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In this Guide
- Best Healthcare HR Software
- Introduction and Criteria
- Our Reviews of the Top Vendors
- Why Use HR Software For Your Healthcare Company?
- Some Pitfalls To Avoid While Buying A New HR Software For Your Healthcare Practice
- ROI Of The Right Healthcare HR Software
- Healthcare HR Software Pricing
- Key Healthcare HR Software Features
- Questions To Ask On Demos
- Healthcare HR Software Implementation
- Healthcare HR Software FAQs
- Final Advice
Hand picked by our HR Technology experts after product testing, user research, and much debate - enjoy!
It doesn’t matter whether you work in a large hospital or a small dental clinic, as someone working in the healthcare industry, quality patient care can literally be a matter of life and death for you. Sometimes, this can lead to a high-stress work atmosphere.
In fact, in LinkedIn’s recent Workforce Confidence Index 75% healthcare professionals reported work-related stress. This necessitates a robust employee experience, so that there’s no compromise on healthcare facilities. A good human resources management system can help mitigate the above problem.
If you try searching the web for an all-in-one HR software to streamline your workflows, employee engagement, onboarding new hires, payroll processing, and performance management, you’ll find plenty of HR solutions. However, as an HR manager in the healthcare industry, your priorities would be quite different from those HR professionals who are working in an industry that’s less demanding and time-sensitive.
For example, you would be more concerned with ensuring an adequate staffing level or getting support with laws and regulations compliance than with getting rewards and recognition tools. What you need is healthcare HR software that’s made with care for the needs of a health organization instead of a generic HR solution.
Through hours of research, testing out vendors, and sifting through expert opinions of top HR professionals, we’ve come up with a list of the best HR software for healthcare organizations.
Our criteria: How we chose the best vendors
We take research seriously. To make sure we’re offering our readers the very best solutions in a given software category, we are methodical, rigorous, and expansive in our research. We consult with HR professionals, vendors, and industry experts. We cut through the noise to bring you a carefully curated list of vendors, along with other essential information, to help you find the right software platform for your business.
Here’s how we chose who makes the cut:
Product: We believe in gaining a comprehensive understanding of a product before we recommend it, so we start by getting to know the software. Whenever possible, we meet with a senior executive (CEO or Head of Product) for a demo and Q&A. We also test the product ourselves to make sure it has a solid UI, intuitive workflows, and the features to make it a best-in-class offering.
User feedback: We go straight to the source and compile feedback on user experience. Real-world input supports our commitment to diligence in our software evaluation methods and the products we recommend. Keeping up with the everyday experience of HR pros also puts new vendors on our radar, and it keeps us close to our community so we can better connect the right products to the right people.
Financial metrics: We are certified finance nerds, so we use all the data we can get our hands on to make selections for our guides. We comb through data for concrete statistics like retention rates, growth, profitability, and scalability. We evaluate the bottom line of each product because we know making a software purchase can put your reputation on the line.
Best for a use case: Software is never a one-size-fits-all product. Sometimes the best solution is free or cheap. Other times it’s the one that is best for global companies or the one that’s sized right for early-stage startups. Keeping this in mind, we include solutions across the spectrum so our readers can find the best fit for their unique needs.
Here's more detail if you want to read more about how we research vendors. Our dedicated staff writers rely on hard data, impartial experts, and user feedback to ensure our reviews are helpful, truthful, and hopefully a pleasure to read!
Top HR Software for Healthcare Companies
We track thousands of HR Tech solutions. Here are the best healthcare company HR vendors of 2023.
Why we love it
:
Rippling has a slick user interface that will hook you from the get-go. It’s incredibly simple to use, quick, highly customizable, and the best thing is that you can choose from hundreds of workflow templates.
- All-in-one platform for employee management + PEO services offered, and even a suite of other IT products
- With 500 integrations, it’s very likely that they integrate with other key tools from your tech stack.
- Very SMB-oriented, in case you’re a larger company.
- In some cases, you won't be able to use whatever benefit carriers you like and will have to choose from their partner ecosystem.
Rippling
Review:
Rippling is an all-in-one HR software that understands the pain points of the healthcare industry very well. Its payroll is designed to eliminate redundant and time-consuming HR tasks. From headcount growth to employee turnover by location, Rippling has powerful reporting tools that will give you insights about your healthcare practice quickly.
Their product is built with an understanding of the implications of non-compliance in the healthcare sector. One manifestation of this understanding is how the tool lets you automatically assign compliance training like HIPAA or anti-harassment training to employees in a prompt manner.
