The nursing shortage in the US continues to be fueled by an aging population in need of care, baby boomer retiring nurses, and new entrants in the nursing profession, many of whom leave the workforce after a short period of time. These three components cause additional stress on nursing professionals and challenge the need for adequate nursing resources to provide necessary patient care.
As many studies have indicated, inadequate staffing levels can impact healthcare access and quality of care, ultimately leading to greater errors, increased morbidity and higher mortality rates. In fact, the acquisition and retention of nursing professionals are the biggest risks to health industry companies, according to 82% of industry executives responding to PwC’s August Pulse Survey.
Addressing the nursing crisis requires transforming the model of care in order to find ways for nurses to function at the top of their license, and the realization that nurses are not always available. In addition, changes must be made to attract an adequate number of nurses who could provide high-quality care for all patients, while also ensuring long-term retention strategies.
Here are three areas for healthcare providers to focus on in order to attract, retain and keep nurses engaged throughout the lifespan of their professional nursing career.
Career Paths
To retain nurses, employers need to motivate them with what these healthcare professionals value most, which often means having a clear path to grow their career long-term. Consider your nursing staff’s career journey and offer educational and hands-on opportunities to upskill their capabilities for different roles, including expert bedside nurse, specialty-based nurse, leadership, education, research and informatics.
Nurses will be at different stages in their lives and will want career options — from those who desire to further their education and move into managerial or specialty roles to others who want to remain at the bedside but need support and resources so they can make a positive difference in patient outcomes. By taking a long-term approach and tailoring to individual career needs, organizations can improve retention and help nurses remain in the workforce.
Another way that organizations can help retain nurses throughout their careers is by providing a safe work environment, which is essential as abuse toward the bedside healthcare team has been increasing in many hospital settings. These situations may occur because patients, their families or other visitors — have behavioral problems, dementia, illness-related anger and stress-induced violence.
Proactively creating a safe environment — possibly by using nursing assistants and licensed practical nurses to relieve nurses of some essential but lower-skilled tasks — supports bedside care teams by allowing them to continue providing patient care with appropriate boundaries, by helping decrease stress and eliminate potential physical harm, and by encouraging workers to stay in the healthcare field.
Workflows
Employers can benefit by understanding how to help nurses reclaim their initial passion for their work. Redesigning how and where work gets done — and by which level of the health care team — will enable team members to maximize their full capabilities.
This approach might include reimagining traditional roles and responsibilities in regard to workflows, tasks, handoffs, communications and overall care coordination across the patient care team. In addition, some employers standardize their organization’s policies, procedures and workflows to make them more efficient, while soliciting employee input on any changes to ensure their satisfaction and approval.
The goal is to maximize the time nurses devote to critical thinking capabilities and essential patient interventions. For example, this could require fully optimizing and automating electronic health records and other technology-based assets to give nurses time to focus on the most important aspects of patient care.
Technology
Providers often use technology to lighten nurses’ workloads. A growing number of healthcare providers use technology to monitor patient outcomes, to verify health issues, to help ensure that patients and their families are satisfied, or to manage costs effectively. Some use hybrid delivery models in which virtual nurses work with physical bedside nurses to manage and deliver patient care. Also, many organizations are building connected health ecosystems that embrace cloud, artificial intelligence (AI) and other digital technologies.
Healthcare organizations usually get the greatest benefit from technologies by reducing administrative burdens, improving communication, increasing clinical decision support and leveraging dynamic, acuity-based staffing models.
When healthcare leaders dedicate time and resources to improve nurses’ working experiences, that can result in positive, sustained change. By striving for measurable improvements, the healthcare system can emerge stronger for both patients and healthcare workers.
Contact PwC for more information on how they can help organizations transform the nursing care model.