workforce management Archives - Adaptive Workforce Solutions

The Detrimental Impact of the Physician Shortage on Patient Care Access

Physician and nursing shortages have become a major cause for concern affecting hospitals, clinics, and potential patients. The draining work environment and subsequent lifestyle physicians and nurses are subjected to, have led to physician burnout and an increased turnover rate which hospitals and clinics cannot afford. It is imperative that they find a way to retain these crucial healthcare workers to further improve patient access to much-needed health care. The physician shortage has plagued the healthcare industry for some time and is expected to continue growing exponentially by 2030, severely limiting patient care access.

A study released in March 2017 by the AAMC revealed that the United States could potentially find itself with a physician shortage upwards of 104,900 physicians by 2030. Due in part to population growth, an increase in the number of aging Americans and retirement of practicing doctors, this potential shortage has healthcare providers, hospitals, clinics, and private practices racing to discover and acquire long-lasting talent. Hopefully, this concerning effort will result in keeping the industry afloat throughout the next two decades, ensuring patient care access remains readily available for those who need it.

How Will This Physician Shortage Affect Patient Care?

Should a physician shortage persist for a sustained period of time, it would prove detrimental to patients and doctors. Patients will experience longer wait times at hospitals. It will become more difficult for patients to be admitted. Physicians and doctors will not be able to adequately treat patients due to extended shifts and patient overload. Ultimately, a physician shortage will negatively and dramatically impact the overall quality of healthcare across the United States.

While patients have always faced significant barriers to patient care access, this shortage will produce more widespread and long-lasting effects. A physician shortage not only affects hospital patients but even those who regularly visit their primary care physicians and family doctors. Overall patient satisfaction will drop and the risk for negative health consequences will rise.

The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) has been urging members of the United States Congress to design and craft federal initiative programs that extend outreach to hospitals and medical schools in order to help support them during this predicted physician shortage. The AAMC is hoping that the US federal government can help, at the very least, to alleviate or reverse some of the adverse effects the physician and doctor shortage will continue to have on patient care access. In addition, they hope the initiatives can increase medical knowledge and attract younger generations to the field of medicine through educational programs.

The Physician Shortage Study and Debate

While patient care access has decreased in recent years due to a number of factors, some argue that there really is no physician shortage whatsoever. For instance, The Institute of Medicine released a study in 2014 claiming that there was no statistical shortage of physicians or doctors in the United States. However, the system was criticized as being extremely inefficient, therefore possibly skewing the accuracy of the results. The study reflected poor ratings in patient satisfaction, physician workplace satisfaction, and patient care access.

In addition, it was suggested that new, innovative, and emerging technologies had not previously been accounted for. In essence, it was proposed that any decrease in the number of physicians and doctors in the United States could be due to new medical technologies negating the necessity for a human physician, in some cases.

Regardless, more research should be conducted to determine if there really is a shortage, how small or large it is, and the impact this suggested physician shortage is having and could continue to have on patient care access. For individual healthcare facilities to have an influence on physician burnout, being aware of what’s important to your contingent healthcare providers to ensure greater workforce satisfaction would be wise.

NurseGrid App Plays a Critical Role in Nursing Workforce Satisfaction

The healthcare industry is one of the most robust and volatile industries in the world. While it maintains an absolutely massive market share throughout the world, it constantly finds itself struggling to manage finances and employee relations. Nursing workforce satisfaction is consistently an issue throughout the healthcare industry. In response to the demand for an effective solution to this challenge, a new workforce management app, called NurseGrid has been introduced to the nursing workforce.

Various healthcare workforce management solutions and nursing management strategies have been proposed and implemented throughout the last several years in an attempt to improve the overall experience of a full-time nurse. Although there may have been some benefits experienced by these implemented solutions, it seems as though emerging and cutting-edge technological advancements are proving themselves to have an even greater impact on nursing management.

High-Technology Breeds Efficiency

Hospitals and healthcare providers are endlessly working to maintain the highest possible technologically sophisticated facilities in the modern world. However, in order to ensure that these technologies are utilized appropriately, the healthcare workforce must be up-to-date and in touch with these new innovations. Nurses are often the first line of defense that a hospital provides patients. Due to the demand this creates, nurses often struggle with efficient scheduling and effective workplace practice. Nursing practice must transform itself to keep up with the current times.

NurseGrid Streamlines Communication

New and emerging cutting-edge technologies continue to embed themselves into the healthcare industry. An app created by a nurse looks to maximize workplace efficiency throughout the entire nursing workforce. NurseGrid works by effectively streamlining communication between nurses, managers, and doctors, and addressing the demand for greater efficiency inside staffing and scheduling.

Since 2013, NurseGrid has been implemented throughout hospitals all across the United States. It serves as an integral communication tool for nurses to quickly contact other nurses and managers through the use of their smartphones. In addition, NurseGrid supports a calendar function to improve the overall shifting and scheduling process for an individual hospital’s entire nursing workforce. Since NurseGrid hit the market, notable improvements in nursing workforce satisfaction have been experienced throughout hospitals that have implemented the app into their daily workplace functions.

NurseGrid Improves Patient Satisfaction

Benefits from a simple app implementation like NurseGrid help to construct a strong line of communication between nurses and nursing managers in a hospital setting. This effective line of communication can greatly increase productivity among workers and consequently improve nurse to patient relations. In addition, the shifting and scheduling functions that NurseGrid provides will only result in a positive impact on the patient experience ensuring patients receive adequate care throughout their stay in the hospital.

