For Dan Latham, providing quality care isn’t just a profession — it’s a passion.
Although he considered a budding education and career in commercial art, healthcare was the industry that ultimately won Dan over. From help in the operating room to mobile care as an EMT, Dan’s medical background has spanned decades. And during that time, he ultimately settled on a career as a nurse.
But choosing a career doesn’t mean that you have to sacrifice adventures. And choosing adventure doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice patient care. That’s why Dan, always on the go, found joy as a traveling nurse. He had the opportunity to move across the U.S. and work shifts in various cities.
Throughout his travels, Dan noticed the growing need for agency staffing and he had an idea. So in 2010, Dan founded Pulse Medical Staffing, a premier medical staffing agency that provides much-needed temporary supplemental staff to all area healthcare services.
And while nurse is the title he values most (in fact, he still practices nursing and treats patients), he added a new title when he founded Pulse Medical Staffing. As CEO, Dan has learned how important it is to streamline admin so you can focus on what matters most — quality patient care.
The source of truth — a notebook
While Dan — and his staff — are always on the go, there was one big thing holding them back. A notebook.
Dan tracked everything in that notebook. That notebook contained a list of current employees (which was constantly changing), where they were going, when they were going there, and all the shift changes that occurred every four hours.
“It was definitely cumbersome,” says Dan. “I had to remember to take that notebook with me, even into a movie or to dinner, because I always needed access to that information.”
And that wasn’t the end of it.
What slows down care? Phone tag.
According to Pulse Medical Staffing, their nurses are “just a heartbeat away.” Unfortunately, it took a lot of manual work to make that happen.
Pulse Medical Staffing has grown exponentially over the years. And that manual process was getting in the way of their work.
“Anytime we wanted to communicate with our team, we had to pick up the phone and call or email everyone,” says Dan. ”It was a slow, slow process. So instead of publishing it out to 150 staff at once for one particular job, we would have to literally call 150 people to see who wanted to work and who didn't.”
Dan recognized that something needed to change.
Fast, furious, and mobile
Dan’s notebook, while technically mobile, had limitations. Because it wasn’t digital, making changes was time consuming. And on top of that, he had to do double work to notify staff of...anything and everything.
“We do staffing fast and furious,” says Dan. “When I decided to move beyond my notebook, I looked for software to simplify scheduling. But everything I tried was big, clunky, and slow. It just didn't move as fast as we did.”
That’s when Dan found Deputy.
“Deputy makes it easy for me to schedule staff,” says Dan. “I’ve literally done it in the car on my phone. Now, I can get a text message from any one of my client facilities and they can ask for 80 shifts. I can quickly load those into Deputy on my mobile platform, even when I’m travelling.”
But it’s a benefit for his team too, because now they don’t have to rely on phone trees or updates in Dan’s notebook. They know exactly where they need to be, and can even pick up extra shifts, directly from their phone.
“Without Deputy, we couldn’t do what we do.”
Getting rid of that old way of scheduling and communication wasn’t just to streamline manual processes. Once Dan started using Deputy, he was able to step back from the operations of running the business so he can focus on people. He’s started consulting, helping other nurses and businesses, and has even more energy to continue to grow Pulse Medical Staffing.
“It’s important to me that we fulfill the needs for both my field employees and my clients,” says Dan. “Deputy has made that easy for me in a way that when I get my clients’ needs, we can share them with our team instantly. And then it makes it easy for our clinical staff in the field to be flexible. And that's what we're all about.”
To learn more about how the right technology can help grow your practice, download The Essential Tech Stack to Launch and Grow Your Practice.
