The Impact of Online Labor Platforms on Workforce Management in Health Care

Online labor platforms (OLPs) have the potential to change how the workforce is allocated and managed in health care. The contracting, coordination, and communication of bookings and work assignments happen on these platforms in near real-time with no delay and without any human interactions. This perspective paper describes the worldwide trend toward OLPs in health care, gives an overview of the functioning of these platforms, and discusses the prospects and challenges for health care management. As a real-world case, the platform logic, growth and traffic of a Swiss OLP designed for temporary nurse deployment are presented. OLPs facilitate managing different work arrangements (float pools and temporary work) through (1) offering health care staff flexible work options, which in turn lowers the dropout rates of health care professionals; and (2) effectively managing internal staffing allowing human resource sharing within and across health care organizations. For health care management research, OLPs yield data that can be used to analyze the characteristics, use, and dynamics of flexible work arrangements and temporary work in health care.