Consider entering a hospital and being greeted by many restrictions and protocols. Your heart sinks as you think about how you could get the help you need. Staffing issues in healthcare can have a direct impact on patient care. These concerns are growing as the healthcare industry continues to face challenges related to COVID-19 and an aging population.
This blog will offer valuable insights to help you address your goals. For example, allowing healthcare services with credentialing can improve staff shortages and boost organizational performance.
Azulity’s provider credentialing services can help you achieve your objectives by streamlining the onboarding process for healthcare staff. Our solution not only shortens the time it takes to hire qualified professionals, but it also helps improve the quality of care by ensuring that only the most competent and qualified individuals are providing services to patients.
Effects of Staff Shortage in Healthcare
Increased Risk of Violence and Aggression: Understanding the Risks
Understaffing in healthcare can contribute to an increased risk of violence and aggression in clinical settings. A lack of therapeutic interventions due to understaffing can lead to heightened incidents of violence and aggression on wards. Chronic shortages hinder staff’s ability to respond effectively, sometimes resulting in untrained personnel assuming responsibilities beyond their qualifications, thereby elevating the risk of developing closed cultures.
Diminished Access to Therapeutic Care: What Are the Consequences?
Staffing shortages in healthcare can reduce patients’ access to therapeutic care. Staffing deficits have reduced patient involvement in care decisions, led to fewer ward activities, and canceled patient leave, all essential for effective treatment and recovery.
Compromised Patient Safety: What’s the Impact?
Understaffing can compromise patient safety in various ways. For instance, it can lead to missed observation checks and inadequate incident responses, directly jeopardizing patient safety. Patients have reported that observation checks were regularly missed due to staff being too busy.
Additionally, reports from other healthcare settings underscore similar concerns. For example, an audit of Maryland’s correctional facilities revealed that understaffing contributed to missed suicide risk evaluations and insufficient mental health exams, compromising inmate care.
Reasons Behind Staffing Issues in Healthcare
High Staff Turnover Creates a Recruitment Crisis in Healthcare
Staff turnover is a significant cause of healthcare staffing shortages. Eighty percent of healthcare providers report turnover between 11% and 40%, and nearly one in ten say turnover is between 41% and 60%. The causes of staffing shortages were evident before COVID-19. A rapidly aging baby boomer population and limited availability of training in areas such as nursing led to predictions that looming staff shortages were on the horizon.
The pandemic exacerbated the situation, leading to a mass exodus of workers and the Great Resignation. Some reports show healthcare lost 20% of its workforce, including 30% of nurses. Today, the average hospital turns over one-quarter of its staff annually, an increase of more than 6% from the prior year. As a result, the State of Patient Access 2023 reported that nearly 50% of providers say access to care is worsening.
Healthcare Providers Face a Staffing Recruitment Crisis
Finding and hiring staff is an undue burden for healthcare providers. Seventy-three percent of respondents said finding qualified staff is difficult. Sixty-one percent reported that meeting entry-level staff’s salary expectations is a challenge. Healthcare organizations feel the staffing crisis at every level.
A recent Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) poll cited the difficulties in hiring revenue cycle staff: 34% of respondents stated hiring medical coders is their biggest challenge. Twenty-six percent stated that billers were difficult to find. One-third said finding schedulers and prior authorization staff is hard. Other hiring challenges included revenue cycle management (RCM) managers.
When and if healthcare providers find staff, bringing them into the fold is costly. Experian Health’s staffing survey showed most organizations struggle to meet the salary expectations of even the least experienced members of their teams.
Burnout Rates Are Alarming Among Healthcare Workers
Burnout is a top contributor to staffing shortages. Fifty-three percent of poll respondents said staff burnout is a key cause of the current staff shortage. Forty-eight percent said the new expectation for schedule flexibility and hybrid work models also contributes to the healthcare workforce shortage. Burnout is one of the most significant causes of staff shortages, impeding high-quality care and wreaking havoc on the revenue cycle.
The latest data shows the percentages of clinical and administrative burnout in healthcare is approaching or exceeding 50% in most job categories: 56% of nurses report burnout symptoms. Fifty-four percent of clinical staff. Forty-seven percent of doctors. Forty-six percent of non-clinical staff. Cost-cutting and increasing care demands have led to increasing fatigue in healthcare staff. However, technology exists to automate back office functions, which could free up staff time.
For example, organizations like Kootenai Health saved nearly 60 hours of staff time in over 8 weeks by automating the presumptive charity process, Patient Financial Clearance. Stanford Health used Collections Optimization Manager to cut 672 monthly hours from overburdened back office staff. The COVID pandemic also changed expectations about how and where Americans should work. Remote work became normal; three years post-COVID, 58% of the American workforce reports working remotely at least one day a week.
The same data also shows that when workers have the chance to work virtually, 87% take it. Healthcare is not immune to the desire for more schedule flexibility. Becker’s Hospital Review states, “Many workers desire the ability to work remotely, even if they only get the option a few days a week. Flexibility allows people to maintain work-life balance—and in a high-burnout field like healthcare, balance can be crucial.” Surveys show that 31% of healthcare roles are remote full-time, while 14% offer this flexibility in part-time. The problem is that many healthcare positions cannot allow this flexibility, and the industry competes with others that do.
Azulity specializes in healthcare master data management and provider credentialing services, bringing proven expertise in implementing healthcare data solutions and credentialing across the U.S. Our comprehensive platform ensures consistent synchronization of patient, provider, location, and claims data across all systems and departments.
Key features include: healthcare MDM, provider MDM, reference data management, credentialing, and provider enrollment. We serve healthcare technology leaders – from CIOs and CDOs to VPs of data platforms and credentialing – helping them eliminate the costly problems of fragmented data systems. Book a call to learn more about our healthcare master data management services today!
Related Reading
- Resource Allocation in Healthcare
- Healthcare Workforce Shortage Solutions
- How to Recruit Healthcare Professionals
How to Address Staffing Issues in Healthcare in 11 Ways
1. Leverage Technology Solutions like Azulity
Azulity specializes in healthcare master data management and provider credentialing services. The company brings proven expertise in implementing healthcare data solutions and credentialing across the US. Their comprehensive platform ensures consistent patient, provider, location, and claims data synchronization across all systems and departments.
Key features include: healthcare MDM, provider MDM, reference data management, credentialing, and provider enrollment. Azulity serves healthcare technology leaders – from CIOs and CDOs to VPs of data platforms and credentialing – helping them eliminate the costly problems of fragmented data systems.
2. Boost Employee Satisfaction
Healthcare work can be mentally and physically taxing. Caring for sick individuals is stressful, especially during and in the aftermath of a global pandemic. To help address this issue, prioritize employee satisfaction. Give your employees the resources to succeed by listening to their concerns and responding attentively. