as you have the impact of the aging population and the passage of health care reform and if we have around 30 million people introduced into the system for health care coverage. You will see demand go up for health care services and the demand for labor increases linearly along with it," said Jeff Ondeck, senior vice president of Prolucent Workforce Management.

Customers for Prolucent's workforce solutions are primarily health care providers including acute care and long-term acute care hospitals.

"Our offering is fairly unique in the marketplace and not a lot of other GPOs have built out similar offerings. We don't see a lot of competition directly within the GPO space," Ondeck said. "We do see it come from technology players and other types of service companies. So we can grow our customer base with the users of other GPOs as well as Broadlane."

What specifically are Prolucent's offerings? Workforce technologies and services that orchestrate staff resources from a network of medical personnel agencies. Prolucent's products include a suite of web-based software and services to help hospitals manage deployment of the clinical workforce.

One key element of Prolucent's solutions is its web-based vendor management system (VMS) technology aimed at the external workforce provided by medical staffing agencies. The end-to-end software solution helps with contract labor including requisition of fulfillment. Hospitals put orders out over this platform that go to a network of about 500 agencies.

Another component is credential management.

Hospitals use the system to review and track all of the credentials--licensure, skills, experience, other types of certifications--all tracked electronically so nothing falls through the cracks in tracking agency labor.

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