1. Crowd working : effective workforce management to supplement hospital nursing staff : a research agenda
- Author
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Schmelzer, Sarah, Berger, Sina, Klumb, Petra, Musy, Sarah, Simon, Michael, Liberatore, Florian, Schmelzer, Sarah, Berger, Sina, Klumb, Petra, Musy, Sarah, Simon, Michael, and Liberatore, Florian
- Abstract
Background: With greater digitalization, new forms of employment are also emerging in health care, such as crowd working, the temporary outsourcing of tasks to a group of qualified freelance professionals via an internet platform. This includes shift-based temporary work arrangements for nurses that resemble typical crowd working patterns in other sectors. Qualified nurses offer their availability on online platforms and can be booked by hospitals for individual shifts. While this type of work arrangement challenges traditional hospital management systems, it offers opportunities for more flexible personnel planning. State of research and research gap: The use of temporary nursing staff in hospitals has been the subject of several research studies. The research field of crowd working, however, focuses mainly on micro-tasks or creative/complex tasks in other sectors, both of which is not comparable with crowd working arrangements in a shift-based work environment involving highly skilled professionals in healthcare organizations. Aim: Development of a research agenda about the challenges of engaging temporary nurses through crowd working platforms and potential consequences for hospital administrations. Based on an overview of the existing literature in related research fields, a research agenda was developed as a starting point for future research on the use and management of external temporary nurses (“nurse crowd workers” or “crowd working nurses”). Results: Flexible workforce planning using crowd working by nurses calls for new strategies in nurse resource planning, shift assignment, and team interaction. The effect of crowd working by nurses on effective healthcare provision in ad-hoc teams and the related impact on hospital outcomes (quality, costs) were identified as main fields of research. Conclusions: (1) The study of crowd working by nurses is a research objective that calls for interdisciplinary research from sector-specific disciplines such as healthcare
- Published
- 2022