According to SIA’s recently published “Merger & Acquisition Trends: North America” report, the North American healthcare staffing industry had fewer acquisitions in 2019 compared with the previous year (16 deals, down from 26 in 2018) in terms of the number of healthcare staffing firms being acquired. Nevertheless, healthcare staffing was the second most-attractive sector, behind IT staffing, and represented 15% of the 110 publicly announced acquisitions of North America-based staffing firms.

Regarding acquisitions made by healthcare staffing firms, we note several transactions that involved the acquisition of broader workforce solutions capabilities. Some notable examples include:

• CHG Healthcare’s February 2020 acquisition of LocumsMart, a vendor-neutral locum tenens VMS. In October 2019, CHG also acquired Modio Health, a cloud-based credentialing and career management solution for healthcare providers and organizations.
• Medical Solutions’ August 2019 acquisition of C&A Industries, which included Aureus Medical Group’s FocusOne Solutions MSP program and VMS technology.
• Aya Healthcare’s November 2019 acquisition of the Ohio Hospital Association’s workforce solutions program, as well as its April 2019 acquisition of Symmetry Healthcare Solutions, which added SymmetryMSP to Aya’s workforce solutions division.  
• AMN Healthcare’s January 2019 acquisition of Silversheet’s credentialing software, as well as its December 2019 acquisition of the b4health internal float pool management solution and VMS technology.  

With 56% of travel nurse revenues in 2018 being generated through MSP programs and an additional 16% generated through standalone VMS technology, travel nursing has the highest penetration rate of MSP/VMS according to the 2019 SIA NATHO Travel Nurse Benchmarking Survey.  

The second most penetrated sector is allied health staffing, with 33% of revenues in the first half of 2019 being generated through MSP programs and an additional 25% generated through VMS technology, according to the 2019 SIA US Allied Health Staffing Benchmarking Survey.

Currently, it is estimated that less than 20% of locum tenens revenue is being generated through MSP programs. It is unclear how quickly this will grow in the future. As the largest US privately held healthcare staffing company, CHG Healthcare intends to continue operating LocumsMart as a standalone, vendor-neutral VMS.

“Our clients asked us to provide tools that make it easier for us to work together. Bringing together CHG Healthcare and LocumsMart, the leading locum tenens VMS solution, will create an unmatched experience for our clients with multiple options to meet their needs,” said Mark Law, chief sales officer of CHG Healthcare. “However, we do not plan to launch an MSP program because we don’t believe it is in our clients’ best interests to be disintermediated from their supplier pool. Through LocumsMart, our clients can continue to manage their staffing needs using a robust VMS technology designed with their needs in mind.”

Although the majority of acquisitions in the healthcare staffing sector are of other healthcare staffing firms, the firms also continue to innovate by acquiring other companies with process outsourcing and talent acquisition technologies and capabilities within the workforce solutions ecosystem.

For more information about the workforce solutions ecosystem, SIA corporate members can access the Workforce Solutions Ecosystem: 2019 Update.

For more information about mergers and acquisition activity, SIA corporate members can access the Staffing and Workforce Solutions Mergers & Acquisitions – Interactive Tool.