Healthcare facilities have strategized for years on how to lower staffing costs.
It takes concerted, system-wide effort to achieve doing so. By giving your full-time professionals what they need to stay motivated and engaged and implementing new ways to fill staffing gaps with per-diem talent, your facility can increase its odds of staying within quality benchmarks.
Recognizing the importance of well-supported nurse
COVID-19 has shown the world the devastating results of understaffed healthcare facilities. High workload, high stress, and burnout can increase risk of errors and patient mortality even further.
Professional well-being, depression, and anxiety all contribute to burnout. High workloads, long commutes, and poor interpersonal relationships are often the primary causes.
Offering flexible solutions to today's professionals
Dozens of resources exist to help managers mitigate burnout. One common suggestion is to address the cause of the burnout in addition to the symptoms. Lack of autonomy, lack of flexibility, and lack of freedom in the workplace can all lead to frustrations that exacerbate burnout. Add in the high-pressure environment of a healthcare facility and you have a recipe for resignations.
To help ease the pressure on full-time staff without breaking your budget, augment your core staff with fully vetted, highly qualified healthcare professionals. With a marketplace of professionals available at a moment’s notice, you can find the nurses you need to cover fluctuations in volume and unexpected absences without the hassle of agencies and travelers.
By hiring on-demand professionals to fill staffing gaps, all clinicians will have the breathing room to devote the right amount of time to each patient, improving care quality and lowering the potential for errors.
The marketplace model also provides relief for hiring managers and administrative staff. When resourcing through a cloud-based platform, they won’t have to deal with multiple phone calls and/or emails to get temporary talent in the door. Instead, they simply post shifts online. With a few taps, local professionals from the facility’s internal per-diem pool or from CareRev’s network pick up the shift.
In addition to bringing in a platform like CareRev, healthcare facilities can rethink their internal current processes. Boston-based Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) switched up practices during a surge in COVID-19 patients:
1. improved communication by introducing frequent team huddles
- this helped the team stay up-to-date on changes
- this also helped keep morale high by relaying successes
2. improvised med/surg units helped alleviate space constraints
- this resulted in the hospital improving its responsiveness from 58.9% to 63.5%.
As you consider ways to address staffing issues, consider CareRev as part of your solution. Request a demo today and prepare to flex your workforce on demand.
