Optimizing Care Teams by Leveraging Advanced Practice Providers Through Strategic Workforce Planning

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Workforce Planning
• Advanced Practice Providers

Background:

• Advanced practice providers (APPs) are essential healthcare team members.
• Current APP utilization lacks standardization across various care settings.
• Inconsistent utilization can negatively impact job satisfaction and retention.

Purpose of the Study:

• To optimize and standardize the roles of APPs.
• To evaluate APP positions using national benchmarks.
• To improve APP utilization within an academic medical center.

Main Methods:

• Formation of a multidisciplinary workforce planning committee in March 2021.
• Evaluation of all new and replacement full-time equivalent APP positions.
• Focus on optimizing and standardizing APP roles per national benchmarks.

Main Results:

• A 10% increase in patient visits and procedures performed by APPs.
• Significant improvements in ambulatory APP productivity (38.7%) and utilization (19.4%).
• Enhanced inpatient APP performance, with a 38.8% improvement in meeting average daily census targets.

Conclusions:

• Standardizing APP roles through a dedicated committee improves healthcare delivery.
• Optimized APP utilization enhances patient access and operational efficiency.
• Addressing APP utilization is crucial for healthcare organizations aiming for better performance and staff satisfaction.