Because the nursing industry has such a high turnover rate, any strategy that could possibly reverse feelings of dissatisfaction across a nursing workforce should be put into action. Other various healthcare workforce management solutions could be used in conjunction with emerging technology like NurseGrid to maximize workplace satisfaction and production in the healthcare industry.

NurseGrid Saves Hospitals Money

Not only will NurseGrid help to improve employee satisfaction inside an individual hospital’s workforce, it will also save the hospital tens of thousands of dollars in turnover expenses per nurse. Raising the bar on workforce efficiency and nursing workforce satisfaction should remain a top priority to ensure nurses are taken care of adequately. Any type of solution that offers relief and improves employee satisfaction for workers in a high-stress environment will have a tremendous impact on a workforce like nursing.

Click here for 5 other things your contingent healthcare providers care about in 2018.

How Employee Engagement Impacts Your Healthcare Workforce Efficiency

In the year 2018, employee engagement is absolutely essential to the fundamental operations and efficiency of any size or specialty healthcare organization. Employee retention is imperative to maintaining a knowledgeable, trained, and experienced workforce throughout all business relations and patient interactions. To achieve this, it is absolutely critical that employers continue to find new and innovative ways to engage their full-time and contingent workforce employees from the bottom all the way to the very top.

Not only is creating an employee engagement strategy necessary for every business and corporation across a wide range of industries, it is even more impactful for industries with high turnover rates, such as the healthcare industry. Implementing an effective strategy coupled with designing a clear contingent workforce program is the secret sauce to successful healthcare management. Healthcare administrative teams work tirelessly to ensure their healthcare providers remain engaged in their jobs in order to develop and retain an efficient and skilled workforce.

Benefits of Effective Employee Engagement

Employee engagement occurs when employees feel dedicated, committed, interested in, and fascinated by their work. When employees are engaged and inspired by the work they do, they have a more enjoyable work experience and tend to perform at a higher level.

The benefits a healthcare management team could expect to experience from a higher rate of employee engagement are less provider turnover and attracting higher-quality talent to the company. With an established workforce who feels appreciated and therefore stays actively engaged, your organization is more likely to yield positive workplace environment reviews and a reputation for excellence.

How Do Companies Foster Employee Engagement?

Healthcare organizations are coming to realize that the key to employee engagement is to improve the overall daily experience of the average employee. This can consist of anything from maintaining a positive workplace culture, offering professional development workshops, to enhancing your employee incentive and reward program, even the integration of up to date and cutting-edge technologies. Simple and easy actions like the aforementioned can be taken by companies to improve and build a more effective employee engagement strategy.

A recent article by Forbes looked at six different employee engagement strategies that employers use to help keep their employees engaged and active in workplace functions. Among these methods were:

Eliminate Workplace Tension
Find Your Worker’s Most Positive Attributes And Capabilities
Empower Your Employees To Innovate And Discover
Give Your Employees A Chance To Show Leadership Abilities
Share Your Successes With Your Employees
Provide Consistent Leadership And Support For Your Employees

While these six methods are excellent ways to approach employee engagement, your overall employee engagement rate will improve more meaningfully if used in conjunction with basic improvements to fundamental aspects of their daily workplace interactions and functions. Your employees will arrive at work feeling energized and not only ready to perform their duties but more anxious to engage and grow within their workforce capacity. Try implementing a few of these ideas and observe the results.

Employee Engagement and Your Bottom Line

Several studies have shown that an engaged workforce contributes greatly to the bottom line of a business or corporation. Some of these studies go as far to say that an engaged workforce literally drives the bottom line of a business or corporation. While the results of these studies are merely just food for thought because all businesses are different, they should provide enough motivation for employers across all industries to begin to implement methods to build upon in order to maintain engaged full-time and contingent workforces. If not for the purpose of driving the bottom line, at least for the purpose of improving the daily lives of the employees who show up to work every day and perform their duties.

To find out if your organization has the most effective and engaging contingent workforce strategy in place, request a consultation today.

In-House MSP / VMS Roadmap

Vendor Management Systems and a roadmap that will keep your MSP/VMS in-house – driving effective results – quickly. This issue is jam-packed with the latest trendsetting news, from our industry. I’ll show you how to take your business to the next level.

If any theme has emerged from recent news, it’s simply this; hospitals will face a vast array of challenges in 2018.Taking charge of your contingent staffing is one way you can meet those challenges head-on. A solid strategy, combined with innovative in-cloud technology platforms, and a tool that helps you analyze cloud-based data, I can show you how to find the data that matters. Taking your VMS in-house lets you bypass the most common VMS headaches, granting your healthcare facility substantial savings – up to 6%.

Are you convinced yet that taking control of your contingent staffing is the only way forward? Adaptive Workforce Solutions’ new approach to Managed Vendor Services puts you, the client, in total control. Our innovative approach to your MSP includes in-sourcing models, program management, RFP consulting, a myriad array of vendor management technologies. Our hybrid solution will teach you how to create an innovative MSP environment minus the costly third-party solution.

You could spend hours tracking down the differences between VMS choices, or you could just give me a call at 480-467-4443. I can help you narrow down your organization’s most critical needs, offering a solution that’s right for your facility, (hint: taking your VMS in-house lets you bypass the most common VMS headaches).