Case Study: Furnishing “Homes” for Traveling Healthcare Professionals

AMN Healthcare is the industry leader in healthcare staffing that places nurses, allied technicians and physicians on travel assignments across all 50 states. Employee assignments typically range from 6 weeks to 13 weeks. While employees are working on assignment, AMN offers a choice of a furnished apartment or a stipend for living expenses. Extended stay hotels may be used for shorter than 8-week assignments. AMN has worked with CORT, a Berkshire Hathaway company that is the only national furniture rental company, to support their furnished apartment housing needs since 2003.

Approximately 50 percent of AMN nurses choose to stay in furnished apartments provided by the company. As the largest health care staffing company in the country, AMN has leased as many as 4,000 apartments across the country at any given time.

AMN provides its employees safe, private accommodations within reasonable commutes, sometimes within a 5-minute drive for employees whose assignments require them to be on-call. As an additional benefit to employees, they arrange for housing to be comfortably furnished prior to an employee’s arrival. Housewares are also provided in about 25 percent of apartments.

Like many companies that must respond to fluctuating business conditions, AMN needed a furnishing solution that would enable them to maximize the efficiency of existing capital and human resources. Purchasing, managing and maintaining the large inventory of furniture required to support thousands of apartments can be a costly endeavor, particularly for AMN employees’ temporary needs, so rental furniture was a clear solution.

AMN maintains apartment leases nationwide for a variety of lease lengths depending on local market conditions and the needs of the hospitals in that market. In some cases, healthcare professionals may travel with family members and need a two or three bedroom apartment. Furnishing these apartments with rental furniture frees AMN from the management burden and expense of furniture inventory management, and ensures that nurses are consistently provided with high-quality furniture. Rental furniture is also a flexible solution that allows AMN to adjust inventory, based on current demand.

The company traditionally contracted with multiple furniture rental providers to meet their needs, a solution that offered some AMN competitive price protection and guaranteed national coverage, however, that presented its own multi-partner management requirements and challenges. When AMN first began working with CORT, two other companies were supplying the majority of their furnishing needs, but over time AMN increasingly turned to CORT in recognition of their competitive pricing and superior service. By 2008, roughly 75 percent of the furniture rental business was split between CORT and one other company.

 

CORT worked with AMN to develop flexible solutions to meet their needs while delivering consistent service excellence. One such solution was a rebate incentive program based on the number of furniture leases and annual spend AMN had with CORT.

In late 2008, CORT acquired a competitor that expanded their national scope to the top 70 markets nationwide, a great benefit to its customers. This expanded service reach also led to an expanded partnership between CORT and AMH as they signed a 5-year agreement that guaranteed CORT 80-90 percent of the furniture business and housewares, as needed.

“Partnering with CORT for 80-90 percent of our furniture needs was a new direction for our furnished housing program, as in the past we worked with several providers at any given time,” said Brenda Gebler, vice president, vendor relationships and facility operations at AMN Healthcare, Inc. “However, CORT quickly lived up to their reputation of unmatched customer service even as the volume of business we did with them greatly increased. We work to use their furniture as often as possible.”

AMN is committed to signing long-term furniture leases whenever possible as this is the most profitable model for CORT, particularly in markets where there are hospital engagements nearly year-round and nurses rotating in and out of apartments. In return, CORT continues to deliver, pick-up and maintain furnishings at an affordable cost with a high level of service that AMN had not consistently experienced with previous vendors.

AMN repeatedly evaluates their vendor relationships based upon a number of categories, including general responsiveness and attention to service issues. AMN had, in the past, ended a relationship with a furnishings provider when nurse complaints were frequent and consistently unaddressed. A situation that can have a negative impact on employee satisfaction and loyalty. That said employees are thrilled with the service they can expect from CORT.

“I leased an apartment in Dallas in January 2010, since I was going to be spending a few months there,” said Gebler. “During my stay, I appreciated the chance to experience our nurse’s living conditions and I found the furniture to be perfectly comfortable. Overall, I was very pleased with CORT’s quality and service.”

AMN also had a consulting organization conduct an audit of processes throughout their entire system, including suppliers, pricing, systems and training. This analysis confirmed that, when compared to other vendors, CORT consistently provided AMN the best service and prices on rental furniture.

“The processes audit confirmed what we anecdotally knew to be true, that CORT was a partner we could trust to deliver best-in-class service,” said Gebler. “The audit was an especially helpful tool to communicate the success of this relationship to other executives within the AMN organization that may not have been familiar with the details of the supplier relationships for the furnished housing program.”

CORT will have continued opportunities to serve AMN as their business grows. After making changes to their business model and centralizing key operations, AMN has introduced new capabilities to offer traveling physician services to their hospital customers. CORT will also support their housing needs when apartment housing is necessary. In addition, AMN has completed acquisitions that have expanded their healthcare professional staff.

“CORT and AMN have developed a partnership based on mutual respect that has benefitted both our businesses,” said Gebler. “When our nurses are happy and well-cared for at home, we can be confident that they are delivering the high-quality of care to the hospitals and patients we serve that has made us the recognized leader in this industry.”

 

For the past 40 years, CORT has been a leading provider in rental furniture and has provided services to more than 80 percent of the Fortune 500 companies. CORT also provides the nation’s most comprehensive range of rental relocation services, including area-orientation tours and online apartment search services at www.ApartmentSearch.com. CORT is a Berkshire Hathaway company and has offices in every major U.S. market and a global furniture rental network of affiliates in more than 50 countries. For more information about CORT, visit www.cort.com.

AMN Healthcare Services, Inc. is the nation's largest provider of comprehensive healthcare staffing and workforce solutions. As the leading provider of travel nurse, per diem (local) nurse, allied and locum tenens (temporary physician) staffing and physician permanent placement services, AMN Healthcare recruits and places healthcare professionals on assignments of variable lengths and in permanent positions with clients throughout the United States. AMN Healthcare is also the nation's largest provider of clinical staffing managed services programs and recruitment process outsourcing solutions. Settings staffed include acute-care hospitals, government facilities, community health centers and clinics, physician practice groups, and a host of other healthcare settings. AMN Healthcare also provides home healthcare services in select regions. For more information, visit http://www.amnhealthcare.com.