Name: “We are going to have a catastrophic problem” if we don’t take care of our nurses, Symplr CEO says
Uploaded: 2024-03-13
Duration: 3 min 59 s
Description: BJ Schaknowski believes a big crisis is coming to health care, with a large number of workers wanting to leave their jobs.

BJ Schaknowski believes a big crisis is coming to health care, with a large number of workers wanting to leave their jobs.

“We are going to have a catastrophic problem” if we don’t take care of our nurses, Symplr CEO says

Leadership

“We are going to have a catastrophic problem” if we don’t take care of our nurses, symplr CEO says

Simpler is in 97 out of 100 hospital facilities in the United States today providing all the back office, non clinical. So non patient facing operational software that you have to have to run a hospital. One of the unique differences or differentiators about simpler is most of the rest of the company's technology or otherwise in health care, focus on the patient, we focus on the health care worker. And so whether that's actually helping nurses spend more time with patient care and a noble cause of simpler, if you will, is give clinicians more time or give caregivers more time to actually give care. That's what we do. We make sure they spend less time. We're the only software company in the world that wants their users to use their product less. We want nurses and doctors in front of patients, not doing administrative tasks. And so they are a huge user. We've got about 5 to 6 million users in our system every single week on a clinician or the operational side. Interestingly, interestingly though we also focus on the administrative folks. And so whether it's the credentialing teams that have to make sure that physicians or nurses are credentialed, whether it's the folks in supply or contract management who spend all their time sourcing plasma from 27 different vendors when we could help them do it with one, whether it's the folks in the chief compliance office, making sure that they're complying with all the regulatory environments and also focused on patient safety. We help make all of those folks more efficient, more productive. We give them better data, we help them run a better health care system really end to end. Interestingly, in terms of the health care crisis facing in the US and how simpler helps. Right now in the United States, we've got about a 43% nursing shortage, right? 97% of nurses surveyed will say their facility, their system actually has a significant shortage of staffing. Then within that 22% of the 57% that actually exist are thinking about leaving the profession in the next year, 47% report being chronically burned out, take that and then juxtapose it with the fact that you've got all these boomers who are about to need nonstop care. If we don't take better care of our nurses, if we don't actually get them back to practicing at the top of their licenses, if we don't get them back to being engaged and more fulfilled in their work, if we don't get them back to not skipping lunches every single day or doing 200% more overtime than they were pre pandemic. We're not a cr problem. All right. And the goal of simpler and really with the outcomes we can provide, we can make sure the nurses are scheduled on the right shifts. We can make sure that they're spending more time with patients and not in front of computer screens, which is driving them absolutely crazy with these administrative burdens. We can get them back practicing at the top of their licenses. We can hopefully help get them engaged through a force platform that develops them and trains them while they're actually providing the necessary skills. They have nurses are the backbone of the health care system in the US. And they've been overlooked for far too long. A big part of what simpler does is bring them back to the forefront and we deliver for them in a meaningful way that hopefully gets them back to loving health care. Again, in terms of the leadership skills required to be a purpose driven company. I actually don't believe that you need a different set of skills. I think you need strong leadership from the top. I don't think that varies broadly or widely. I think you need alignment around your key goals. I'm also a big believer in free market capitalism. If you are a good corporate citizen, if you actually help the communities in which you serve, you will be the beneficiary of that by attracting the right employees being able to add more value to your customers, stakeholder capitalism, right? Or purpose driven organization. I see them as being one and the same. And really, if you think about sustainable organizations, if you think about those that have lasted and created successful meaningful outcomes, they've all been purpose driven. So, no, I don't think there's a separate skill set or a separate set of leadership requirements there. I think it's just knowing what your noble purpose is staying aligned against it and delivering every day for, for employees, for customers and for shareholders.