According to a recent survey of health system executives conducted by QGenda, workforce management is a top priority for leaders at most U.S. healthcare organizations. Other key issues, which show no signs of abating, are employee retention, burnout, and attrition.
During a recent Becker's Healthcare webinar sponsored by QGenda, two of QGenda's leaders — Patrick Hunt, MD, chief medical officer, and Lindsey Klein, chief strategy officer — discussed the current state of workforce management and best practices for optimizing and improving workforce management.
Three key takeaways were:
- Workforce efficiencies come from a cohesive approach to technology. Many healthcare organizations currently use multiple disparate systems to schedule employees, track time, manage compensation, and more. However, in practice, to make this multi-system approach work, manual workarounds and manual data entry are common. This results in inefficient workforce management and deployment. "Most organizations aren't scheduling physicians and other care team members like nurses, techs, and PAs as one cohesive unit," Ms. Klein said. “As a result, it's hard to see where the pinch points are. There may be a backup in the ED, but leaders don't recognize that it's because there aren't enough nurses on the unit where patients need to transfer."
In contrast to the way that many health systems operate today, the more that health systems can map out their current workforce processes and implement one cohesive IT ecosystem, the more they will see efficiency gains. - Healthcare organizations must think creatively about how to make the work environment more attractive to talent. There are limits and constraints to how much a healthcare organization can increase its employee pay.
The good news is that other factors can play a key role in attracting and retaining talent. In particular, an organization's work environment also plays a major role in employee satisfaction and likelihood to stay. Therefore, it's essential to create an environment and a culture where staff feel valued. "You can only do so much with pay, but you can do a lot with regard to optimizing schedules and optimizing the work environment," Dr. Hunt said. "You can show appreciation by giving people extra requests in the scheduling system, more money for continuing education, additional time off, or the ability to pick their job sets." - A holistic workforce strategy enables healthcare organizations to optimize the use of their most expensive resource. Hospitals and health systems recognize that their patient mix is more acute than ever before and has more comorbidities. To care for this complex patient population, organizations need enough staff with the right skill sets. "Hospitals and health systems need people operating at the top of their license as soon as possible," Ms. Klein said. To move the needle, organizations must adopt a holistic approach to resource deployment and utilization which includes cross training, mentorship and skill development. "We need to create an ecosystem that meets people where they are," Dr. Hunt said. "Employees need to feel appreciated, important and valued."
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