Healthcare administrators face a challenging balancing act. Patient numbers fluctuate. Staff call in sick. Certain illnesses increase the demand for care at predictable times of the year. One model of hiring sufficient full-time employees for direct care to handle all of those expected and unexpected issues won’t work, leaving everyone in healthcare administration scrambling to ensure they meet basic ratios for patient safety while controlling labor costs.
To make matters worse, the maths becomes complicated. Overstaffing people ready to provide direct care in the slow periods is an unaffordable drain on the resources of most healthcare facilities. However, being understaffed when the demand for care explodes leads to significant issues with patient quality of care and leaves existing personnel with the overwhelming task of caring for far too many patients. So, balancing staffing levels with healthcare demand means looking at a different model of staffing altogether.
Full-Time Hiring Models No Longer Work
When patient census numbers remained relatively static year-round, full-time hiring models made sense. Those good old days are gone, however. Emergency departments regularly see significant fluctuations in the number of patients that need care. Surgical centers often go through phases of high and low demand from patients, depending on the time of year, another factor. Long-term care facilities can also see such swings, and the occupancy rates of their patients can change weekly.
Healthcare administrators need to realize that providing benefits and guaranteed working hours for professionals not always needed is an unnecessary drain on healthcare facilities. However, the opposite is far more serious and troubling. When patients outnumber the professionals needed to care for them, questions of quality and safety emerge. Nurses feel overworked. Patients receive poor levels of care. Errors become increasingly likely to occur.
All healthcare administrators know the feeling of dread that accompanies three nurses calling in sick for the same night shift and no one else being available to step into the breach. Most understand what it’s like when unexpected demand for patient care, such as in flu season, leaves facilities creaking under pressure from a relatively small baseline of personnel. Neither situation should be a cause for a crisis, but all too often, they are.
Making Your Approach to Staffing More Flexible
The best administrators have learned to change how they think about staffing. Instead of hiring enough professionals to ensure steady care during peak demand, they hire a core team and augment it with a more flexible workforce that can be scaled according to demand.
Healthcare staffing agencies have become vital partners for healthcare administrators who want to modernize their approach to tackling flexible conditions in their facilities. They allow facilities to onboard professional staff who can step in to fill gaps left by sick employees, exceed the usual capacity of the facility to cope with the care of its patients, or who can provide the specific skills necessary without being hired on a full-time basis.
The benefits of flexible staffing models extend beyond being able to fill direct care positions at short notice. Flexible staffing models give healthcare administrators greater freedom to handle unexpected changes without having to find themselves constantly operating at an emergency level. When someone goes down sick, there is a plan. When demand increases unexpectedly, another plan is in place. The facility runs more smoothly because it can cope with unexpected changes.
The Cost Implications of Different Staff Hiring Models
Labor is one of the most significant costs facing healthcare facility administrators. However, making a mistake in either direction with staffing models can lead to costly expenditure. Overworking nurses by overloading them with too many shifts is never a good idea. It’s expensive and a sign that the facility is not appropriately staffed. However, maintaining too many permanent staff members during quiet periods is also wasteful of scarce resources.
Flexible staffing models offer better oversight and management of costs because using resources is dictated by demand rather than a baseline number of permanent employees. Flexible staffing models allow baseline staff to return when demand for patient care decreases, but the flexibility to withstand changes still exists because extra help can be called in when needed.
Comparing the costs associated with flexible staffing models can be tricky. Facilities can expect to pay a higher rate for temp employees than nurses and members of staff who regularly work at the facility. However, such comparisons rarely factor in what it costs to maintain those staffing levels. For instance, nurses on staff receive paid time off, which increases costs that should factor into such comparisons.
An updated approach to flexible staffing models means that, for roles that do not require long-term, uninterrupted coverage, flexible arrangements usually emerge as the more affordable model of operation.
Focusing on Quality and Consistency
Two major issues facing healthcare administrators who consider flexible staffing models for their facilities are patient quality of care and maintaining a cohesive team environment for those involved in providing that care. Both are undoubtedly valid concerns. However, there are ways of applying flexible staffing models that overcome that weakness.
Quality must come first. Healthcare administrators should never overlook the quality and credentials of temporary staff individuals sent by healthcare staffing agencies to fill gaps in the teams of staff who work at their facilities. Reputable healthcare staffing agencies have rigorous systems in place to ensure the quality of the staff they send to partner healthcare facilities. Even when an administrator approaches an agency for the first time, they should always be prepared to evaluate the systems it has in place.
Consistency is also key. Patients should not constantly be faced with new faces when they visit healthcare facilities to receive the care they need. The same principle applies to team cohesion. Frequent changes to team composition can lead to frustration for permanent team members who must continually help temporary employees find their footing.
Flexible staffing models do not need to be used indiscriminately so that team cohesion is sacrificed and that patients’ continuity of care is disturbed. Many successful healthcare administrators take the time to build good relationships with healthcare staffing agencies. They have established these relationships in such a manner that the temporary staff called in when gaps in coverage occur become familiar with the requirements of particular agencies.
Onboarding these temporary staff members does not have to lead to friction between permanent and flexible employees. Administrators should ensure that their existing onboarding processes are smooth and do not require improvement before being rolled out to new members of staff. For instance, mentors can still be established for temporary team members without creating difficulties; admin should streamline the process.
Anticipating Various Situations
Finding a model of flexible staffing that works for healthcare administrators includes anticipating scenarios before they unfold. Healthcare administrators know that seasonal peaks in care demands can be expected. They know when to expect situations like flu season will push the demand for healthcare services through the roof.
Healthcare administrators should have a baseline expectation of care levels provided by flexible plans at these times of year. They should also anticipate unexpected situations that may cause spikes in demand for those plans and have a reliable plan for bringing in extra support.
The best healthcare administrators recognize that flexibility does not only need to occur by adapting to the situation as it stands. The best healthcare admins also anticipate unexpected situations and learn to control them as best they can.
Solving healthcare facility workforce problems should not be one of the toughest issues facing healthcare administrators. Flexible workforces adjust according to individual facilities rather than trying to force old, outdated models onto problems that should be solved using new ideas. For everyone from healthcare admin at a facility to patients who walk through their doors seeking assistance with a medical problem, flexible workforce plans can improve everyone’s experience within these operational challenges altogether.