Also worth mentioning is how seriously Rippling takes security. They have mechanisms to protect not just your organizational information but also your patient data.
Rippling
Customers:
Beam Dental, Superhuman, Checkr, Proxy, Dwell, Chess.com
Proxy, Dwell, Superhuman, Expensify, Checkr
Rippling
Stats:
- Named a “Next $1B Startup” by Forbes in early 2020
- Became an actual $1B startup just months after that mention, getting valued at $1.35 billion in August 2020
- Over 1,000 reviews on the main business software sites, all averaging 4.9 stars
- Over 1,000 reviews on the main business software sites, all averaging 4.9 stars
Rippling
Pricing:
Starts at $8 per month per user, will vary depending on which modules you’d like to use (or if you want the whole platform) and for how many people.
Rippling starts at $8 per month per user, but the final fee you pay will vary depending on which modules you'd like to use (or if you want the whole platform) and for how many people.
Best For
Rippling is built to work for businesses with 1 employee as much as companies with thousands of them. Their focus is on automation and ease of use while always keeping a modern feel to everything.
Why we love it
:
Sapling has a modern and intuitive platform that’s very easy to use. Its biggest strength is that it lets you manage as well as automate your unique workflows and processes.
- The platform keeps track of all changes done to HR processes; useful in case of audits and to ensure data compliance.
- Includes talent-development features through the e-learning module, such as gamification of certain courses.
- Good bet for small and scaling teams given the flexibility of the platform.
- The tool also has remote team-focused features process auto-assigning.
- Several users have reported that the support team can be slow to respond to requests for assistance.
- Although it might not be completely on Sapling's hands, other users during are research reported troubles with the integrations to software like ADP.
- Additionally, the integrations are somewhat limited and you need to work with either an API or webhooks with some of the most trusted HR tools out there.
Sapling
Review:
Whether you run a small care facility or a competitive hospital, Sapling has powerful tools designed with an eye towards the problems healthcare organizations face on a daily basis.
Sapling lets you automate repeatable processes, execute e-signatures with ease, manage complex time-off policies, and helps you reduce non-compliance risk among a variety of other things that help save you time.
With its analytics tool, you can also get actionable insights and create custom reports for all your data. Sapling works seamlessly with other leading HR, IT, and productivity systems that your team might already be using.
Sapling
Customers:
Oura Health, Navia Benefits, Sequoia Benefits, Webflow, Digital Ocean
Coupa, Warby Parker, Webflow, Digital Ocean, PagerDuty
Sapling
Stats:
- Their research suggests that they're able to save clients 10 hours of work per new hire.
- They also estimate that their integrations can save 5 hours of work per week for People Ops teams.
- Working with InVision, they were pivotal in helping the company scale remotely from 100 to 1000 employees.
- Their research suggests that they're able to save clients 10 hours of work per new hire.
- They also estimate that their integrations can save 5 hours of work per week for People Ops teams.
- Working with InVision, they were pivotal in helping the company scale remotely from 100 to 1000 employees.
Sapling
Pricing:
Sapling's pricing varies depending on which modules you'd get. You can start with the People Operations Platform, and then add the Essential and/or Premium modules. The final price will depend on the applicable platform fee, plus a per-user-per-month fee. To give you an idea, the minimum annual fee is $4,000 USD.
Sapling's pricing varies depending on which modules you'd get. You'd start with the People Operations Platform and then add the Essential and/or Premium modules, for instance. The final price will depend on the applicable platform fee, plus a per-user-per-month fee. To give you an idea, the minimum annual fee is $4,000 USD.
Best For
Sapling is aimed primarily at mid-sized organizations (50-2000 employees) distributed internationally.
Why we love it
:
A one-stop-shop for everything HR compliance and management, what makes HR for Health unique is that their software solutions are backed by attorneys and HR experts who solely focus on healthcare.
- They will help you stay on top of things, when it comes to compliance. They will provide you a custom compliant employee handbook and deconstruct all the legal jargon so that you could make sense of different regulations.
- They only serve the medical industry so all the features would be relevant for your healthcare company. This ensures that you’re not paying for something you wouldn’t even need.
- They will help you stay on top of things, when it comes to compliance. They will provide you a custom compliant employee handbook and deconstruct all the legal jargon so that you could make sense of different regulations.
- They only serve the medical industry so all the features would be relevant for your healthcare company. This ensures that you’re not paying for something you wouldn’t even need.
- HR for Health doesn’t have advanced HR features like scheduling, staffing, and multiple integrations. So, if you’re seeking a robust HR software, HR for Health would not be the best choice.
