How Position Control Balances Healthcare Staffing Efficiency and Flexibility

Health systems are leaving millions on the table every year because workforce decisions are reactive, not strategic. Position control in healthcare staffing flips the script, giving leaders real-time visibility into every role and shift so they can take calculated risks with overtime, pay, and workforce mix. By balancing full-time and part-time dynamics against patient demand and market realities, health systems can turn staffing from a costly headache into a decisive competitive advantage.

What Is Position Control in Healthcare Staffing?

Managing today’s healthcare workforce is complicated. Many health systems juggle full-time, part-time, and per diem clinicians across multiple departments, often without a complete picture of staffing needs.

Position control is a systematic way to manage every role within a health system, not just the clinicians filling them. By focusing on positions rather than people, systems gain complete visibility into staffing needs, labor costs, and compliance risks, enabling smarter, data-driven decisions.

Rather than reacting to gaps or overspending, position control allows health systems to optimize labor, prevent scheduling problems, and align workforce strategy with organizational goals.

4 Position Control Applications in Healthcare Staffing

Keeping healthcare workforce operations running smoothly depends on having the right staff in the right place at the right time. Here are four position control applications in healthcare staffing:

1. Large Multi-Hospital Systems

Large multi-hospital systems face a significant challenge in managing staffing across multiple facilities, departments, and shifts. Without clear visibility, it’s easy to lose track of where clinicians are needed most, leading to overstaffing in some areas, understaffing in others, and escalating labor costs—all while risking patient care quality. Position control solves this by providing a centralized view of all hospital positions, enabling leaders to maintain consistent staffing levels, reduce redundant roles, and optimize labor spend across the system.

2. Academic Medical Centers

Academic medical centers manage a complex mix of specialized roles, rotating residents, and teaching responsibilities. Without a structured approach, staffing gaps can disrupt patient care, delay training programs, and increase administrative burdens. Position control offers a clear framework for all positions, allowing leaders to efficiently coordinate specialized staff, balance educational and clinical needs, and ensure compliance and operational efficiency.

3. Growing Health Systems

Health systems undergoing rapid growth or mergers often face overlapping or undefined roles, making it challenging to align staffing with strategic goals. This can lead to confusion, inefficiencies, and unnecessary labor costs, slowing the organization’s ability to scale effectively. Position control provides a structured approach to defining and managing positions, helping leaders plan new roles, align their workforce with growth objectives, and maintain financial discipline.

4. High-Cost or Regulated Systems

Systems with high labor costs or stringent regulatory requirements struggle to balance budget constraints, staffing needs, and compliance obligations. Labor spending can escalate without oversight, and regulatory gaps can create risk. Position control gives leaders transparent, audit-ready visibility into every position, allowing them to optimize staffing, control costs, and ensure regulatory compliance while maintaining high-quality patient care.

3 Position Control Strategies for Health Systems

At the 2025 Workforce Innovation Summit hosted at Nasdaq, ShiftMed COO Jacob Laufer discussed his view of position control as a significant opportunity in healthcare staffing.

“Through position control, hospitals have the chance to take smarter, strategic risks with overtime and pay policies, carefully balancing them against local market demands,” he explained. “This is the sweet spot everyone is trying to figure out—how to manage full-time and part-time dynamics while meeting the expectations of today’s workforce.”

1. Applying Smarter Overtime and Pay Policies

Many health system leaders know the feeling: staring at overtime reports late at night, wondering where the money’s going and whether staffing decisions made under pressure will hold up tomorrow. Position control changes that story. It gives leaders real-time visibility into every role, shift, and dollar spent, allowing them to take smarter, data-backed risks with overtime and pay policies.

With clear insight into coverage gaps, value-driven incentives, and cost containment, leaders move from firefighting to foresight. Without position control, staffing remains a guessing game—reactive, inconsistent, and costly, keeping even the most seasoned executives up at night.

