RGP Study Reveals the Systemic Impact of Healthcare Staffing Shortages on Mission-Critical Projects

RGP (Nasdaq: RGP), a global consulting firm, today released a new report that shows a significant number of healthcare service providers are failing at their mission-critical projects. The findings illustrate the impact of the industry’s growing clinical staffing shortages on all areas of the healthcare ecosystem.

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One in four healthcare executives report that less than half of their organization’s projects have met key goals since 2020, according to the report. Meanwhile, nearly 30% of healthcare service providers say projects have become more challenging in that time span.

“Healthcare service providers have taken on more mission-critical projects to keep up with growing staffing shortages, increased competition, a fast pace of change and ongoing global disruptions,” said Joni Noel, Senior Vice President, Healthcare and Private Equity at RGP. “Yet, the very staffing conditions that have forced healthcare providers to undertake these new projects have also made it more challenging to execute them.”

The industry’s staffing challenges have caused healthcare organizations to use more consulting and agile professionals, with the percentage of outside talent making up critical project teams reaching 42% today and expected to increase to 48% by 2024. While 99% of North American healthcare executives said it is important to bring strong talent from outside the organization into key project roles, this hybrid model of managing organizationally diverse teams was also cited as the top challenge.

“With our current economy impacted by labor market shortages, healthcare organizations – like many other industries – are forced to operate with smaller staffs while furiously digitizing their business processes,” said Sachin Dev, Vice President, Healthcare at RGP. “While these transformation and modernization initiatives are vital to providing the best patient experience, generating cost savings and maintaining constant revenue cashflow, the providers’ ability to find the right talent and execute these projects on-time and on-budget seems to be diminishing.”

To address these project execution skill gaps, organizations plan to make the greatest improvements in leadership skills in the areas of change management, advanced project management tool knowledge, and project assessment and strategic evaluation. Nearly 90% of respondents said that effective project leaders – employees or outside talent – were extremely or very important to project success.

“Organizations must prioritize and be selective in choosing the critical projects they pursue along with the right mix of inside/outside talent to execute their mission-critical projects,” said Dev. “Investing in these fusion teams and digital capabilities is a must for healthcare organizations to enable more cost-effective solutions and innovative alternatives for long-term success.”

The research findings are based on RGP’s fall 2022 survey of 404 large companies with $1 billion or more in revenue, including 101 healthcare executives throughout North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. Read the full report, "The Systemic Impact of Healthcare Staffing Shortages on Mission-Critical Projects" by visiting https://rgp.com/now/research/healthcare/staffing-shortages.

About RGP

RGP is a global consulting firm focused on project execution services that power clients’ operational needs and change initiatives utilizing on-demand, experienced and diverse talent. As a next-generation human capital partner for our clients, we specialize in the co-delivery of enterprise initiatives typically precipitated by business transformation, strategic transactions or regulatory change. Our engagements are designed to leverage human connection and collaboration to deliver practical solutions and more impactful results that power the success of our clients, consultants and partners.

Our unique approach to workforce strategy strongly positions us to help our clients transform their businesses and workplaces, especially at a time when high-quality talent is increasingly scarce and the usage of a flexible workforce to execute transformational projects has become the dominant operating model. Our mission as an employer is to connect our team members to meaningful opportunities that further their career ambitions within the context of a supportive talent community of dedicated professionals.

With approximately 4,100 professionals collectively engaged with over 2,100 clients around the world from nearly 40 physical practice offices and multiple virtual offices, we are their partner in delivering on the “now of work.” Headquartered in Irvine, California, RGP is proud to have served over 87% of the Fortune 100.

The Company is listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market, the exchange’s highest tier by listing standards. To learn more about RGP, visit: rgp.com.

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“Healthcare service providers have taken on more mission-critical projects to keep up with growing staffing shortages, increased competition, a fast pace of change and ongoing global disruptions.” – Joni Noel, SVP, Healthcare and Private Equity at RGP