Hospital Staff Scheduling

06 Sep, 2016 | Tags: , , ,

Every healthcare organization faces a challenge in managing staff scheduling and ensuring open shifts are filled. It is important to note though that costs are minimized when patients are matched with the staff in such a way that patients’ needs are met and the scheduling is done professionally.

Depending on a number of factors, staff scheduling gets complicated and thus end up wasting a lot of time and resources. However, every healthcare organization is different they all share a common need in scheduling their staff.

How to Avoid Three common Staffing and Scheduling Drawbacks

Most healthcare systems experience common drawbacks in their efforts to meet staffing and scheduling. However, this can be avoided by using a new methodology referred to as the “Collaborative Staffing”. The methodology is a ground-up that enables employees to be part of the solution in deploying the workforce. This approach minimizes the labor costs and ensures optimal patient coverage. Here is keener look at the three common drawbacks and how they should be avoided.

Carrying the Staffing Process from the Top down With Limited Employees Involvement

In a “manager-directed’ approach, creating staffing plans and filling staffing needs is the responsibility of unit managers and/ or a central staffing office. This top-down approach gives very little input or insight to nurses and other frontline staff into staffing process. This makes the nurses do very little to be part of a solution in case of gaps in staff coverage. In this regard, the challenge of staffing and scheduling rests on the manager’s shoulder.

However, managers’ time would be best spent focused in more tactical initiatives such as mentoring staff quality and patients safety. This is important than spending time in the routine tasks of managing staffing coverage. Moreover, staffs know about their preferences and availability than the managers. Thus, giving them control over shifts makes them enjoy better work/life balance and an increased sense of freedom.

The feeling of working in an empowering environment brings about many benefits. For instance, nurses tend to be more committed to the organization and register high quality of care in their units. Thus, collaborative staffing is a staff-partnered process that enables employees by granting them visibility into the organizational needs. It also gives them a right that empowers them to be part of the solution. In this regard, mangers and staff are able to collaborate to fill open shifts. This considers the employee skills and preferences to ensure that the patient care needs are put into account.

Staffing in Units to Match Staff with Patient Needs across the Enterprise

The opportunity to develop a dependable staffing strategy lacks when each unit is solely involved in their own staffing. This is because it may bring about lack of transparency thus making it difficult to available staff to fill gaps in another unit. In this regard, when a nurse is sent home for low census in one unit, another one is called in to meet increased needs.

Thus, even though the one going home is more qualified and is willing to fill the shift than go home, it is not possible. This is because there is no connection made due to the lack of visibility.

Lack of Standardized Staffing Policies in the Organization

There should be consistent policies regarding overtime, incentive programs and holiday schedules in the entire organization. This is because all employees like being treated equitably and fairly. Thus, inconsistent practices in staffing can bring about perceived or actual inequities.

However, in a collaborative model system, consistency and fairness are driven by the transparency. Moreover, standardized staffing policies create equality that can lead to a more unified workforce. This ensures that workers can work together to handle the challenges of staffing and scheduling.

Collaborative staffing ensures interdepartmental visibility and communication. Everyone in the healthcare is able to enjoy the benefits like system-wide staff optimization, increased employee engagement and decreased overtime and premium labor costs.

Better Scheduling Improves Management

Scheduling is major issue when it comes to running a big healthcare. Moreover, it influences the number of the practices run and serves as a foundation to a successful healthcare business. In this regard, scheduling of physicians and staff maximizes the efficiency of the healthcare and the patients’ care.

The best way to improve your scheduling is to get an automated physician and staff scheduling application. The machine should be able to work with unique policies and rules in the healthcare organization.

Conclusion

According to Dr. Karlene Kerfoot, a Chief Nursing Officer for API Healthcare, a GE company, technology has brought a great value that is growing each day. This is because technology helps healthcare staff in performing most activities daily. Moreover, technology can also be used to manage broader job satisfaction in hospitals like staffing and scheduling.

References:

How to Avoid Three Common Staffing and Scheduling Pitfalls

http://www.emrendhi.com/tag/nursing-staff-scheduling/

Scheduling Tips for Hospital Administrators

06 Sep, 2016 | Tags: ,

Technology advances, new healthcare regulations and an aging population have all created a booming market for healthcare administrators. They are responsible for the oversight of medical facilities that range from large hospitals to nursing homes and rehabilitation centers. Hospital administrators coordinate care, manage finances, create schedules, and work with medical staff. A profession as a hospital administrator is fascinating and rewarding – each day brings new and exciting tasks and challenges.

The impact of scheduling on hospital administrators’ lives remains a big issue. Many cite balancing work hours and personal life as problematic, and others are concerned about their daily workloads. Some have cited that expectations and demands on them were increasing, while others cited scheduling per se as challenging. As a healthcare facility manager or hospital administrator, it’s imperative that you’ve a powerful plan in place in order to manage your critical staffing needs effectively throughout peak and off-peak hours. With that goal in mind, we have compiled the following scheduling tips for hospital administrators to help them manage their healthcare staffing needs around the clock.

Scheduling And Managing Rapid Needs

Developing and implementing a comprehensive staffing and scheduling procedure is a crucial element of any patient-care and staffing plan. It is necessary to partner with a healthcare staffing agency that is able to fulfil all of your supplemental staffing requirements at a moment’s notice with fully-certified, highly qualified professionals for you provide and maintain the high quality around the clock care’ and personalized attention your patients deserve.

Advance Planning

The best approach to unplanned staffing deficits would be to proactively define the action steps that need to be taken prior to the crisis. Besides helping you manage your short notice or emergency staffing needs, it’s also critical that you partner with a Joint Commission-certified healthcare staffing firm which can help you plan ahead for busy periods like holidays and vacation seasons wherein your regular staff may request concurrent time off. By planning your staffing requirements in advance, you make sure that your facility won’t be caught short handed during these critical times.

Workload Management

You will be better prepared to ensure the precise distribution of staff and resources by analyzing your staffing needs and assessing current and projected workloads. This decisive workload analysis allows you to effectively avoid procedural errors which result whenever staff members are overloaded.

Answering Calls and Managing Calendars

Calling patients, shifting appointments and rescheduling events around at a moment’s notice is a core part of the work. This is another really important part of the work of a hospital administrator. People who call medical offices typically talk to the administrator, at least at first, especially for things like scheduling an appointment or getting directions to the office. The job also usually requires lots of savvy when it comes to organizing and scheduling time. The administrator can create and manage calendars for appointments, patient consultations, and important meetings which they must keep constantly updated.

Clerical Work

The medical world is one which is heavily records-dependent. One of the hospital administrator’s biggest jobs is keeping paperwork and written files in order. Typically, this starts with patient records. Usually, the administrator can devise a system to keep files updated and accessible, which oftentimes involves computing and electronic record keeping. Most modern healthcare offices use a combination of paper and digital-based files, and organizing and assimilating these two can be a bigger undertaking than it seems.

Ensuring Compliance

The healthcare industry is regulated by numerous rules and regulations. It is the job of the hospital administrator to help with or manage the process of making sure an organization remains compliant. This might involve keeping up with the latest healthcare news relevant to the locality and type of organization.

Accept Holidays as Part of the Schedule

For many hospital administrators, working a holiday one year would mean they get the next year off. Barnes, however, will work on Christmas for the next six years straight. You can work a schedule of 7 nights on and 7 nights off which means you might not have to work on the upcoming string of holidays.

Healthcare and hospital facility management is always needed to maintain a clean, healthy environment. It’s important for medical facilities to make sure service requests are responded to swiftly and efficiently and that preventive maintenance schedules are set up so as to maintain operations without interruption.