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.

Getting Your Restaurant Bar Ready for Autumn

08 Oct, 2015 | Tags: , , ,

Pumpkin Flavored Everthing

Don’t act like you’re surprised to see that pumpkin spice lattes are a huge hit this year… again. If we’re honest with ourselves, I think we all know that autumn is the best season. The fireplaces, the leaves changing colors, perfect weather temperatures, and last but not at all least, all the wonderful fall flavors. While pumpkin spice lattes are obviously a favorite amongst many, here are some other ideas to prep your bar for fall flavor favorites.
Pumpkin Beer: A must for your bar during this time of the year; it’ll be a favorite. Trust us. Imperial Pumpkin Ale is a brewing company from out of Easton, PA and a bottle promises “cloves, nutmeg, and cardamom”, it’s a promising bottle that most everyone will give a shot. Good Gourd out of Tampa, Florida is also arguably one of the best pumpkin beers ever.

Infusions

Let’s be real, infusions are perfect all year round, but now is the time to put away the strawberries and coconuts. Bring out your apples, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Grab your rums, bourbons, and vodkas, and prepare to have fun. Infusions are always a favorite, because it allows your bartenders to get creative. So bring out the big guns and give your bartenders a whirl at coming up with something spicy and new.
Spicy Sangria: If you’re in a part of the country that isn’t quite fall perfect weather yet, a glass of something that tastes like fall but is chilled might be a push in the right direction. So I give you…Spicy Sangria! Red wine, rum, orange liqueur, and cinnamon sticks will give you an amazing autumn tasting sangria. Perfect for places that are still settled in patio weather.

Apple Pie Infused Bourbon

Everything about bourbon feels so much like summer changing into fall, so why not make it part of your bar’s autumn drink specials? Try doing a bourbon infusion with apples, cinnamon, nutmeg, and a touch of simple syrup. This is a delicious drink that’ll warm your customers right up!

Tom And Jerry

For the serious fall lovers and rum drinkers, try adding this unique little cocktail to your prep list. Eggs, brandy, allspice, cinnamon, cloves, dark rum, and milk are all on the ingredient list. This makes for a super hearty cocktail, but one that will leave the adventurous autumn tongue quite happy.
What are some of your favorite fall drinks your restaurant keeps on the menu? Don’t forget while you’re planning out your autumn drink schedule, you can also use What Time Do I Work to keep all your other schedules in line too!

Tips To Keep Your Workspace Organized

05 Oct, 2015 | Tags: , , , ,

A disorganized workspace can leave you feeling unproductive. You walk into the office determined to get lots of work done, sit done at your desk, and immediately feel overwhelmed by the amount of clutter on your desk, against the wall, under your chair, and on your computer desktop. Not feeling so productive anymore, are you? Now the only thing you can think about is how much stuff you have to do, but where do you even start? Here are some tips to get your workspace organized, so you can sit down and get the work done that really matters.

1. The Great Office Purge:

Take a quick look around you. What haven’t you used in awhile that is sitting nearby? Are there any gadgets that don’t work anymore? If you haven’t touched it in several months, you probably don’t need it. Don’t forget some of the trinkets or fake (or dead) plants that are around the office too. Take a few moments with a garbage bag, and don’t be afraid of the Great Office Purge.

2. Create Your Office Zones:

If you have a printer, make sure all your paper, ink, and other paper products are in one area of your office—neatly organized. If you have several filing cabinets, create an area of your office for all your filing work. Look around and determine what work happens in your office, and then create work zones for the work that needs to be done, creating a simplified and organized area for each work zone. This way, you’ll never wonder where you left that stapler!

3. Welcome To The World Of Digital:

Speaking of filing cabinets, if you’re still holding on to receipts from 15 years ago, maybe you should consider using a digital filing system instead of holding on to all those papers. It will help you keep track of your information, and keep everything much safer if everything is saved digitally. And another plus, you’ll have more room in your office space.

4. Tackle Your Desk:

Clear off your desk completely! Only keep on your desk the things you need on a daily basis. Perhaps you’ll need a calendar, or a pen, or a notebook, a couple of business cards. Decide what you absolutely need on your desk, and discard or place in another appropriate place. Don’t forget to clean out your desk drawers as well. And remember, If you don’t need it on a daily basis, reconsider it’s position in your desk or even reconsider it’s purpose in your office completely.

5. Repeat Daily:

Once your office is organized and looks nice and clean, you’re ready to be the productive you you’re meant to be! Keep your office clean by spending a few minutes at the end of every day doing a quick evaluation of your office space. Remember to throw out what you don’t need, or to properly put away things you don’t use on a daily basis. And while we’re talking about keeping things organized, make you sure you have the What Time Do I Work app downloaded on your smartphone to keep your scheduling easy! Happy organizing!