- HR for Health doesn’t have advanced HR features like scheduling, staffing, and multiple integrations. So, if you’re seeking a robust HR software, HR for Health would not be the best choice.
HR for Health
Review:
As the name suggests, HR for Health is an all-in-one HR software designed specifically for healthcare practices based in the U.S. It aims to save your time, cut your costs, and avoid lawsuits. This translates into a suite of tools in one software that range from payroll and time tracking to employee performance and onboarding.
Apart from helping with core HR processes, HR for Health provides its clients with a free customized employee handbook that accurately represents your organizational culture. This employee handbook is approved by employment attorneys and ensures that your healthcare practice is staying informed and abiding by the latest legal updates.
HR for Health
Customers:
Werner Optometry, Main Street Optometry, Lamorinda Dental Care, American Association Of Orthodontists, Futuredontics
HR for Health
Stats:
- Payroll processing in 10 minutes or less
- Helped over 50,000 users stay compliant
- In the business for 12+ years
HR for Health
Pricing:
HR for Health has two packages: HR + Compliance Package that starts at $245 and HR + Compliance + Payroll package that starts at $395. They haven’t specified whether this is a one-time charge or a recurring one. You can, however, schedule a demo to learn more. They also provide discounts depending on your team size.
Best For:
Small to medium sized medical and dental practices that are mainly based in the U.S. and are looking for an all-in-one HR solution that supports compliance.
Why we love it
:
APS is very easy to use but what makes it a class apart is its first-rate customer service. When you sign up, you get a dedicated account team that is just one phone call or email away.
- APS is very cost-effective. Although the pricing is custom and depends on your business size, we’ve heard current users speak of its affordability. Jackie R, who is a HR Director for a small-sized company says, “I love that APS offers all aspects of an HRIS system at an affordable price. We are a small business and can't afford the big name payroll vendors, but get everything they offer at APS for a price we can afford as a small business.”
- Their customer service is remarkable. As testified by multiple users, the customer service team at APS is prompt and there for you every step of the way, right from implementation to anytime you get stuck using the software. They’ll likely resolve your issue within the same day.
- APS is very easy to navigate and everything is updated and saved in real-time. Despite its complex features, you would likely not find it confusing. They also have how-to guides that come in very handy.
- APS is very cost-effective. Although the pricing is custom and depends on your business size, we’ve heard current users speak of its affordability. Jackie R, who is a HR Director for a small-sized company says, “I love that APS offers all aspects of an HRIS system at an affordable price. We are a small business and can't afford the big name payroll vendors, but get everything they offer at APS for a price we can afford as a small business.”
- Their customer service is remarkable. As testified by multiple users, the customer service team at APS is prompt and there for you every step of the way, right from implementation to anytime you get stuck using the software. They’ll likely resolve your issue within the same day.
- APS is very easy to navigate and everything is updated and saved in real-time. Despite its complex features, you would likely not find it confusing. They also have how-to guides that come in very handy.
- The reporting feature is limited in functionality. Sometimes, there will be missing information that you may require.
- Although their customer support is prompt, you can’t directly reach their team via phone. Customer service answers your queries via email and if you wish to talk to someone on the phone, you’ll have to mention it.
- The reporting feature is limited in functionality. Sometimes, there will be missing information that you may require.
- Although their customer support is prompt, you can’t directly reach their team via phone. Customer service answers your queries via email and if you wish to talk to someone on the phone, you’ll have to mention it.
APS
Review:
APS places customers at the heart of their solutions and this reflects in their product in a myriad of ways. Their cloud-based HR and payroll platform is a unified HR solution and has everything from payroll and attendance to recruiting and compliance management tools.
APS has many integration options and you can connect your existing business systems with it. It’s equipped with employee self-service so that you can delegate low-level HR tasks to your healthcare staff and focus on high-bandwidth activities like strategy and planning.
Once you purchase APS, you would receive lots of training and the help of an instructor to get you acquainted with the nuances of a new HRIS.
APS
Customers:
Atlas Chiropractic and Wellness, Circle Logistics, Columbia Southern University, Eagle Distributing, Linden Management
APS
Stats:
- Helps you cut down payroll processing time from 2 days to 2 hours
- Customer base of over 2000 companies
- Doing business in all 50 US states
APS
Pricing:
APS offers custom pricing that you can get after entering a few details about your company. You can also request a personalized demo.
Best For:
Mid-market organizations
Why we love it
:
Zoho has a soothing user interface and top-notch automation. You can create approval bots, plan events, send event reminders, and so much more to reduce your routine tasks and increase productivity.
