About
Starting Semester: Spring 2027Assigned: No
Location: ATLANTA
Emory Healthcare
Client Profile
Emory Healthcare is the largest and most comprehensive academic health system in Georgia, serving patients across a network of primary care, specialty care, and hospital-based practices. The organization is committed to providing high-quality, patient-centered care while continuously improving operational efficiency and workforce effectiveness.The Primary Care division includes multiple ambulatory practice locations across the Atlanta metropolitan area. These clinics support a diverse patient population and rely on multidisciplinary teams consisting of nurses, medical assistants, patient access staff, providers, and leaders to deliver coordinated care.
Project Description
Emory Healthcare's ambulatory practices experience variability in staffing levels due to employee vacancies, leave of absence, turnover, training requirements, seasonal demand fluctuations, and unexpected absences. These staffing challenges can create operational disruptions, increase workload on existing staff, impact patient access, and require practices to rely on temporary staffing solutions.To address these challenges, Emory Healthcare is exploring opportunities to establish and optimize a regional ambulatory staffing pool that can support multiple primary care locations within designated geographic regions. While flexible staffing models are commonly used in hospital settings, the application and optimization of such models in ambulatory care presents unique operational considerations related to workforce allocation, scheduling, competency management, travel requirements, productivity, and financial sustainability.
The organization is seeking an analysis of current staffing patterns, operational demand, and workforce deployment practices to identify opportunities that could:
• Improve staffing coverage across ambulatory locations within each region
• Reduce operational disruption caused by staffing shortages
• Increase workforce flexibility and resource utilization
• Support employee engagement, career development, and retention
• Improve patient access and continuity of care
• Enhance financial sustainability of ambulatory operations
• Develop scalable staffing models that can adapt to future growth and changing patient demand
The project presents an opportunity to evaluate alternative regional staffing models and develop data-driven recommendations for workforce deployment, capacity planning, and operational performance across a multi-site ambulatory network.