Key points:
- Mercy's "Mercy Works on Demand" is an app and platform that allows nurses and other front-line caregivers to pick up shifts on-demand.
- The platform has increased Mercy's fill rate — the percentage of available nursing shifts filled on a given day or night — from the mid 80s to 92%.
- Managers don't have to work as hard to fill shifts and front-line nurses can easily find the shifts they want that fit their schedule.
ST. LOUIS — Mercy’s in-house scheduling app is threading one of the toughest needles for any workplace — it’s a hit with managers and everyday workers alike.
The “Mercy Works on Demand” app and scheduling platform makes it easier for nurses and other caregivers to improve work-life balance with a custom schedule, all while helping managers fill more shifts with less hassle. It all adds up to more Mercy caregivers on every shift, with more face-to-face time for each other and for patients.
“I used to spend so much time calling our nurses during their free time and asking them to pick up shifts so I could get the schedule filled," said Karla VanHorn, nurse manager at Mercy Hospital Springfield in Missouri. "Our core nurses would pick them up, or gig nurses would. I no longer constantly look at the schedule, and when our nurses come in, they aren't concerned about being short-staffed, either. Even better — I'm no longer bothering them when they're off, asking them to work."
The app combines the best of gig-style nursing — schedule and pay flexibility while working on demand — with the predictability and stability of a large, multistate healthcare system like Mercy.
“Mercy Works on Demand” launched in Springfield as a pilot program in 2022, soon extended across Mercy’s five-state footprint. Since then, its success spurred an expansion beyond nursing roles to other front-line positions in clinical and non-clinical roles.
Mercy’s nursing fill rate — the percentage of available nursing shifts filled on a particular day or night — is at 92% and rising. The fill rate was mired in the mid-80s before the simple switch to “Mercy Works on Demand.”
The platform is available to all Mercy nurses and other highly-qualified, experienced caregivers in the community: school nurses, gig nurses and nurses who also work at other healthcare employers. Similarly, shifts on the platform for other clinical and non-clinical roles are also open to Mercy caregivers and other qualified professionals who want to be part of Mercy workplaces.
The gig shifts help make life more manageable for nurses like Madysen Feeney at Missouri’s Mercy Hospital Lebanon. As a new parent struggling for sleep and rest, she and her husband were overwhelmed when she returned to her regular night shift work. “Mercy Works on Demand” gave her options beyond staying home permanently and turning their household budget upside down.
"It's been life-changing," she said. "I feel like I'm living, not just surviving. With this new program, I'm able to work one night in Lebanon, and supplement that income with a shift the next week in the emergency room in Springfield."
Working one 12-hour night shift a week means Feeney doesn't have to put her daughter in daycare, and there is another advantage she hadn't anticipated. "It's been great to go back to the bedside in the ER," she said. "I didn't realize how much I missed caring for patients."
