Four Ways to Staff Smarter in Hospice and Home Health: A Discussion
Strategy for Staffing
Within the complex world of healthcare, the heart of every interaction is built from the relationship between patient and clinician. This is especially true in a meticulous environment like home health hospice. On a daily basis practitioners face growing challenges. How can we balance staffing necessities, take into consideration staffing costs, all while prioritizing patients—because who are we without our patients? Now more than ever it is essential to band together as a caregiver system. At CareXM, we strive to identify new approaches and strategies that meet patient needs and staffing demands both in sheer volume and in elevating the experience.
So what’s our strategy?
Let’s start with staffing. It is one of the biggest expenses for healthcare organizations. To find any way of reducing these costs can lead to a significant amount of savings, however; reducing costs usually leads to a limited amount of services or a lack in the quality of service expected. Healthcare organizations who value care at their core cannot sacrifice providing high-quality care for patients, as well as, first-class standards and training for their clinicians. Balancing both can be difficult without seasoned strategy.
To hopefully achieve this balanced goal, staffing smarter employs a range of strategies. First we need to include time to focus on optimizing staffing levels that are concentrated on improving workforce productivity. Before the change can happen, you have to assess the previous way you handled it. Innovation begins with investing, so spend some time understanding what didn’t work. This is also a great time to survey your staff. They are the ones on the ground day-to-day with patients so ask them where efficiency seems to be facing setbacks. Healthcare systems always work best when each part of the team comes together.
Following an in depth analysis where we’ve located the issues, it’s time to improve workforce productivity. Some of the top ways to enhance quality of care are: effective communication, prioritizing employee well-being, establishing a positive work culture, evaluating employee performance, and leveraging the right technology. All of these strategies should be done with both the practice, the provider and the patient in mind, and might take a little bit of extra work on either side sometimes.
An example of this would be if a practice hopes to create a more interactive work environment, this may involve the practice dividing time and resources to run events that will ultimately encourage their staff. By providing more flexibility and elevating the clinician experience, healthcare organizations can improve their job satisfaction, reduce burnout and turnover and ultimately improve patient outcomes. More strategies to elevate the clinician experience may include offering more flexible scheduling options, providing additional training and professional development opportunities and creating a positive and supportive work environment.
Ultimately, we cannot forget about leveraging technology and data analytics. The healthcare system is in need of transformation almost constantly due to the innovation of patient care sub-systems and new developments when it comes to tackling complicated diseases. The question is, how do we restructure it while maintaining care for providers and patients? Through digital, telephony, and information technology, it is possible to transform health systems to deliver high-quality patient centered-care—all while cutting the overall cost.
A key tactic is integrating compliance and remote patient operating services so that you can reach your patient through any device. Aim to remove any kind of wall between you and your patients. Medical answering services and on-call nursing are also another great way to eliminate staffing gaps, provide more flexibility in scheduling and work arrangements, as well as show how much you care for your patients. In order to implement this type of triage support, training on these technologies should be prioritized. A simpler way to put it would be—why have advanced technology if it’s not being employed correctly?
With most practices prioritizing staffing issues on interfaces, a level of transparency is required. An application of technology that compares organizational needs between departments and readily deploys available staff to more critical openings will significantly reduce cost alongside properly implementing a smarter resource allocation, leading to better patient outcomes. These strategies can help healthcare organizations better align staffing levels with patient demand, reduce unnecessary overtime and agency staffing costs and improve overall workforce efficiency and effectiveness.
In the end, staffing smarter is not just about numbers and data. It’s about people — the patients who rely on healthcare professionals for their well-being and the clinicians who devote their lives to caring for others. By putting the emotional needs of these individuals at the forefront of our staffing and management decisions, we can create a healthcare system that truly reflects the compassion and empathy that lies at the heart of healthcare itself.
