Healthcare Staffing: Solutions For Your Facility

Chronic staffing shortages, exacerbated by the pandemic, have led facilities to look for creative healthcare staffing solutions.

At least 98 percent of CFOs (chief financial officers) are grappling with a critical staffing shortage. This crisis is affecting the following:

Quality of patient care
Operations of healthcare facilities
Well-being of medical clinicians, especially nurses

In this article, we discuss some solutions that will drastically improve the situation for facilities, their patients, and their healthcare staff.

The nursing shortage is directly affecting facilities and patients

Facilities are struggling to meet the growing demand for clinicians, especially nurses. The strain placed on healthcare workers creates stress for everyone, negatively affecting healthcare operations and potentially patient care.

A 2023 report commissioned by the PRN healthcare staffing platform Nursa surveyed 203 healthcare executives and found that more than half are deploying four or more strategies for nurse staffing. Your facility, as well as your patients and nurses, may benefit from following these strategies.

Is there really a nursing shortage?

Yes, there is a nurse staffing shortage. According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, we know the following:

The registered nurse (RN) workforce is expected to grow by six percent by the year 2033. This means an increase of 177,440 nurses nationwide, while the projected RN job openings due to retirements and turnover average 194,000 annually.
Projected growth for the advanced practice nursing workforce, including nurse practitioners, nurse anesthetists, and nurse midwives, is an explosive 40 percent over the next decade.

The projected growth of the nursing workforce is mainly due to the large number of baby boomers who have an increasing need for healthcare services.

What are some situations affecting the shortage?

Some factors that contribute to the persistent nursing shortage include:

A large number of qualified student applicants were turned away in 2023, largely attributed to a shortage of nursing school faculty.
According to the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) Nursing Workforce Dashboard,11 percent had already retired or planned to retire within 2 years, 9 percent planned to retire within three to five years, and an additional 18 percent were undecided about their retirement plans.
Nearly a quarter of Americans (23 percent of the population) will be over the age of 65 in the next decade, in urgent need of nursing care.
Nurses' dissatisfaction has only increased since the pandemic, amplifying the number of nurses leaving the profession.

Humans always find creativity in times of crisis. Although the nursing shortage is only increasing, creative solutions are emerging every day to better support facilities.

Staffing challenges? Here are five solutions that work

By adopting these solutions, healthcare systems can better navigate the ongoing nurse staffing crisis. Thus, your facility can reduce and prevent events that put patients' overall health at risk.

1. Nurse retention strategies

One of the best healthcare staffing solutions is to retain the nurses you already have.

How can facilities implement clinician engagement strategies to improve nurse retention?

Retention programs

Some incentives that help nurses feel committed to an institution are bonuses, mentorship programs for new nurses, and continuing education.

Facilities can also recognize the clinical excellence of their current nurses and offer flexible scheduling options to improve their satisfaction and meet their needs.

Staff wellness initiatives

Providing access to ongoing mental health support is also important. Facilities can offer emotional support resources such as counseling or support groups.

Burnout prevention

Many facilities have mandatory overtime policies in place. Reducing mandatory overtime or finding alternative contingent staffing instead, and allowing staff short breaks while on shift, can also prevent burnout.

Clinician engagement strategies

Many facilities have creative ideas to improve how clinicians perceive their work. Ideally, nurses should feel safe and listened to, as well as engaged in the work they do.

Consider implementing nursing shared governance and providing career advancement opportunities for nurses who work for the facility.

2. Reduce administrative workload

Nurses and facilities spend a lot of time on paperwork and administrative tasks. This can indeed increase burnout, but it also comes at a tremendous cost to facilities.

Facilities can automate some administrative processes and paperwork so that nurses can spend more time caring for their patients.

Some AI platforms or systems can decrease the administrative workload for facility management staff and nursing clinicians. For example:

Optimize electronic medical records for auto-completion.
Utilize a staffing platform that handles the responsibility of screening new clinicians and streamlining the contracting process.
Train clinicians to use technology solutions more efficiently within the facility.
Leverage AI-powered chatbots to improve routine appointment bookings or common queries.

3. Embrace flexible models

There is no doubt that traditional nurse staffing models worked for a long time.

However, technology-driven platforms and flexible scheduling are optimizing the hiring and talent placement process for facilities, meeting clinicians’ demands for control over scheduling, and streamlining the recruitment pipeline.

4. AI for staffing optimization

Automatic scheduling, matching nurses to where they are needed, and other advanced data science techniques can automate processes and increase facility efficiency.

Increasingly, artificial intelligence is taking over time-consuming processes, freeing clinicians to do more human work.

5. Adjust staffing to patient needs

Staffing has to dynamically adjust to the complexity required by patient census and acuity. Utilizing an on-demand staffing solution allows facilities to adjust their staffing levels precisely to avoid under or overstaffing.

Many facilities, for example, are applying PRN nursing solutions to achieve safe staffing ratios at all times in a cost-effective manner.

Solve healthcare staffing issues once and for all

Solving staffing problems is a complex task, but as you begin to deploy different strategies with intention, the nursing shortage will feel less overwhelming. Facilities should conduct a thorough analysis of how to implement different strategies.

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