Patient-centric and cost-effective staffing tools designed for Healthcare

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, nurses remain on the front lines. Supplies and staff are spread thin, with nurses adapting and working at the top of their licensure.

While improving patient outcomes and experience, and lowering costs are key focuses for hospitals, improving the clinical experience is an important part of the equation as well. The cost of retaining and recruiting nurses is expensive, and providing solutions to improve the staffing and scheduling process could have a positive impact on clinician experience. Having solutions that understand the workflow of the clinician is an important component to improve recruitment and retention of nursing staff. Data has become more and more important as we track equipment status, patients in the ICU, staffing and credentials.

Many organizations continue to use a paper process for staffing. Staffing supervisors will make rounds through the organization with a large stack of paper in their pocket so they can stay current on the needs of each patient care area. They take time to update the information and then call, text and email staff when additional nurses are needed. Then the information is added to a spreadsheet manually to be reviewed during executive meetings.

Staffing considerations

Here are a few things to consider when staffing a patient care area: 1) the hourly rate of each staff member, 2) the amount of time it takes to create and publish a schedule, 3) the last-minute changes that always occur, 4) making those changes on paper can be costly. While jotting notes on paper may seems quick to the clinician, a printed copy of the information is short term and time consuming. There has never been a greater need to have access to data. Hospital executives and front-line staff need to see the data, so they know what equipment is available and where the critical staffing need is.

Infor Workforce Management has made significant innovations to the latest release supporting the unique role each clinician plays in keeping patient care about the patient. These innovations are based on customer feedback and the Infor Clinician Team’s review of the current solutions used by many organizations. The goal in these enhancements is to improve workflow and decrease the use of paper and manual processes while improving access to important data.

Infor is honored to work with nursing professionals across the country and see their commitment to keeping the patient first. Focusing on the caregiver and making their jobs easier with flexible and easy-to-use solutions should be simple. Thank you again, for all you do to improve patient care and outcomes.

The business of healthcare is a constantly changing and adapting environment. But the mission remains the same: optimizing resources and working at top of licensure of care-giving.

Written by:
Candace Katta-Liptrot, RN, MSN | Sr. Account Executive, Workplace Solutions - Healthcare