The Top Four Smart Staffing Questions and Answers:
All of these questions were created through a collaborative experience that is promoted in the video below. As we’ve already discussed, now more than ever it is essential to band together as a caregiver system. So, we asked experts across multiple different fields of the healthcare system to give us their best solutions to some of the most widely considered setbacks dealing with staffing.
We’ve provided the questions and solutions below, so feel free to check out the video below for a more in depth discussion..
How can providers create flexibility to meet increasing patient demands?
- Establish elastic models with on-demand staff techniques in mind.
- Recognize current workflows as they relate to resources, and pinpoint complications.
- Have options for your Triage Strategy: What type of triage would serve your practice best?
- Basic Triage, Smart Hybrid, or In House Triage Center.
- Check out our detailed explanation of each Triage Strategy: here.
What have you found to help providers in reducing their operating costs?
Focus on lowering the cost per call at the interaction level by:
- Recognize, then record the call volume and the current cost-per-call.
- Specific call codes by department, that should be of easy access to all.
- Proactive prevention is a required, invested training process.
- Leads to first-call resolution (FCR) so there is no need for the customer to follow up!
How do you achieve peace of mind in staffing while scaling?
- Expand your practice view of hospice — challenge the status quo by considering all factors.
- Target patient experience.
- Target the clinician experience.
- Look for technology partners — not vendors.
- Look for communication patchworks — not a patchwork series of applications.
- Employee + Patient Satisfaction = Positive Outcomes.
- Employ data systems to fact-check intuition.
- Gather unscheduled calls and apply technology for prompt responses.
How do we utilize technology to expand the human side of care?
- Prioritize a fast connection of patient to provider.
- What does this look like for your practice? Staffing redirection? New triage strategy?
- Communication is key — providers and tech applications should discuss with each other to reduce picking it up twice.
- Patient care should be a collaborative approach in both our technologies and how they serve us in treating the patient.
Some Questions to Consider for Your Practice:
Take a moment to consider everything we have discussed so far. Not everything we talked about is a one size fits all solution, so we created few simple questions to help you determine what the priorities are for your practice.
What challenge would you rank as top priority to fix for your organization?
- Dealing with patient volume of calls.
- Call volatility.
- Reducing operational costs.
- Reducing clinician burnout and turnover.
What solutions are you currently using to address staffing concerns?
- Outsourcing to 3rd party.
- Multiple technology partners or applications.
- Investing time and money in recruiting and retention.
- All or None of the above.
Is your organization employing any of these ‘peace of mind’ practices at the forefront?
- Individualization of workflow processes and automation that creates cohesion.
- Uses a software that can customize in an organization’s quality and compliance programs.
- Delivers fluidity and continuity of care 24/7.
- All or None of the above.
Many providers have already invested in technology but find there is now too many layers. Is this an issue for your organization?
- Yes.
- No.
Your answers should determine what your focus adds up to. If you are interested in adding more assistance and management to your practice, consider CareXM as a trusted partner in your healthcare journey.
Check out the full thought panel hosted by Hospice News (www.hospicenews.com) where we shared varied strategies to staffing smarter!
Overall, staffing smarter is a comprehensive approach to healthcare staffing that aims to reduce costs, while improving the quality of care and the experience of clinicians. By adopting these strategies, healthcare organizations can achieve a more sustainable staffing model that supports both their financial and clinical goals.
Home Health Staffing Strategy With CareXM
From the moment you select CareXM, you gain the ultimate partner in experience management. With a single-minded focus on healthcare, CareXM is transforming the way care is delivered. CareXM is staffed with clinical nurses and non-clinical healthcare professionals who are trained and HIPAA-compliant to help your patients and support your team around the clock. Every interaction is seamlessly made possible by the most advanced virtual health technology.
Only CareXM offers a turnkey solution that automatically connects patients directly to a nurse who has the background information they need to help the patient. What’s more, CareXM provides the progressive, yet effortless virtual care tools your team needs to assist patients in the ever-changing world of healthcare. Contact us today to learn more.