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Angie Karim Nasr: Bringing Flexibility to Healthcare Staffing 

Angie Karim Nasr
Angie Karim Nasr

The digital age has presented every industry with alternate solutions for making many day-to-day processes easier, reachable, and faster. One needs to recognize the opportunity from difficulties that are presented before them and come up with the innovation to change the way work is done.

Healthcare professionals are required to do their duties with the utmost attention. The energy and the focus required for the task takes a toll on healthcare workers’ personal lives. The demand for having sufficient staff in the health sector is always high. Providing healthcare professionals with flexibility in their work helps keep the balance between their personal and professional life.

Angie Karim Nasr identified the constant need to find staff for healthcare facilities and worked with her co-founders to develop this on-demand solution to fix the healthcare staffing shortage. The digital healthcare platform was launched in 2016 to assist healthcare professionals in finding flexible work assignments as well as hospitals, outpatient facilities, SNFs, and other providers in filling worker shortages as quickly as possible.

Angie is an experienced Chief Nursing Officer with a proven history of working as a Director of Nursing in Ambulatory Surgical Centers and beyond. She is skilled in healthcare management, perinatal and surgical nursing, Medicare, patient safety, and quality improvement. She is a strong business development professional with a Bachelor of Science focused on Nursing (BSN) from Loyola University Chicago.

Recognizing the Shortcomings

Any innovation idea begins with recognizing the problems in that particular sector. Angie, on identifying the issue in the healthcare industry, says that “As the Director of Nursing at multiple ambulatory surgical centers early in my career, I always had an issue with staffing for our scheduled surgeries. I spent countless hours every week calling nurses to work on the days we had cases scheduled.”

She adds, “There was no easy way for nurses to connect with healthcare facilities and vice versa. An on-demand workforce was the perfect solution to the problem at hand. I wanted a seamless way for providers to conveniently book per diem jobs and earn more while promoting flexibility.”

The Foundation Steps

On the hard work that was crucial to commence the Medely platform, Angie said, “My co-founders and I worked for a year to launch Medely. In the beginning, I interviewed healthcare professionals in person at night after working at my full-time job and on weekends to ensure they were experienced nurses.”

She adds that “We started with nursing and Allied professionals for surgical centers before expanding to other types of healthcare facilities, including hospitals, SNFs, and more. Seeing the vision become a reality was a huge reward in itself. We started in Southern California, USA, and soon expanded across the United States.”

The Results

Medely was able to fulfill its purpose. It gained its rightful audience from healthcare professionals and facilities who were seeking a digital solution to speed up finding per diem and longer-term staff and the overall onboarding process. Medely provides various types of assistance to healthcare professionals who are seeking jobs.

Describing the usefulness of the platform, Angie says that “Medely is the largest labor marketplace for short- and long-term healthcare jobs. Medely helps healthcare professionals instantly access high paying jobs with the freedom and flexibility to work when and where they want.”

For hospitals, SNFs, ASCs, and other healthcare facilities, Medely turned out to be a rescuer. Angie notes that “Healthcare facilities benefited by using our platform to scale their workforce on-demand. Medely also provides healthcare facilities with the tools needed to manage their extended workforce such as time tracking, billing, talent, and credentials management.”

COVID-19 Impact on The Healthcare Industry

COVID-19 was a major test for the whole healthcare sector. It had to go through a lot of changes, ups and downs in the last two years. Angie had an astute understanding of all the minute things that were happening in the health sector from the beginning of the pandemic.

Talking about the challenges imposed by the pandemic on the healthcare industry and how the industry managed to deal with them by coming up with alternatives effectively, she says, “The COVID-19 pandemic surfaced the vulnerabilities within health systems and accelerated the adoption of technology.”

“The continuous COVID surges forced health systems to examine all resources available to help close the staffing gaps to accommodate their overflowing ERs, ICUs, overflow to other units, and protect care for chronic patients by minimizing delayed or canceled treatments,” she adds.

Health systems rely on a contingent workforce now more than ever. The demand for staff immediately expanded leaders’ acceptance to adopt new models such as a flexible marketplace to provide safe care to their patients. Medely is uniquely positioned to help the healthcare industry navigate the future of workforce management by partnering with health systems to provide flexible talent on demand.

Technology in Healthcare

When asked about how technology is helping the healthcare sector to improve its daily tasks, Angie observes that “Technology within the healthcare space has transformed the industry creating efficiency, accurate data collection, and improved patient care, which is the bottom line.”

Medely’s mission to mobilize the workforce is a direct function of utilizing software technology to provide an end-to-end solution for healthcare pros to instantly book jobs and for healthcare facilities to fill their needs with qualified and vetted professionals.

Talking about how her digital staffing platform has turned out to be a big help for the full healthcare ecosystem, she says, “Providing transparency and access to jobs at the fingertips of Medely Professionals without relying on a recruiter exponentially speeds the time to fill jobs for facilities resulting in better staffing ratios, quality care, and exceptional patient experiences.”

Facing the Pandemic Test

Facing the COVID-19 pandemic was a challenging task for nearly every organization, including digital platforms. When asked about what were the reactions to COVID-19 at Medely, Angie replies, “At the onset of the pandemic, Medely Headquarters in Santa Monica, CA closed and we were committed to a digital work environment. 35% of the employees pre-pandemic were already working remotely, so the change didn’t affect everyone, and we were already well equipped with the resources to remain efficient during this change.”

“An online informational COVID-19 help section has been maintained to keep employees up to date on CDC guidelines and protocols. A virtual workforce also meant virtual coffees and happy hours with employees to maintain our strong culture and comradery amongst one another,” she notes.

Stand for Gender Equality in Business Leadership

Gender equality in today’s world is compulsory to have, and every business should value it.

When asked about her views on attaining diversity and gender equality at the workplace, Angie remarked, “People are the center of our business. Adopting diversity and inclusion, including gender equality, has always been a fundamental value and cultural norm to Medely. “

“As a female leader myself, I am compelled to ensure our responsibility towards equal opportunities and pay regardless of gender. In fact, 71% of Medely’s corporate employees are female. Females, as well as males, are provided with the same tools and resources to have a voice in the company and drive company initiatives as well as hold leadership positions,” she adds.

Guidance to The Entrepreneurs

Every successful leader has the responsibility to show the guiding path to the people who wish to enter in the same industry. These words of guidance can save many young ones time by following the advice.

Guiding the aspirants who want to bring digital transformation in the healthcare sector, Angie says, “Follow your passion. If you are able to identify a real problem and solve it, then you will have a product market fit. I found myself in a situation that affected me and I knew it affected every other Director of Nursing I knew.”

She adds that “It’s no secret that the momentum of evolution in the healthcare sector is growing faster than ever. Addressing market trends with innovative solutions works best with data-driven decision making and always measuring the impact on the customer experience. Lastly, it’s easy to get sidetracked. Stay true to your mission and do one thing really great before adding additional products.”

Plans for 2022 and Beyond

There are unlimited possibilities in the digital platform when it comes to adding and upgrading its services. Angie describes her plans for Medely to grow further, saying, “As a tech company, we are constantly evolving the product and exploring opportunities to improve our customers’ lives.”

In addition, she says, “We are looking for more ways to expand our healthcare professional’s ability to earn higher pay and find flexible work promoting work-life balance. And for the facilities, we will continue to scale our workforce to provide them with healthcare professionals on demand.”

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