case study

How Southern Illinois Healthcare Solved its Staffing Crisis and Empowered its Workforce with works

About Southern Illinois Healthcare

4 Hospitals

1,400 Clinicians 

$750M Net Operating Revenue 

200 Staffed Beds

results

Meaningful Cost Savings

$500K+ incentive spend savings annually

Increased Bed Capacity & Patient Access

Went From Closing Beds to Full Capacity

Dramatically Improved Staffing Stability

Shift Pickup From Day-Of to 6 Weeks in Advance

Executive Summary

Illinois-based Southern Illinois Healthcare (SIH), a regional network of four hospitals within a 70 mile radius, needed a modern solution to a system-wide staffing crisis. The organization's primary challenge was attracting and retaining clinical talent in the face of stiff competition from higher-paying health systems operating in other cities throughout the region. The SIH clinical leadership team identified several challenges and opportunities to address, including:Facing the challenges of the post-pandemic labor market, Mercy partnered with Trusted Health to reduce labor costs, drive administrative efficiencies, and offer flexible work opportunities that attract and retain their most valuable resource; clinicians.

Staff demand for greater flexibility and earning opportunity
Staff feedback that the process for open-shift notifications was chaotic and frustrating
Frontline leadership's need for automation of shift filling to reduce burden and achieve consistent fill rate targets

After researching evolving industry options and best practices, the SIH team implemented Works, an AI-powered platform, to centralize and automate their open shift staffing processes.

The results have been transformative. Works has empowered SIH nursing and allied health professionals to set preferences for when and where they would like to work extra shifts, receive daily shift opportunities via the Works mobile app, and view systemwide any shifts matching their credentials. This has greatly increased shift-claiming by core staff across units and facilities, in effect tapping into available labor supply that was invisible to leadership. In addition to addressing clinician ease of use, the entire process of recruiting for open shifts is now automated within Works - successfully and meaningfully reducing burden on frontline managers. Lastly, SIH is leveraging Works’ Dynamic Pricing capability, which uses AI to dynamically automate and assign incentives based on data, including expected time-to-fill, historical fill rates, and relevant supply and interest.

As a result of implementing Works, SIH has achieved four key objectives simultaneously: Improved staff satisfaction and engagement, reduced burden on frontline managers, meaningfully lifted systemwide fill rates, and achieved first-year labor cost avoidance of over $500K through Dynamic Pricing. 83% of staff clinicians have adopted the platform, and SIH has reversed a recent trend of temporarily closing inpatient beds due to staffing shortages.

Challenge

Solution

Incentive guardrails adjusted at least quarterly; Dynamic Pricing accounts for target fill-rates to ensure labor spend is allocated to the highest need across the system

"Works has put the control back into our staff's hands. It alleviates the administrative burden, and is a proactive way of filling open shifts while reducing costs - versus the reactive, high-cost way that we have functioned for many, many, years."

BETH MELGREN

Clinical Operations
Mercy Hospital Center

KEY WINS

Address a System-Wide Staffing Crisis Without Increasing Labor Costs

Like many regional health systems, SIH faced a sustained staffing crisis due to regional competition for talent, and a finite pool of local clinicians typical for providers based in small and mid-sized cities. Larger regional competitors have more resources to use compensation to lure away critical staff. The SIH executive team understood their limitations on constantly raising compensation and incentives, and so they decided to introduce a new dynamic to their retention and recruitment strategy: Flexibility.

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The daily reality of leadership, unit managers, and the staffing office was a never-ending manual scramble to fill open shifts. “Every hour of every day, we were reaching out to our staff to see if they would be willing to work,” according to Johnna Smith, Chief Nursing Officer of SIH St Joseph Memorial Hospital. For Katie Albon, System Staffing & Float Pool Supervisor, the process was a logistical nightmare. "Before Works, trying to fill shifts was a constant, manual nightmare, often taking days out of supervisors' weeks. Think tons of spreadsheets that were overloading us with disparate information," she recalled.

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The financial strain of incentives was also unsustainable.

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SIH needed a solution that was easy to use for staff and could integrate with their existing, legacy scheduling system—SIH was concerned that this could limit any automation benefits depending on vendor capability.

"This was by far the best technology rollout I've been a part of. Having a successful focus on staff education, and getting support from the Works pilot team coming on-site, has allowed us to achieve an 83% adoption rate that speaks volumes about ease of use."

BETH MELGREN

Clinical Operations
Mercy Hospital Center

The SOLUTION:

An Automated Internal Open Shift Marketplace

SIH identified potential vendors, and were pleased when the Works team established the capability of data integration with the legacy scheduling system.

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To initiate the project, SIH chose to pilot Works by creating an internal float pool using their existing staff. This new float pool, powered by Works, gave staff visibility into shifts across all facilities, allowing them to easily pick up shifts that worked best for their own personal schedule. What SIH saw as a byproduct of offering this flexibility was that the pilot group often claimed shifts across units and facilities. Clinician feedback was clear: the Works platform opened up earning opportunities that better met staff demands, while also driving up fill rates in high priority units. The platform’s ease of use was a critical factor, with nurses quickly adopting the mobile app.