- All core HR features in a single dashboard
- Wide array of integrations
- User-friendly UI, constantly updated
- Available in multiple languages
- Since they offer so many modules, some may be not as robust as other products that have been more specific about covering certain needs. For instance, some teams have found their payroll offering to be quite basic.
- Not all that’s available in the web platform is available in the app
- Some users reported that the platform can be slow to load every now and then.
Zoho People
Review:
Zoho has a plethora of products and features. Zoho’s unified HR platform, People Plus lets you manage the entire employee life cycle from a single integrated platform. It focuses on four key HR areas: talent acquisition, talent management, core HR & payroll, and employee engagement. There’s also employee self-service for things like travel requests, time and absence update, and internal collaboration.
Highly customizable, Zoho scales with your team. The tool also has a powerful analytics module with which you can get trends about everything from hiring to employee performance. The cherry on the cake, however, is its artificial intelligence aspect, which lets you automate hundreds of manual processes.
Zoho People
Customers:
Max Life Insurance, Recover Health, Bernard Health, Church Pharmacy, Briotix
Zoho People
Stats:
- Used by over 75 million users, globally
- Over 40 third-party app integrations
Zoho People
Pricing:
Zoho’s People Plus costs $4.61 per employee per month plus taxes. You can then add annual add-ons that are priced differently for different sets of features. You can also contact sales for a custom price. There’s also a 30-day free trial.
Best For:
Zoho People has plans for many sorts of organizations, even offering custom pricing for those with more than 500 employees.
Why we love it
:
With an aim to reduce paperwork and increase peoplework, BambooHR helps you save time with its all-in-one HRIS that is revered for its calming user interface.
- Flexible packaging and custom pricing is the way they roll. You can pick out one or two packages and pick other modules as add-ons based on your needs.
- Very simple and straightforward tool, easy to use.
- Flexible packaging and custom pricing is the way they roll. You can pick out one or two packages and pick other modules as add-ons based on your needs.
- Very simple and straightforward tool, easy to use.
- Payroll is only available for US-based employees
- Customer support is only offered during US business hours.
- Some modules like time tracking, performance management, and surveys are only available as add-ons.
- Payroll is only available for US-based employees
- Customer support is only offered during US business hours.
- Some modules like time tracking, performance management, and surveys are only available as add-ons.
BambooHR
Review:
BambooHR knows just how busy the schedules of healthcare workers can be. That’s why it focuses on automation and providing a one-stop solution for all your HR needs. BambooHR gives you powerful tools to drive job satisfaction and retention. With features such as a central place for employee data, instant reports, third-party integrations, and performance evaluations, you’re sure to reduce stress at your healthcare organization and streamline your workflows. The best part about BambooHR is that it has a mobile app that lets the HR department and staff members access things like time-off requests, announcements, or e-signatures at the tip of their fingers.
BambooHR
Customers:
SoundCloud, Clinica Colorado, Matthew 25 AIDS Services, Jacksonville Jaguars, Unbounce
BambooHR
Stats:
- Over 20,000 active client organizations
- Millions of employees active on their system
- 45,000+ new hires onboarded per month, on average
BambooHR
Pricing:
Pricing is not disclosed upfront, but they do offer a free trial of their all-in-one software and then go out of their way to find a version that will suit you. Before they come up with a personalized quote that will align with your budget, however, they are also likely to extend your free trial upon request or even give you a free demo of the advanced features.
Best For:
Small and medium-sized clinics, hospitals, and other healthcare organizations who want to focus on developing their culture and reducing paperwork.
Why we love it
:
Since it’s made solely for healthcare companies, CEDR HR Solutions exactly know the pain points of this industry. They will personally guide you through your unique problems and help you stay compliant like no one else.
- Since their software is solely made for the healthcare industry, you wouldn’t have to worry about compliance should you choose to buy their solution. Be it their employee handbook or a year-long free HIPAA training, they have many tools to help with compliance.
- Their customer support is excellent. They have an HR Solution Center backed by seasoned HR experts who are there to give you 1-to-1 personalized training.
- They have a lot of free resources like blogs, guides, and one year of free HIPAA training. Their HR software also has a free version.
- CEDR HR Solutions is geared towards compliance and has a modest offering when it comes to HR software. The features are very basic and somewhat limited.
- Third-party integrations are very sparse. You’ll have to contact them to confirm whether they have an integration for all the applications that your organization uses or intends to use.
CEDR HR Solutions
Review:
Built specially for dental, wellness, and medical companies in the U.S., CEDR HR Solutions is a comprehensive HR tool that can be used by managers and employees alike. Their HR software comes with many handy features such as employee self-service, PTO and time tracking, free HIPAA training, centralized employee information.
