Getting Rid of Stupid Stuff at the Point of Care
The Great Resignation of healthcare workers is continuing to have an adverse impact on healthcare management.
Current issues in the healthcare workforce
Following the unique challenges of working in the healthcare sector during the COVID pandemic, the sector experienced mass workforce resignations in 2021, in what became known as the ‘Great Resignation’.
The aftermath of this is that most hospitals and healthcare organizations are currently operating with chronic staff shortages, high levels of contracted staff and widespread staff burnout. Healthcare leaders are worried that this difficult environment is likely to put added pressures on the workforce, which could trigger yet more resignations.
All stakeholders agree, that with the hospital workforce already at a critical level, urgent action is needed to take better care of staff and prevent a downward spiral.
Think tank plans the fightback to improve hospital workforce reality
I was pleased to see how industry experts have recently collaborated with the American Hospital Association (AMA) and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement among others, to create a very welcome 2022 Healthcare Workforce Rescue Package. This looks at key solutions that healthcare organizations can make to improve the day-to-day reality of their workforce.
One aspect of the Rescue Package that caught my attention is the ‘Get Rid of the Stupid Stuff’ action item, which aims to reduce unnecessary daily burdens for clinicians and states:
“Unnecessary tasks have introduced a heavy burden into the daily workload of physicians and other clinicians and are thought to be at least partially responsible for physician burnout. Electronic health record (EHR) systems in particular have created significantly more work for physicians.”
With healthcare organizations struggling to manage staff shortages, investigating how to reduce unnecessary admin and free up FTE time has to be a priority.
Reducing the admin load on nurses
One bone of contention cited in the AMA toolkit is to look at ways to reduce the number of EHR clicks in common workflows. It is time-consuming and frustrating for nurses to repeatedly work their way through elongated data input processes.
We know that nurses and clinicians want to focus on patient care, they don’t want to deal with cumbersome forms, duplicate data entry, never-ending drop downs and barcode scans that come up as unlisted on the system. Smaller healthcare institutions have the addition burden of multiple manual processes, with far fewer benefiting from automated workflows.
Simple Inventory Management Solutions that boost staff satisfaction
At IDENTI Medical we specialize in finding innovative medical data sensing solutions that reduce the admin burden on clinicians.
We focus on the OR and PR setting, providing inventory and data capture solutions that keep in-surgery admin to a minimum, freeing up nurses to support the clinical team and patient.
Proven solution to reduce nurse admin and improve job satisfaction
IDENTI Medical’s innovative use of AI, machine learning and RFID technology creates admin-busting tools to simplify data capture in OR and Procedural Rooms
Our solutions communicate with existing EHR, ERM and MMIS providing seamless integration into existing workflows and systems. The result is leaner workflows and happier nurses.
Find out about Snap & Go, where one three second ‘snap’ of inventory being used at the POC replaces ALL data inputting.
If your organization is looking to lighten the admin load on staff in the surgical setting, we’ve got ready-made solutions to get the job done.
Read other relevant posts on nurse burnout:
- We discuss feedback from nurses on their biggest frustrations in Six Fears and Frustrations OR Nurses Face Daily
