In McKnight's Long-Term Care News article, the CEO of Nursa, Curtis Anderson, addresses two critical issues for facilities: staffing shortages and agency spend.
Curtis Anderson's argument in the article flips the usual assumption. Instead of treating supplemental staffing as the cause of a facility's problems, he traces those problems back to weak workforce planning.
Handled well, supplemental staffing becomes part of the solution rather than a drain on the budget.
That difference shows up in the numbers. Anderson cites a memory care administrator who was spending 70% of her weekly budget on external staff.
The administrator identified three per diem clinicians she trusted, built a bench around them, and over time hired some of them permanently. Her supplemental spend dropped to 20%, and her residents started seeing familiar faces.
The same shift is possible at your facility once planning drives the supplemental staffing decisions.
Cutting agency spend alone doesn't close the gap. It just moves the pressure to overtime or to admissions decisions that turn residents away.
So stop asking "How do we spend less on agency?" As Anderson puts it, start asking yourself, "What does our workforce actually look like, and how do we plan for it?"
Four moves that turn staffing into a solid plan
Planning your workforce doesn't take a full overhaul. The following 4 moves do most of the work:
- Audit your unfilled shifts to spot the patterns behind them, whether they cluster on certain days, units, or roles.
- Build a bench of repeat clinicians who already know your building and your residents.
- Give schedulers clear visibility into what each staffing decision actually costs.
- Put HR and operations in the same conversation so hiring and scheduling pull in the same direction.
None of these changes requires a new system, just a different starting question.
Ready to plan your staffing instead of reacting to it? Start with Nursa and build a bench of reliable per diem clinicians.
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