However, what makes CEDR HR Solutions stand out is the help they extend to their clients for compliance. Be it their compliant employee handbooks or an unlimited access to CEDR’s solution center or perhaps the legal guidance they impart their clients – CEDR HR Solutions has many tools to guide you.
CEDR HR Solutions
Customers:
Beckett Ridge Family Medicine, Jade Star Acupuncture, Vista Pacific Dental Care, Mission Hills Family Dental, Wisconsin Endodontic Group
CEDR HR Solutions
Stats:
- 14 years of being in the business
- More than 10,000 custom handbooks made
- More than 32,000 HIPAA training certifications issued
- 200,000+ HR issues solved
- Customer base of more than 2600 healthcare companies in all 50 states
- 11,000+ HR professionals involved
CEDR HR Solutions
Pricing:
There are two software solutions: Free Software Suite and Paid Membership. The free plan is forever free but has limited functionality. If you’re looking for a full-fledged HCM solution, their paid plan would be a better choice. Pricing isn’t disclosed upfront. You’ll have to enter a few company details and their team will contact you. They also give a free 30-day trial for their paid plan.
Best For:
Most of their customers are small businesses. But mid-sized enterprises in the healthcare industry may also benefit.
Why we love it
:
Designed with direct input from healthcare organizations, Workday stands out from the crowd due to its unique ability of letting you change your business process framework on a day to day basis.
WorkDay
Review:
With its wide range of HR products, Workday seeks to reduce issues that the healthcare sector faces like clinician burnout and staffing shortages. If you’re looking for a consolidated system to streamline sourcing, onboarding background checks, payroll, time tracking or any other HR function under the sun, Workday will have a solution for you.
WorkDay
Customers:
Trinity Health, ChristianaCare, Dayton Children’s Hospitals, Rochester Regional Health System, CityMD, Ochsner Medical Center
WorkDay
Stats:
- Used by over 45% of Fortune 500 companies
- Over 7,000 users as of 2022
WorkDay
Pricing:
The exact pricing details of Workday aren’t provided by the vendor, since they’ll likely tailor their offer to your business size and needs. They also don’t offer a free trial, but you can see the tool for yourself through their demo videos online.
Best For:
Large enterprises
Why we love it
:
UKG has a variety of product suites to choose from that are all easy to navigate and easily customizable to the needs of your healthcare organization. Its customer support service is top-notch.
- Super robust product, packing years of experience with HCM and Workforce Management technology
- Since they offer UKG Pro for HRMS and UKG Ready for workforce management, you could arrive at a combination of products that suits many of your HR needs from the same set of tools.
- Compared to newer tools, UKG Pro and UKG Ready tend to miss a unique selling point or a specific focus on a certain type of business. While they work great for bigger companies in all sorts of industries, very niche operations might have a hard time adapting to the tool.
- Similarly, UKG offers many solutions under one umbrella, so it's not the best fit if you're looking for only a handful of specific use cases.
UKG
Review:
If your organization is finding it hard to manage the problems of tight labor budgets, fewer resources, and increasing patient demands then UKG’s HR products will be right up your alley. Having successfully served many healthcare organizations like John Hopkins Medicine and the Winthrop University Hospital, UKG helps you make the most of your workforce by providing you relevant tools.
Their tools can help you track and manage physician schedules, get advanced reports on staffing patterns, get real-time data to make informed decisions, minimize compliance risk, and provide a personalized experience for your nurses to fill open shifts fast. Whether you’re running HR for a large hospital or a smaller clinic, you can do a lot with UKG and confidently count on it to deliver quality patient care.
UKG
Customers:
Winthrop University Hospital, Geisinger, Northwell Health, John Hopkins Medicine, Intermountain Healthcare
UKG
Stats:
- 96% customer retention rate
- Average $3.88 return on each dollar invested
UKG
Pricing:
UKG does not reveal the price of UKG Pro on its website, although research has shown that licenses tend to start at $600.00 per year for every 5 users.
Best For:
UKG serves various kinds of healthcare systems like acute care hospitals and clinician providers. However, it’s best for mid-sized and large organizations with nuanced needs.
Why Use HR Software For Your Healthcare Company?
