Want to Improve Healthcare Staffing? Make Sure Clinicians Match These Criteria
Finding Qualified Clinicians
It’s no secret that nurses are in high demand. With a large, aging population that requires care as well as a newer generation that is predicted to be larger than any before, the need for medical professionals is immense.
With that in mind, it is harder now to find enough qualified clinicians for the job. In fact, some of the reasons for the staffing shortages are due to the lack of qualified educators who have advanced nursing degrees.
The lack of educators is happening for two reasons. First, nurse educators are retiring. Second, it’s becoming harder to replace them as many nurses with advanced degrees are choosing to work in a facility over being a teacher for financial reasons.
A report done by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) found that in 2018, U.S. nursing schools turned away 75,029 qualified applicants from baccalaureate and graduate nursing programs.
The reasons cited were budget constraints, lack of classroom space, and an insufficient number of clinical cites, clinical preceptors, and faculty.
How Can a Facility Find and Keep the Best Talent
Knowing the challenges the industry faces, in order to improve healthcare staffing, facilities are looking for ways to find and retain top talent in the industry. One way to do this is by using talent assessments set with benchmarks that meet the organization’s core values and goals.
Another way is as soon as you onboard someone, find out what their short-, mid-, and long-term goals are. By doing this, you may be able to create an individualized career path for this individual that also meets the organization’s needs — such as — filling future vacancies due to retirement.
Regular communication, feedback, and also encouraging an employee to apply for opportunities within the facility are great ways to help them stay happy, progress their careers, and also meet your long-term organizational needs.
When you show interest and a need in your employees, they are more likely to show the same type of affinity for the company they work for.
Details of a Nurse’s Role
In order to improve healthcare staffing, a nurse working at your facility should know every single detail about their role. Whether they are a floor or staff nurse, charge nurse, or the nurse manager, they need to know who they report to, when and where they are needed, and what is expected of them.
A detailed plan is imperative to your facility’s success. The structure of the department is one of the first things a new staff member should be made aware of. Knowing the workflow and order of the nursing hierarchy is important so patient information ends up with the correct people.
Without a clear understanding of this workflow, a facility may experience issues in communication which can lead to an unhappy staff as well as patients.
This is why when bringing in a per diem, travel, or PRN nurse, it is important that they understand the organization of the department they are working in so no communication is lost and the floor continues to run as it normally does.
Finding Qualified Staff with the Appropriate Licensing and Credentials
As mentioned above, one issue with staffing shortages is the correlation between the lack of educators and the demand of interested nursing students.
This means, searching for qualified nurses in your area may be tricky at times. Whether your facility has a need for an RN, LPN/LVN, STNA, or CNA, locating the correct talent can be time-consuming and costly.
An RN may have come from a two-year or four-year program. Depending on your facility’s needs, trying to recruit for this position with area competition can be difficult, especially when you need to take your budget into consideration.
This is why it is important to understand what level of qualification is necessary to meet your facility’s needs. You may only need a STNA or CNA to help make coverage work on during certain days, times, or shifts. Knowing exactly what qualifications you are looking for can keep your costs lower.
Adapting to Changes and Needs
With developments in technology, healthcare, and the growing need for medical attention, in order to improve healthcare staffing, sometimes, changes need to be made. A facility needs to think differently about how their departments are structured in order to adapt.
Not only that, a facility needs to think about what they can do to help their staff through the transitions. Additional training or staffing may be necessary to help bridge the gap between new and old processes and procedures.
Additionally, restructuring of a department may be necessary in order to meet the changes and the demands in the field. How does your facility plan for these events?
Achieving Work-Life Balance
Helping a nurse achieve work-life balance only makes your facility more successful. By doing so, your nurses are happier, are more fulfilled, experience a higher level of job satisfaction, and get the rest they need in order to perform their duties well.
In return, you get a nurse that can fulfill the professional needs of your organization by feeling refreshed and rejuvenated as much as they can be. Helping a nurse gain that work-life balance that they need will show them they are a valued member of your team.
How NurseDash Helps Make the Match
If you are wondering how your facility can find the talent that meets all four of the criteria listed above, NurseDash is here to connect your facility with the right clinician.
It’s very simple. To get started, all you need to do is register your facility and its information into the NurseDash system. Once you do that, you can begin posting your organization’s needs and watch as applications from quality nurses come in.
You are in charge of reviewing and accepting which nurse you would like to bring in. On the NurseDash platform, you get a total overview of what the nurse’s experience and what their educational journey has been like. You can even review their ratings right in the app.
Letting the nurse know ahead of time what is expected of the job is easy. You can add the job details and facility information right there to make sure the nurses applying are ones that understand the scope of work.
Using NurseDash can help bring your facility success. Instead of burning out your nursing staff and risk losing talent, you can help bring in nurses on a per diem basis to help carry some of the workload of the unit when there’s just too much going on at the hospital.