“We were excited to find from our research that the vendor with the strongest references and capabilities was also unique in their ability to work within our legacy scheduling environment. This helped us give new lift to our old system, and we got the solution we wanted without the large expense of a scheduling system replacement.”

-Johnna Smith

Nurse Executive, St. Joseph Memorial Hospital

“Seeing the rate of adoption within our staff, and the resulting increase to our fill rates, it is difficult to process where we would be without Works. Our leadership team’s embrace of this project, and the flexibility it affords our clinical staff, have set us on a much more sustainable staffing trajectory.”

BETH MELGREN

Clinical Operations
Mercy Hospital Center

Expansion Across Clinical Disciplines

Following the successful pilot period, SIH opened up access to all Nursing roles across the enterprise. The implementation has since been expanded to include many critical allied health roles and departments, including Imaging, Respiratory Therapy, Telemetry Techs, Patient Care Techs and Transport. Leadership is also using the Works with House Supervisors claiming shifts in the platform. The health system is now seeing over 500 core staff members claim and work nearly 800 open shifts each month.

Key Wins

Process Automation Reduces Administrative Burden

Works eliminated the manual, time-consuming process of managing staffing gaps. For Katie Albon and her team, this meant a streamlined process to fill open shifts. "Where it's at now, it has truly changed my whole position, honestly," she said. Instead of spending days juggling spreadsheets and manually recruiting to fill open shifts, Katie now relies on Works to automate gap detection and staffing. This shift has allowed her to re-focus on strategic initiatives, engage in proactive team development, and amplify her team’s impact across the health system.

Meaningful Cost Savings Through AI-Driven Dynamic Pricing

Works’ intelligent shift pricing ended the gaming of staff holding out for higher incentives as urgency grew. By optimizing incentive rates, SIH filled more hours at a lower cost. This led to a 12.5% reduction in the average hourly pay rate, resulting in over $500,000 in annualized incentive spend savings without sacrificing coverage. Staff are motivated to claim shifts early - "Our staff are now setting alarms to grab shifts.," Johnna Smith noted.

Strong Engagement via User-Friendly App

High adoption was driven by the app's intuitive design and the demand for flexibility. Works has achieved 83% adoption rate across the 1,400 clinical and tech staff at SIH—among the highest of any Works customer to date. Giving staff more control over their schedules and increasing their earning potential boosted morale and retention.

The reliable, real-time support took the burden off of SIH's internal team. "It was probably the best customer support team I've worked with," said Katie Albon. "That's so valuable."

Foundation for Data-Driven Staffing Across the Health System

With detailed visibility into shift demand, fill rates, and incentive ROI, SIH is now positioned to make strategic staffing decisions across their network of four hospitals. The Works platform provides insights by role, unit, and time of day, allowing leadership to manage their labor spend intelligently and proactively.

Results

Dramatically Improved Staffing Stability

Shift Pickup From Day-Of to 6 Weeks in Advance

Proactive scheduling eliminated last-minute scrambles, creating unprecedented predictability

Increased Bed Capacity & Patient Access

Went From Closing Beds to Full Capacity

With staffing stabilized, SIH was able to open nearly all beds that had been closed due to shortages.

Boosted Nurse Satisfaction & Retention

Amplifyed Employee Engagement Score 20x

By enabling staff to increase their earning potential, SIH improved retention rates and became more competitive. The Nursing Employee Engagement score jumped from the 0th to the 21st percentile.

Meaningful Cost Savings

$500K+ incentive spend savings annually

Optimized incentive rates reduced the average hourly pay by 12.5%, driving significant savings while maintaining full coverage.

Proactive scheduling eliminated last-minute scrambles, creating unprecedented predictability

With staffing stabilized, SIH was able to open nearly all beds that had been closed due to shortages.

By enabling staff to increase their earning potential, SIH improved retention rates and became more competitive. The Nursing Employee Engagement score jumped from the 0th to the 21st percentile.

Optimized incentive rates reduced the average hourly pay by 12.5%, driving significant savings while maintaining full coverage.

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How Southern Illinois Healthcare Solved its Staffing Crisis and Empowered its Workforce with works

About Southern Illinois Healthcare

results

Executive Summary

Challenge

Goal

Solution

Challenge

goal

Solution

Challenge

goal

Solution

Challenge

goal

Solution

Challenge

goal

Solution

Challenge

goal

Solution

BETH MELGREN

Address a System-Wide Staffing Crisis Without Increasing Labor Costs

BETH MELGREN

An Automated Internal Open Shift Marketplace

BETH MELGREN

Expansion Across Clinical Disciplines

Key Wins

Process Automation Reduces Administrative Burden

Meaningful Cost Savings Through AI-Driven Dynamic Pricing

Strong Engagement via User-Friendly App

Foundation for Data-Driven Staffing Across the Health System

Results

Dramatically Improved Staffing Stability

Increased Bed Capacity & Patient Access

Boosted Nurse Satisfaction & Retention

Meaningful Cost Savings

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