Making the Most Out Of A Networking Event

29 Sep, 2015 | Tags: , , , ,

Networking is a necessary evil for those of you in the business world. You may be the type of person who loves to get out there and mingle, or you may be the person who would much rather stay at home and watch Netflix with a large pizza. No matter how you feel, the day you’ll have to get out there and work the system is inevitable. But don’t worry; networking isn’t as hard as you might think. Here are some quick tips on how you can make the most of your networking event.

Find The Right Event

Going to the right networking event is very important. If you’re a restaurant chef trying to network at an social media event, chances are your networking may not benefit. However, if you’re a chef and you go network at a wedding event, you may find individuals who are actively looking for a caterer. See how that works? Not all events are created equal. Be sure to find one that you believe will be worth the time you’ll spend.

What To Expect

Going to a networking event is like looking for yourself in the high school yearbook. You skimming over all the pages, resting quickly to look at some fun looking pictures, but overall the attitude is let’s find “me”. The difference at the networking event however is you’re looking for your business. Who are you meeting? What are their business strategies? How can you both work together for mutual benefit? You’re going to need to talk to people to answer these questions. Don’t be nervous about making your business sound like the type of company people would want to work with!

What To Bring

Always bring plenty of business cards, and pass them out like candy to little kids. You really can never have enough business cards on hand. Depending on the type of event, you may want to bring some brochures showcasing your previous work or business strategies. Feel free to touch base with the event coordinators to find out what is permissible for the event. Again, if you were the chef at a wedding event hoping to network as a wedding caterer, it may benefit you to have a table with samples of your food. It is never wrong to ask what you are allowed to bring, but at the very minimum, carry lots of business cards on you.
How To Act: Remember everyone is at the event doing the same thing you’re doing. Listen to others as they talk about their business. Share some of the highlights from your company. In addition to networking, you may also find individuals who know more about a particular something in your line of work that you’d like to know more about. Exchange business cards with these individuals; ask them out for coffee so you can talk more openly.

Whatever you do, remember to relax and enjoy the event!

Bringing Business Back: Six Customer Rewards that Really Work

05 Sep, 2015 | Tags: , , , , , ,

Customer loyalty is about more than just retention. You want to encourage your customers to spend more money in your stores, and purchase the type of products that will keep them coming back. There are several ways to increase customer loyalty, and following these tried and true methods, you can improve your bottom line and make a casual customer more loyal to your company brand.

The Points System


A points system is simple, and is used effectively around the world because it actually works. Customers are able to receive points when they purchase certain items, which allows you to better manage your inventory. Rather than discounting items, you can double or triple the points first to see if that helps you sell inventory. Customers can later get rewards in the form of cash-back, free items, or a percentage off the total when a certain number of points have been reached. It’s often a win-win situation for both you and the customer.


Get a Partnership

Work with local stores and offer combined discounts that can be used at more than one location. For example, if customers spend more than $100 at your store, they may be able to get discounts at other stores or sites like Discountrue.com when they offer coupons for kohls.com. Partnering with a name-brand store may help you increase your brand awareness and encourage shoppers to frequent your store.

VIP Benefit Programs

Start a base-level points program, and offer a VIP program with additional rewards for people who purchase a membership. Purchasing a membership by itself will encourage them to come back and use their card more often. Since they have already paid the dues, they will be more inclined to shop at your store to receive those extra benefits.


Non-Monetary Rewards

Some industries do better offering additional services or giving a donation to a local charity than with a money-based reward system. If you boast an environmentally friendly store, customers may feel better about your company if they know that a percentage of all proceeds go to help rainforest preservation, or a local children’s charity. Figure out what your customers want, and design rewards programs that reinforce what your customers value.

Create Weekly Contests or Drawings

A weekly contest or drawing can help bring more customers into your store. Offer smaller prizes and reward several prizes, so they will have a better chance of winning the contest or drawing. These sorts of games can be fun for employees and shoppers, and the odds of winning go up the more they shop.

Forget the Rewards Program

Build rewards into the shopping experience. When customers purchase goods worth a certain value, give them a discount. Give them rewards just for being customers, and don’t require any sort of membership or loyalty program to take part. First-time shoppers will come back because they will be surprised they received a free gift with their purchase.

No single rewards program will work for every industry. It’s up to you to think about the type of customer you’re getting, and find a way to increase their loyalty. Try a few different programs, or ask for your customers’ input to find the best system for your type of business.