The evolution of workforce management in healthcare is accelerating, and the systems that adapt will thrive.
While traditional vendor management systems (VMS) provided hospitals with critical visibility into spend and staffing vendors, today’s workforce complexities demand more. The next generation of solutions, like LotusOne—a future-ready unified VMS platform—goes beyond basic vendor oversight to offer a fully integrated Workforce Management System (WMS) that strategically balances utilization, optimizes costs and provides direct access to top talent.
At the same time, many hospitals are navigating a growing disconnect—facing modern challenges with legacy tools built for an earlier era of workforce management. This complexity isn’t a roadblock—it’s a signal that a smarter, more strategic approach is needed. As demands evolve, so must the solutions. What follows is a look at how forward-thinking systems are reimagining workforce management to meet the moment—and build for the future.
Table of Contents
The Evolution of VMS: From Visibility to Strategy
Initially, VMS applications were designed to address consistent and pervasive operational pain points:
- Job requisition
- Candidate tracking
- Compliance management
- Timekeeping and Invoicing
- Reporting
- Visibility into staffing spend and vendor landscape
These functionalities provided much-needed control, but as workforce demands grow, hospitals need more than just oversight—they needed strategic solutions.
Advancing Workforce Management: The Next-Gen Approach
As hospitals seek to optimize their workforce beyond basic VMS capabilities, new challenges are emerging beyond contract labor management, necessitating advanced solutions:
- Supplier Optimization – Achieving cost efficiency while maintaining quality of care
- Permanent Hiring – Finding the best-fit candidates faster with access to expansive healthcare talent pools and flexible hiring models
- Resource management – Evaluating the entire available workforce — core staff, internal resource pools and external talent — to fill open shifts with the most qualified and cost-effective professionals
- Flexibility – Adapting staffing models to changing patient volumes and workforce demands
- Customization – Tailoring staffing strategies to the unique needs of each facility
The Future: A Fully Integrated Workforce Management System (WMS)
Modern healthcare systems require a true platform that scales with their evolving needs. The most progressive organizations are adopting WMS solutions like LotusOne, which:
- Delivers Scalability – Seamlessly grows with the complexity of the organization
- Integrates Third-Party Systems – Unifies workforce-related data, improving decision-making
- Leverages AI & Automation – From demand forecasting to proactive candidate matching, LotusOne uses machine learning and real-time analytics to automate key workflows, reduce manual work and give leaders actionable insights that drive better patient and business outcomes
The Path Forward: Achieving Balanced Utilization
One of the key challenges healthcare systems face is ensuring balanced utilization—the ability to align workforce supply with patient demand while controlling costs and maintaining care quality. Progressive systems are leveraging technology to:
- Predict workforce needs based on historical data and real-time analytics
- AI-driven automation of staffing workflows to reduce administrative burdens
- Optimize internal resource pools before relying on external talent
- Enhance collaboration across departments for more agile workforce planning
- Strengthen permanent hiring strategies by identifying long-term talent needs and streamlining recruitment
Why LotusOne?
LotusOne is the innovative choice for whole-house healthcare workforce management. While traditional VMS platforms tend to focus solely on contingent labor—or rely on third-party partnerships to round out their offerings—LotusOne was purpose-built to unify every facet of workforce planning.
With LotusOne, you can plan ahead, hire permanent staff, grow your float pool, and even bring in international talent. Plus, our AI and smart planning tools allow you to fill roles before they become urgent. LotusOne’s Workforce AITM uses predictive analytics, AI and machine learning to forecast patient demand and workforce needs months in advance, setting you up to have the right resources in place at the right time. Direct access to high-quality clinicians and providers helps organizations accelerate hiring for core staff, float pool, travel or per diem talent to quickly adapt to shifting demand. This LotusOne feature enhances float pool management by cascading open shifts to core staff, float pools, and external workers, driving balanced utilization and minimizing reliance on costly premium labor. With seamless interoperability across existing systems like HRIS, timekeeping and scheduling, LotusOne minimizes disruption while syncing your entire labor enterprise within one connected platform.
Built to scale with your enterprise, LotusOne intelligently weaves together market trends—as well as historical and real-time data—to deliver actionable insights at every level of workforce planning. And unlike legacy platforms that silo contingent labor from the rest of your staffing strategy, LotusOne connects every part of your labor ecosystem—internal pools, external vendors, full-time talent and the tech you already rely on.
The result? Less complexity, smarter utilization and a workforce strategy that works for today and tomorrow. A unified platform. Unlimited possibilities. LotusOne.
Author
Sonya Garcia is the Senior Vice President of Workforce Solutions at Qualivis. With nearly 25 years of healthcare industry experience, she leads nationwide workforce programs that help hospitals optimize staffing through data-driven strategies, cross-functional collaboration and innovation solutions.