Article

6 Purchased Services That Directly Benefit Nurses

January 31, 2023
Nurses on break, talking and interacting with one another

Purchased services allow organizations like non-acute healthcare providers to utilize third-party expertise to help with various business areas. The services provide a benefit by handling jobs that organizations may not have expertise in or don’t have the resources to dedicate to the tasks.

A purchased service can be used in a range of scenarios, from a single time, like for a one-time project, to on an ongoing basis, such as accounting or billing. Group purchasing organization (GPO) members can easily tap into expert help and fill gaps in their business through purchased services.

While many purchased services benefit the entire organization, others focus on specific departmental needs. These six GPO-enabled purchased services assist and empower nurses in non-acute care.

1. CLINICAL SERVICES MEET A RANGE OF PATENT NEEDS

Non-acute healthcare providers with critical support can use these purchased services to help aid clinicians and nurses. The healthcare professionals who deliver these essential services can provide care, perform healthcare procedures and offer a range of other services to diagnose and care for patients.
Long-term care facilities and physician offices can benefit from the clinical services to meet various resident and patient needs. In addition, ambulatory surgery centers can use the clinical services for anesthesia, diagnostics and other procedures.

2. FACILITY AND SUPPORT SERVICES ENHANCE THE WORKING ENVIRONMENT

Keeping a facility operational is a top priority. To provide an aesthetically inviting facility and campus while promoting patient and resident comfort, purchased services include performing preventive and routine maintenance to help ensure the building stays in working condition.

Services can range from elevator maintenance to air conditioning system upkeep to mowing the grass and improving the landscaping. Other offerings include ensuring automatic doors open properly to functioning heating systems that keep rooms warm.

Facility and support services involve providing laundry and linen cleaning to ensure nurses have clean uniforms to wear. Services can also cover patient transportation to help people get to and from their appointments on time. Outsourcing these services to experienced vendors ensures the jobs don’t end up falling on nurses to handle, which would add to their workloads and potentially take away time from direct patient care.

3. HIRING AND ONBOARDING SERVICES FILL NURSING VACANCIES

Staffing is a pressing issue across many industries and organizations. Companies like non-acute facilities can turn to purchased services to find, hire and onboard employees, including nurses.

The end-to-end hiring process is often extremely time consuming. Many organizations lack the time and personnel resources to dedicate to interviewing, hiring and training employees. Purchased services can find nurses for non-acute organizations to fill any type of opening across urgent care, physician offices and other types of facilities.

4. IT SERVICES IMPROVE NURSES’ EFFICIENCY

Nurses and other staff can be more effective and efficient with modern technology that’s user friendly and assists them with their jobs. Today’s IT systems can help nurses and facilities deliver optimum telehealth experiences for patients—which has grown in popularity since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic—and help staff quickly access patients’ electronic health records to see their medical history.

“Health IT also supports one of the strongest tenets of nursing—educating the patient and family,” according to Nursing World.  

Current technology helps facilities modernize their patient booking strategy to make changing appointments easier and prevent missed appointments. In addition, IT security solutions help keep medical records and facility data protected from breaches. Modern IT approaches can be instrumental in driving a digital transformation across a facility, bringing a shift from time-consuming paper forms and manual processes to digital workflows and automation. In addition, IT can enable modern applications like virtual assistants to help nurses with their jobs, like capturing patient information, and improve the patient experience. 

“Provista offers an average of 10% to 15% savings on services from its suppliers, including purchased services for patient care.”

5. ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES HELP NURSES FOCUS ON PATIENT CARE

Many nurses perform work that falls outside the realm of providing patient care. Some nurses are also responsible for billing, office management and procurement, among other duties. Outsourcing non-patient care tasks to a purchased services provider allows nurses to focus on their core jobs.
Purchased services that handle administrative duties help organizations with essential back-end processes, such as accounting, regulatory compliance, IT services and other non-patient-facing services. The right approach to administrative processes can drive new efficiencies and automate some office functions to better support nurses.

6. LANGUAGE INTERPRETATION SERVICES IMPROVE PATIENT COMMUNICATIONS

Language barriers can turn into healthcare barriers when nurses can’t speak the same language as a patient. Hiring bilingual employees can be a challenge and only take an organization so far as there will still be patients who speak languages outside those spoken by staff members.
Utilizing professional interpreters through purchased services contracts can allow facilities to serve a more diverse patient population. Outsourcing this essential service often makes the most sense to ensure interpreters understand privacy rules and have the healthcare expertise to translate accurately.

SAVE ON PURCHASED SERVICES THROUGH A GPO

Using purchased services through a GPO can save organizations money. For example, Provista offers an average of 10% to 15% savings on the services from its suppliers, including purchased services for patient care. 

You Might Also Like

Ready to Get Started?

Take the next step to start saving.

Become a Member