There are a multitude of multi-billion dollar segments within the global staffing industry, one of which is healthcare. To stay on top of trends in the segment, someone on our team usually attends the annual Healthcare Staffing Summit put on by Staffing Industry Analysts.

This year the meeting convenes in Chicago and we’re pleased that Locum Leaders CEO Will Drescher has been tapped to join a panel discussion on locum tenens. Specifically, Will and others will review trends in outsourcing and the impact on buyers and sellers of locum services.

In brief, hospitals are increasingly outsourcing entire service areas to specialized management companies. Your hospital’s emergency room or radiology department may, in fact, be staffed by doctors who live locally but are employed by a third-party in a different state. 

In Will’s business, the trend is most pronounced in Hospital Medicine. Large regional and national hospitalist management companies like IPC, Sound, Cogent, Apogee, Team Health and others operate the hospitalist programs at perhaps a third of all acute care hospitals across the country. If you are in the staffing business, these companies are important entities as they control a significant number of physician jobs.

Each of these companies has its own unique hiring practices and differing perspectives on the use of temporary or locum tenens staff. The good news, overall, is that in most parts of the country and in most specialties, physician demand far outstrips supply. That trend is the most compelling one that drives the healthcare staffing industry forward, and will do so for the foreseeable future.