TCP Software

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated many issues. Not the least of which is the critical shortage of health workers. According to a poll by Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation, three in ten health care workers have thought about leaving the profession, and six in ten said the pandemic “burned them out.” The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) estimates there will be a shortfall of up to 122,000 physicians by 2032. Meanwhile, Mercer research indicates a talent shortage for nursing assistants, lab technicians and nurse practitioners by 2025.

Whether it's due to physician burnout, nurse fatigue, or general job dissatisfaction, healthcare administrators are struggling to retain these healthcare workers while also reaching staffing levels to meet regulations, maximize operational efficiency and deliver the best care possible. Other industries may have the luxury of getting by with staffing shortages, but that’s not the case when it comes to doctors, nurses, aides and other critical care roles.

Healthcare administrators understand the consequences for being understaffed are grave – not only for employee engagement, but more importantly, for its impact on patient safety and care. Multiple requirements, regulations and other variables for healthcare staffing only add to the complexity of the situation. Faced with these issues, it becomes difficult for administrators to build the optimized schedules they need to run effective and efficient health systems.

Why is it hard to build optimized healthcare employee schedules?

To put it simply, scheduling for healthcare is complicated. A primary concern in the healthcare industry is having the right patient-to-caregiver ratio. But optimized schedules and effective staffing also requires ensuring each shift has the right mix of employees with required certifications and licenses to deliver quality care. Most healthcare organizations lack the technology to meet their complex scheduling needs. Whether they are using scheduling tools from the Dark Ages, like Excel, or technology that isn’t designed with the healthcare industry in mind, optimized healthcare employee schedules require more advanced scheduling technology.

Building a schedule that meets your organization’s needs is the first step. It starts with knowing who is available to work, how many caregivers are required for a shift, the shift hours and the job roles required for each shift. In addition to employee and shift data, building better schedules for your healthcare practice can mean leveraging historical data. Information like how many patients typically require care on any given day and past usage of on-call resources are essential to forecast healthcare scheduling needs. Unfortunately, many organizations aren’t taking this important data into account when they’re building schedules.

How to build better healthcare employee schedules by leveraging historical employee time and labor data

The answer to optimized staffing for healthcare can be uncovered through incorporating elements like ease of use, clear employee communication and the ability to leverage historical business drivers that inform the go-forward schedule into a single scheduling solution. Let’s start with making schedules easier to build. Healthcare administrators need their teams laser-focused on providing the best patient care, not distracted by cumbersome scheduling practices or inadequate shift schedules.

For example, schedulers can leverage technology to:

• Automatically fill schedules by matching the right person with the right shift

• Use rules based on your center’s needs and preferences to build smarter schedules, even manage peak and lull periods with flexible staffing rules
• Enable staff to check their schedule, trade shifts and update their availability
• Integrate staffing data into an automated scheduling process

Healthcare centers have employee time and labor data in their workforce management system or ERP system, but this isn’t enough to meet the needs of organizations seeking data-driven scheduling.

Without a solution that can analyze that data, their schedules likely remain a rinse-and-repeat of previous shifts. There may be tweaks here and there, but they could hardly be considered optimized. For example, with TCP Software’s Humanity Scheduling, administrators define rules for the system to apply during the schedule-building process. Based on the data you import, its Demand-Driven Scheduling system uses historical data to help youright size your staffing levels. It can also provide administrators with the ability to define rules based on the time of day, correlations between work locations and overtime issues, or other necessary considerations.

Ideally, any data or policy within your organization can potentially be used as a foundation to create schedules—from staffing limitations to doctor-patient ratios, to patient arrival patterns. By building schedules that are based on historical data—seasonal, daily and even hourly data—the obvious benefit is a balanced schedule that helps get the right people to the right place at the right time.

Leveraging historical employee time and labor data as well as shift requirement variables allows healthcare organizations to avoid understaffing and overstaffing errors which reduces labor costs, eliminates unnecessary overtime and helps drive better employee morale.

Not only do data-driven, optimized schedules benefit on-the-floor employees; automating parts of the scheduling process dramaticallyhelps the people creating the schedules. Optimized schedules may have taken hours or days to create in the past. But with the right scheduling tools, building and assigning shifts, even in complex environments, takes a fraction of the time. And even better, those schedules probably won’t require extensive changes.

How better healthcare scheduling practices can mitigate burnout, increase employee retention and decrease overtime

There are many reasons for turnover in healthcare organizations, including challenging caseloads, extended hours and changing health protocols. Each of these factors impact job satisfaction and have a negative toll on the overall employee experience.

Optimizing the scheduling process with better technology is one way to take a proactive approach in improving employee engagement at your facility. Better, more consistent schedules that incorporate actual historical data in a manageable and scalable way can help contribute to a positive work environment. With the right staff in place, compliance concerns are less likely to occur and patient care improves. Having appropriate staffing levels also empowers administrators to proactively prevent issues, and if issues arise, they’re equipped to implement necessary measures to resolve them.

More accurate schedules also decrease reliance on on-call staff which reduces the need for unexpected overtime. Excessive overtime not only impacts your labor budget, but also creates negative work conditions. It makes it harder for healthcare staff to achieve a healthy work-life balance. With more accurate schedules, you’ll have more satisfied employees which makes it easier to retain – and recruit – talent.

Scheduling to support healthcare employees and optimize success

Healthcare employees dedicate their days to helping others. To support these employees and retain them, it is essential to improve their work experience.

While there are many ways to engage healthcare employees, addressing scheduling issues should be a top priority. Solutions like TCP’s Humanity Scheduling will automatically incorporate rules and polices to reduce compliance risks. In healthcare facilities where patient demands fluctuate, historical data will help you identify trends to fine-tune your shifts for optimal staffing. And, when administrative schedulers have access to automated scheduling system, they can find a balance between understaffing and overstaffing to limit employee burnout and overtime.

Don’t leave healthcare employee retention to chance. The foundation of every employee's work experience is built on the hours they're at work. As part of your engagement approach, consider how healthcare benefits from data-driven scheduling to mitigate burnout increase retention decrease overtime. Implementing dynamic and data-driven shift scheduling is an essential step to improve job satisfaction for healthcare providers, create better patient outcomes and deliver a stronger bottom line.

Want to learn more about managing workforce challenges in healthcare? Check out TCP Software’s webinar series highlighting our technology-based solutions.

• Recognizing and Resolving the Challenges of Scheduling in Healthcare
• How Inadequate Time and Labor Tracking Has Long-Term Harmful Effects for Healthcare
• Why You May Not Be Getting the Most Out of Your Existing Workforce Technology