Before buying any new software, it’s worth asking what are its use cases. Generally, companies use HR software for streamlining their workflows, hiring new talent, processing payroll, and other common HR functions. But when you’re running a healthcare organization, you might be motivated to buy an HR software for slightly different reasons. Here are some of those:
- Save time: For workers in the healthcare industry, even a minute of delay can deteriorate the health of their ailing patients. Time is therefore the most precious resource for healthcare professionals and using an HRMS can monumentally help in this regard. Contemporary HR systems use automation to eliminate repetitive HR tasks like payroll processing, sourcing, onboarding, and attendance so you could focus on delivering quality patient care.
- Stay Compliant: In an industry such as healthcare, where the slightest of negligence can cost a patient their life, being compliant with laws and regulations is extremely important. HR systems designed for healthcare organizations ensure that you’re not only following all the necessary rules and regulations but also being up-to-date with any statutory changes.
- Reduce employee turnover: Employee turnover is one of the biggest challenges that the healthcare industry is facing right now. According to a report by NSI Nursing Solutions, the national hospital turnover rate stands at 25.9% for the year 2021. In 2017, this figure was 18.2%. Given the kind of stressful work environment that healthcare workers find themselves in everyday coupled with the stress of COVID-19 pandemic, this increase in the employee turnover is warranted. A good HRIS can help increase employee retention by enhancing the employee experience in multiple ways. It can accelerate the pace of otherwise frustrating HR tasks, help you compensate your employees on time, give employees the access to manage their benefits, and improve internal communication.
- Training and development: Healthcare professionals need to keep up-skilling themselves so that they can accurately use new medical instruments or techniques and deliver quality patient care. HR systems designed for healthcare organizations are usually equipped with a learning management system or LMS. Such HR software allows employees to take self-assessments, track their progress, and check their certifications.
- Improve employee experience: HR software is not just built for human resources professionals but for employees too. Instead of depending on HR managers all the time, employees can perform some of the HR tasks on their own like requesting time-off, marking absence, availing benefits, picking up open shifts. Giving employees some control leads to transparency, builds trust, saves time, and reduces their stress— all of which ultimately leads to better performance and overall productivity.
- Get reports and trends: Modern HR tools have analytics and advanced reporting features. You can get insights about everything ranging from employee turnover and the number of incidents to attendance and employee engagement. You can then use this data to make decisions and strategies for improvement.
- Streamline your workflows: One of the biggest advantages of using an HRMS is that it acts as a centralized solution for all your HR tasks. You can hire, onboard, compensate employees, do background checks, and performance evaluations all from one place, instead of using different applications for each task. Moreover, you could also map out an employee’s compensation and PTO based on their attendance, performance, and other such metrics.
- Manage shifts and schedules: Healthcare professionals usually have constantly-changing schedules. HR software made specifically for healthcare companies is cognizant of this fact and incorporates features that let employees fill open shifts quickly and give managers insights on scheduling needs.
Some Pitfalls To Avoid While Buying A New HR Software For Your Healthcare Practice
- Lack of employee self-service: Modern HRMS are equipped with employee self-service which means that your employees can access, edit, and update some of their information on their own; a task that was previously reserved for the HR team. In an industry as demanding as healthcare where employees always need to be on their toes to fill an emergency shift, it’s absolutely vital to steer clear of HR systems that don’t have employee self-service.
- Low data security: The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, commonly referred to as the HIPAA, necessitates organizations to protect patients’ sensitive information. Make sure the vendor you’re purchasing your HR software with keeps your sensitive information secure and is able to comply with these regulations.
- Interface that’s not user-friendly: Working in the healthcare industry can certainly entail working in a high stress environment. You don’t want to take on more stress by trying to decode an incomprehensible HR software. Besides, HR managers are not the only people who have to deal with the HRIS but also the nurses, doctors, and other staff workers who have to directly deal with the patients.
- No mobile app: Since the majority of workers have to be in direct contact with patients, healthcare professionals don’t have a lot to do with computers. Besides, it’s always less time-consuming to carry out routine tasks from a smartphone. If there’s no mobile app for the HR software you’re intending to buy, it could cause logistic issues later.
- Inability to integrate with other applications: Most HR technologies integrate with myriads of third-party applications. While the HRIS you’re interested in buying might have the ability to integrate with popular applications, it may not integrate with the system that your company uses regularly. If you fall prey to this common pitfall, you’ll be spending your days manually entering data from one software to another, causing an unnecessary roadblock for your core HR responsibilities.
- Bad customer support: Due to the time-bound and compliant nature of work that healthcare professionals do, it’s imperative to look for an HRIS that delivers speedy and robust customer support service. You don’t want your employees to be wound up in a situation where they fail to deliver quality patient care due to an unresolved technical glitch.
ROI Of The Right Healthcare HR Software
On the surface, an HR software product may not seem like a necessity in an industry that has little to do with computers and software. But, on a closer look, it becomes apparent that no other industry needs a people management software as much as healthcare. This is because the way employees in a healthcare practice are managed has a direct impact on the quality of care delivered to patients. Therefore, the right HR software for your healthcare company is worth every penny and could help your organization cut down stress, time, and money.
If you’re still not convinced and need some numbers to change your mind, consider this simple stat: The average salary of an HR administrator in the US is $50,000 per year. If you compare the amount of money you’ll spend on an HR software vs the cost of hiring a few administrators, you’ll see that it’s completely worth buying good HR software for your healthcare organization. Besides, unquantifiable benefits such as accuracy, quick scheduling, elimination of duplicate entries, or avoiding compliance risks should not be overlooked.
Healthcare HR Software Pricing
Pricing for HR software varies from vendor to vendor as well as on the features that your organization requires. Some vendors can cost you as little as $4 monthly for each user, while others can cost you upwards of $99. For most vendors, the pricing model is per-employee per-month. Some vendors will also charge you a monthly fee in addition to the per employee charge.
Many vendors don’t disclose their pricing upfront and you can only get a custom quote after getting a demo of their HR software. Sometimes HR tech vendors also charge you for setup, implementation, customer support, or consultation. Make sure to ask about these charges from your potential vendor.
Although pricing will vary according to your organization’s needs, below is a chart of estimated price ranges:
Key Healthcare HR Software Features
There are hundreds of HR tech vendors out there, rich with features to make your work as an HR manager easy. But when it comes to healthcare HR software, there are certain core features that you must not compromise on. Here are some of those:
- Employee self-service: In a fast-paced environment such as a healthcare company, the option to let your employees carry out recurring HR tasks like marking absence or benefits enrollment is a must-have. Not only would it help you save a lot of time as an HR manager, it would also bring clarity to the work of your employees.
- Multiple pay rates: In hospitals, workers may have to take on emergency shifts at night. Such shifts take place at odd hours and usually compensate employees more than their regular shifts. This is why a single individual can have different pay rates depending on the job and the hours it is performed at. Look for an HRMS whose payroll tool comes with a multiple pay rates feature.
- Training and development: Staying up-to-date with the methodologies and brushing up on old knowledge is absolutely critical in a field like healthcare. Make sure that the HR software you end up buying has a training and development tool where employees and managers alike can track their progress and access learning resources.
- Attendance & time tracking: Modern HRIS have an attendance tool that’s linked with the payroll. In healthcare practices, where there can be fluctuating working hours, a time tracking tool will help you avoid duplicity errors and pay your employees accurately.
- Scheduling: In healthcare practices, employees need to be on their toes to fill an emergency shift. A good HR software would make it very easy to schedule and fill open shifts fast.
- Employee database: Think of an employee database as your one-stop solution for quickly storing data and pulling up information about your employees ranging from their contact details and age to their salary and performance history. In healthcare practices, this feature can come in handy when responsibilities need to be delegated under a time crunch.
- Legal guidance and HR advising: In an industry that’s as highly-regulated as healthcare, compliance can be the most critical component of healthcare companies. HR systems designed for healthcare practices usually have a full-fledged compliance tool that helps companies stay abreast of legal changes and take actionable steps to avoid hefty costs.
- Reporting: It’s extremely important to report incidents in healthcare organizations to improve safety and patient care. A healthcare HR software would not only let you log incidents but also other data like employee satisfaction, retention, and growth.
- Recruitment and staffing: The healthcare industry is rife with staffing problems and HRMS built for healthcare companies usually come with solutions to tackle this problem. Some would argue that HR software for healthcare should be equipped with a recruitment tool. This would involve features such as sourcing, applicant tracking, and automated onboarding; among others.
Questions To Ask On Demos
We hope that the information on this page has acquainted you well with the various HR vendors out there and that you have shortlisted a couple of them. Your next step should be to get first-hand experience of the HR software you’re interested in buying. You could do this with the help of a demo, which most of the HR tech vendors provide.
Depending on the vendor, you could expect to get a live demo or a recorded one. In either case, what’s going to set you up for success is coming up with a list of questions to ask during your demo session, so that you could find the HR software that most meets your needs.
To help you get started, below is a list of questions that we think every healthcare company should ask from a potential vendor. Feel free to use this list to ideate more questions:
- If my team is already using an HRMS, what is the process and timeline of transferring data from our previous HR software?
- Do you provide legal guidance to help us stay updated with new laws?
- How secure is our patient data and other sensitive information?
