Filling Staffing Shortages In Your Healthcare Facility

As healthcare providers, it is important to be proactive in detecting and covering staff shortages. A lack of staff can harm patient care, employee morale, and overall efficiency. By keeping an eye out for potential shortfalls, you can put a stop to potential issues before they become complaints.

But how can you detect that there is a staff shortage on time? In this article, an Arizona healthcare staffing company will explain tips to cover staff shortages and keep your healthcare facility productive.

What Causes The Nursing Shortage?

Several interconnected factors contribute to the country-wide shortage of qualified nurses. One crucial component is the aging of the baby boomer generation.

The demand for professional nurses is expected to grow as our country’s 73 million baby boomers age and involve more sustained or complex care. Furthermore, more than half of current physicians are over 50 years old, implying they will all retire within the next 10 to 15 years.

With rapid growth for senior care and many nursing staff retiring shortly, trying to recruit more nursing students to enter the field appears to be one potential solution. However, many nursing programs do not have the staffing or resources to recognize all qualified applicants.

More than 75,000 applicants were turned down in 2018 because of a lack of educators, classroom space, clinical sites, and supervisors. Fewer registered nurse technicians are entering the workforce as fewer students apply and complete nursing programs.

Increasing the nursing staff is not always easy, especially if you don’t have the right tools for it. Hence the importance of detecting staff shortages on time and hiring a Chandler healthcare staffing company.

Signs That Your Facility Is Understaffed

Are you unsure whether your facility is understaffed? Look for the following five indicators:

You’ve Noticed An Increase In Patient Care Errors

When your nurses have a large caseload and not enough time to devote to each patient, they are more likely to make mistakes in patient care. Medication and medical care errors can not only harm patient outcomes and result in legal ramifications but also higher mortality rates in your healthcare facility.

Patients Are Increasingly Complaining About Facility Conditions

Overworked nurses might find it challenging to promptly attend to each patient’s needs and might not even have the time to build rapport. Patients may complain that their call lights aren’t answered quickly enough, that the facility’s physical conditions aren’t clean or tidy, or that they don’t feel cared for by their staff. They may even try taking it upon themselves to carry out these tasks, which can increase the number of patients who falls.

Your Nurses Are Exhausted

Your nurses are starting to display burnout symptoms, whether or not they express it to you directly. They’re taking more sick days, or simply appear uninterested in their work.

You can hire a Gilbert healthcare staffing company to solve staff shortages, but you must detect the shortage first. Noticing if your nurses are exhausted is one of the best signs of it.

If there’s a high turnover rate in your facility, you may have a staff shortage. Keep in mind that higher turnover rates make it difficult to retain both new and seasoned employees.

Workplace Injuries Are Increasing

If your facility is understaffed, your current nurses will be forced to perform physically demanding tasks like patient lifts and transfers on their own. This increases the nurse’s risk of injury.

How To Fill Staffing Gaps In Healthcare

Examine Your Current Workforce & Ask Your Nursing Unit Manager To Distribute Shifts

A staffing gap can sometimes be resolved (or at least mitigated) by redistributing your team’s shifts. On busier days or units, your nursing unit manager may be capable of accommodating increased staffing.

The Committee on the Work Environment for Nurses and Patient Safety of the Institute of Medicine (US) summarizes considerations for staffing further than the federal and state prerequisites.

Check Your Nursing Unit’s Budgets

Carefully check your nursing unit budgets to determine how much funding you can use for staffing. You may be able to hire a Queen Creek healthcare staffing company to solve the staff shortage more quickly and efficiently.

You may also discover that you cover some room in the budget to hire more nurses or find ways to cut costs to accommodate new hires.

Determine Which Units Require The Most Assistance & Prioritize Open Positions Accordingly

In an ideal situation, you would be able to post open positions and quickly fill all of your staffing gaps with qualified applicants. However, that’s not possible with a national nursing shortage, so you should fill the most critical positions. Prioritize filling those open positions by which units require the most staffing. Once those are filled, you can add more positions.

Contact A Mesa Healthcare Staffing Company

This option is probably the most helpful to solve staff shortages. Hiring a staffing company can help you identify the real issues and find the best-qualified professionals for your facility.

At One Stop Recruiting, we take your staffing shortage seriously. If you want more help, feel free to contact us! We’ll be ready to help!