How to face hospital staffing challenges?

30 Aug, 2016 | Tags: , ,

Hospitals are a busy place — they are also the place where every single task is important and urgent. And hence, scheduling of manual labor becomes extremely important. There are so many challenges that hospital administrators face when it comes to hospital staffing.

Every patient needs to be constantly looked after. There should always be doctors present within the hospital premises to take care of an emergency or a new patient. Every team should be equally balanced and have equal number of people. Also, there should not be too many open shifts. This will ensure that the hospital staff is not overburdened with work each day. Open shifts do not only drain the hospital staff of its energy, they also lead to increased labor costs. There are many such tasks around scheduling the onus of which fall upon hospital administrators and staff persons. The hospital can run into great trouble if the staff scheduling is not properly done.

While most hospitals employ the services of expert administrators to do scheduling, sometimes even the experts fail. It is difficult to manage a system as big and as unpredictable as hospitals. There are certain strategies that hospital administrators can employ to reduce hospital staffing challenges. Here are a few of them:

1. Centralize the resource management system: In most of the hospitals, each unit has a separate scheduling manager. While this is a good idea as far as team or unit communication is concerned, it can also lead to scheduling issues. If staffing managers of different unit work together, staff paucity can be taken care of by moving staffs across teams. One of the best ways to manage resources in a hospital is to create a centralized system where people become a part of a single large team instead of small segregated teams. The impact of this should also be noted and analysed from time to time so that an efficient system can be put into place.

2. Induce self – scheduling:   Self-scheduling is a good idea if you do not suffer from paucity of hospital staff in general. Self-scheduling also creates an environment of co-ordination and personal management. It empowers hospital staff and allows them to work according to their own comfort. This is especially good if your hospital staff is made mostly of nurses and attendants who are parents to young kids and who need to devote time to their family on a daily basis. However, self-scheduling system will not work well if the hospital staff is not wholly committed to their job.

3. Do predictive analysis:   Most businesses employ this technique to get an idea of future staff demand. Based on data analysis, business intelligence and predictive modelling, resource managers can plan well in advance. Though predictive analysis will not give exact numbers, it will still gave a fair idea of the number of staff members that will be needed in the months to come. If the charts show rigorous demands, administrators can actually begin to train the hospital staff in advance. Management based on predictive analysis is known to have reduced costs and created very effective systems. If you are managing a hospital with a big work force, you can benefit greatly from predictive analysis.

4. Get rid of recurring open shifts: Open shifts can create an imbalance in the scheduling chart. An open shift means that someone from the staff who already has a full-time duty will have to cover up for the absence of another person or a last-minute opening. Recurring open shifts can make the hospital staff feel exhausted. They can also lead to job satisfaction. Hence, open shifts should be taken care of. One of the best ways to reduce open shifts and minimize staff dissatisfaction is to induce incentives. Hospitals should introduce a rule under which every person doing an open shift should be given an incentive.

Taking care of hospital staffing challenges will not only reduce the total cost, it will also create a better working environment for the hospital staff. Not just that, it will lead to an efficient system in which every patient is taken care of properly. An inefficient management system can cause chaos and negligence, and there is no place for either of the two in a hospital.

Hospital Worker Schedule Information

23 Aug, 2016 | Tags: , ,

Things You Didn’t Know about a Hospital Worker’s Schedule

For both clinical and non-clinical hospital workers, a typical schedule can be anything but regular. Because hospitals see an ongoing and frequent turnover of patients whose needs are always changing, it is quite the challenge to make sure the facility is properly staffed at all times.

Most people know that doctors and nurses work long and varied hours, but the general public may not realize just what is involved in the typical schedule of a hospital employee. For instance, did you know that many hospital employees build time into their day not only for travel, but for parking as well? Very few hospitals have designated parking just for employees (doctors excluded), so workers have to either compete for spaces with visitors in a parking garage or possibly park a distance away from the building itself.

Here is a list of hospital workers’ challenges and how our hospital employee scheduling software can help overcome these obstacles.

Many, if not most, work longer than their scheduled shifts. Much of what is involved in the job needs to get done, whether it takes 10 hours or 12 hours. It simply cannot be put off until the next shift. Furthermore, this may or may not count as overtime depending on the job and the hospital itself. Adding up all that extra time put in over the course of a week, month, or year really demonstrates just how difficult hospital work can be. One of the most useful features of What Time Do I Work software is that employers can set up automatic alerts to notify them of any overtime. This can help manage employee hours and control payroll budgets.

They work potentially inconsistent and/or overnight hours. This applies mostly to clinical employees, especially doctors and nurses. For example, obstetricians can be called in any time for a delivery, emergency room staff can suddenly find themselves working extra shifts or called in during the night to assist with an influx of victims of a multi-vehicle accident, or simply working unexpectedly to cover for a colleague’s sick day. The reasons for inconsistent hours are virtually endless, but our software is up to the task of handling this problem in a user-friendly way. Easily create on-call schedules and also view past hospital schedules that are logged into the system for help with staffing future shifts. This will help prevent understaffing situations and will make the most of employees’ availability and skill sets for overall staffing needs.

If time off is needed, it is up to the employee to switch shifts with a coworker. It is really not feasible for a department to be short one or several employees on any given shift, so if an employee needs time off for any reason when he or she is originally scheduled to work, that person is responsible for finding coverage. This can be difficult, especially if the employee does not have contact with everyone in the department. This difficulty is increased if the employee needs multiple shifts covered. With our software, employees can view schedules anytime and swap shifts with colleagues within the program. This makes for possible and effective communication within departments without having to involve management in shift changes.

For many hospital workers, especially nurses, there is no typical schedule. Shifts rotate, they are not permanent (day/night rotation), and employees must rotate holidays and weekends depending on the hospital. This type of work can be an added burden on an already stressful job. Imagine if an employee has to take an unplanned sick day because his or her child needs to stay home from school due to illness. Needing to find coverage in a pinch can be challenging and stressful. This comes with the job, but effective scheduling software can make it much easier to handle. This constantly changing work environment requires a proactive scheduling system, one in which employers can easily access employees’ contact information, communicate posted schedules, and organize time-off requests. WhatTimeDoIWork software does all this and more; it is even sufficient for large hospitals who need to manage staff with different availabilities.

Only someone who has worked in a hospital can truly understand the pros and cons of doing so, especially when it comes to a typical schedule. Our software is user-friendly and can meet all the challenges that hospital workers and employers face on a daily basis. I

t can be nearly impossible to anticipate all the obstacles that are part of managing a hospital staff, but WhatTimeDoIWork takes the guesswork out of the equation.