- Do you help with HIPAA training and certifications?
- Does this HR tool integrate with the applications that we’re currently using for our healthcare practice?
- Do you have a mobile app for this HR software product?
- How do you help us stay legally compliant?
- Do you provide HR advising?
- How robust is your reporting tool?
- How quickly does your customer support team respond and resolve issues?
- Is training required for using this HRIS? If so, is it free?
- Can you show us what your software looks like, from the point of view of someone outside the HR department?
- How extensive is employee self-service?
- Can you customize this HR software according to our organization’s needs?
- Do you have a tool for internal communication?
Healthcare HR Software Implementation
Depending on whether you’re buying HR software for the first time or switching to a new one, your implementation process would slightly differ. There are also variables such as your organization size, training requirements, and the vendor you choose that would dictate your timeline and process. Thus, implementation of a new HR software could take as little as a day to a couple of weeks.
Most vendors start with an installation, which is followed by data migration (if you’re switching from another vendor), configuration, testing, employee training, and finally officially bringing the software onboard. Later, the vendor may follow up for feedback.
In most cases, the implementation team would ask you the following information:
- Basic company information such as your EIN (employee identification number)
- Basic employee information such as their name, SSN, address, compensation etc.
- Payroll and information about already paid taxes, if you’re switching vendors mid-year.
Do note that although this is the typical process, it’s best to ask the vendor you’re interested in about their implementation process and timeline before proceeding with them.
Healthcare HR Software FAQs
What is HR software?
An HR software is a suite of tools that helps a company’s human resources department perform everyday HR tasks.
What software is used in healthcare?
There are many HR vendors that cater to healthcare companies and our list mentions some of the top healthcare HRMS such as Zoho, Workday, Rippling, and BambooHR.
What is included in HR software?
Modern HRMS act as an all-in-one HR solution and can help your company with all your basic HR needs ranging from payroll and recruiting to benefits and talent management.
What are the three main types of HR software solutions?
The three main types of HR software solutions are HRIS, HCM, and HRMS.
What does HRIS stand for?
HRIS stands for Human Resource Information System.
What does HCM stand for?
HCM stands for Human Capital Management.
What does HRMS stand for?
HRMS stands for Human Resource Management System.
What’s the difference between HRIS, HCM, and HRMS?
These terms are often used interchangeably because on the surface, there isn’t a huge difference between HRIS, HCM, and HRMS. The definition varies from vendor to vendor and even among HR professionals. While all three are all people management tools, the differences lie in their features and use cases. An HRIS takes care of your core HR needs and is limited in that sense. An HRMS has the same use case as an HRIS but goes beyond the core HR needs in terms of features. Strategic planning is the epicenter of an HCM while having most of the HRMS features.
What are the advantages of using HR software in healthcare companies?
There are many benefits of using an HR software in a healthcare company, some of which are:
- Helps you save time by automating repetitive tasks
- Reduces stress and Improves the overall employee experience
- Guides you with legal changes and Increases compliance
- Helps you overcome staffing problems
- Incident reporting, analytics, and key business insights
- Workforce management
What is the difference between an HRIS and ERP?
An ERP or Enterprise Resource Planning is a centralized software solution that helps organizations integrate the operations of different departments like sales, IT, marketing etc. An HRIS on the other hand, helps organizations integrate different HR processes and perform core HR tasks from one place.
What is the relationship between HR and healthcare?
The role of HR in healthcare is paramount. In order to deliver quality patient care, healthcare employees need a management system that lowers their work stress and improves their overall performance. HR software made for healthcare companies solves this.
What is the best HR software for healthcare?
While we’ve spent a lot of time researching and coming up with this list of the top HR software for healthcare, what is best for one organization might not be for some other. Hopefully, our comprehensive yet brief vendor reviews helps you shortlist what would be the ideal HR software for your healthcare practice.
Final Advice
If you’ve made it this far, we really hope we’ve covered all the gaps in your knowledge about HR software for healthcare companies. Your next step should be to shortlist 2-4 vendors and book demos with them.
As a last piece of advice, we’d suggest that you factor in the various constraints and edge cases that by default come when you work in an environment as dynamic as a healthcare organization.
Many HR software vendors provide a one-size-fits-all solution for all industries and lure prospective buyers in by simply marketing the relevant features. Take ample time to list down everything that your organization needs by talking to your doctors, nurses, and other healthcare staff who will be using the HR software. It’s always good to have clear objectives before setting up a demo. All the best!
If your healthcare practice is specifically focusing on staffing, our best recruiting software guide may help you.
Best Healthcare HR Software
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