2. Balancing Full-Time and Part-Time Dynamics

For many health system leaders, juggling full-time and part-time staff feels like walking a tightrope—one misstep can mean understaffed units, overworked employees, and dissatisfied patients. Position control puts leaders back in the driver’s seat, giving a centralized, real-time view of staffing needs, budgets, and workforce capacity. Instead of reacting to last-minute gaps or guessing who should cover a shift, leaders can strategically align staff with patient demand, reducing stress, protecting quality care, and reclaiming control over operations.

3. Meeting Workforce Expectations While Controlling Costs

Health system leaders know the pressure: staff want flexible schedules, predictable hours, and fair pay, yet budgets are tight and patient care can’t wait. Position control gives leaders the clarity they need to act confidently, modeling different scheduling and pay scenarios to satisfy staff without overspending. Instead of scrambling to react to complaints or costly last-minute changes, leaders can balance workforce expectations, operational efficiency, and financial control.

5 Steps for Adopting Position Control in Healthcare Staffing

Implementing position control requires the right technology and a clear, organized approach. By auditing roles, setting up solid processes, connecting systems, and monitoring staffing and pay closely, workforce management goes from a constant scramble to a real strategic advantage.

These five steps provide the visibility and insight you need to optimize labor, match staffing to patient demand, and make smarter, data-driven decisions:

1. Audit Current Roles and Shifts

Start by taking a hard look at your workforce. Identify gaps, redundancies, and misaligned roles that may cost money or create staffing bottlenecks. Understanding the current state of your workforce is the foundation for strategic staffing. Without it, you must make decisions in the dark, increasing the risk of errors and inefficiencies.

2. Define a Clear Process

Establish structured approval workflows for every role, from full-time positions to per diem shifts. This ensures that every role is intentional, justified, and aligned with operational goals. A transparent process prevents confusion, reduces redundant positions, and gives you the confidence to make staffing decisions proactively rather than reactively.

3. Integrate Systems

Connect your scheduling, payroll, and budgeting systems so that workforce data is centralized and actionable. Integration lets you see the cost of staffing decisions, quickly model different scenarios, and understand the impact of overtime, pay adjustments, or schedule changes on budgets and patient care.

4. Monitor and Adjust Continuously

Position control uses real-time data to track staffing effectiveness, optimize overtime, and fine-tune pay policies. Continuous monitoring allows you to respond to changes in patient demand, market pressures, or workforce expectations before problems spiral into crises.

5. Leverage Insights Strategically

You can turn the intelligence gained from position control into staffing decisions that support financial goals, operational efficiency, and workforce satisfaction. By leveraging insights, you shift from firefighting daily staffing challenges to shaping a workforce that drives organizational success.

How ShiftMed Supports Position Control in Healthcare Staffing

ShiftMed can help you implement effective position control by bringing real-time visibility, flexibility, and actionable insights into your workforce.

Centralized Staffing Visibility

ShiftMed consolidates open shifts, clinician availability, and role coverage in one platform, allowing you to see where gaps or overlaps exist.

Flexible Scheduling and Shift Matching

ShiftMed lets you align full-time, part-time, and per diem staff with patient demand, making it easier to fill shifts strategically without overstaffing or creating burnout.

Data-Driven Decision Making

ShiftMed tracks shift fulfillment, overtime, and labor costs, providing the analytics you need to adjust pay policies, optimize staffing mix, and proactively manage workforce needs.

Streamlined Processes

By automating approvals, shift assignments, and communications, ShiftMed reduces manual coordination and ensures consistent, compliant, and efficient staffing decisions.

Strategic Workforce Insights

You can leverage reporting and trend data to forecast staffing needs, plan for growth, and make informed strategic decisions rather than reacting to last-minute gaps.

Take Control of Your Healthcare Workforce

Position control lets health systems see clearly, plan confidently, and act strategically. Visibility into every role, shift, and cost turns workforce management from chaos into a clear, strategic advantage. By embracing position control, you can optimize labor, keep staff satisfied, and deliver better patient care.

Schedule a free ShiftMed workforce consultation and see how real-time visibility and data-driven staffing can optimize your labor, reduce scheduling gaps, and help your health system stay ahead of the curve.