Dr. Erkan Hassan

Monthly Writings

Evaluations and reviews of the latest in the field.

The Healthcare Talent Emergency

SUMMARY:

  • 46% of clinicians report high levels of burnout leading to attrition

  • 70% of patients are worried the healthcare shortage may affect their own health

  • The shortage is a complex problem with multiple underlying causes, which means there is not one simple answer

BACKGROUND

  • Staff shortages have been associated with increased rates of:

    • Infections

    • Patient safety events

    • Risk to quality care

    • Risk to self care

  •  The old approach to healthcare shortages of overtime and staff agency support have significant limitations and have outlived their usefulness.

  • The path forward is to transform the way we deliver care.

  • This reimagined care delivery process will be based on an ongoing investment by leadership in people and technology to change:

    • How clinicians work

    • What the team looks like

    • The way they work

REVIEW:     

REIMAGINING CARE DELIVERY:        

1.      Redesign the Work:

  • Eliminate workflow inefficiencies:

    • Technology to give back time to clinicians

      • Automate low value tasks

      • Administrative and insurance related tasks

    • EHR Optimization

      • Decrease number of “clicks”

      • EHR tasks consuming disproportionate amount of time

  • Virtual Care in Collaboration with Bedside

  • Identify tasks best done remotely vs only bedside can do

  • Senior remote clinicians aiding junior bedside clinicians at bedside (especially during evening hours)

  • Drive best practices

  • Early identification and intervention of patient deterioration

  • Redesign Work Teams

    • Move from patient ratios to an acuity based system of patient disease burden

    • Multidisciplinary care teams directing the Right Message to the Right Person

    • Job flexibility with:

      • Flexible shifts

      • Job Sharing

2. Invest in Your People:

  • We cannot automate our way out of this crisis

  • Leaders must recognize and accommodate cultural, generational, gender and life stage differences

  • Competitive total reward packages – monetary and non-monetary (gratitude days, well being resources)

  • Opportunities for Career Development and Mobility

  • Employee well being and self care

    • It’s Okay not to be Okay

 3.     Leadership Must Regain Trust

  •  Loss of trust in leadership shown to lead to higher rates of burnout

  • 2 types of trust:

    • To do the right thing for patients

    • To do the right thing for staff

  • Involve frontline clinicians in programs affective workflows

  • Share the design and implementation of programs


CONCLUSIONS:

  • Committing a long term investment to reinvent are delivery in a time of downward pressure on margins is incredibly hard.

  • To retain and attract a clinical workforce, healthcare systems have to rebuild and restor meaning, value and purpose into care delivery.

  • It is possible to attack the organizational and system factors contributing to burnout.

  • Redesigned improvement programs will improve population health, reduce burnout and optimize costs.

Erkan Hassan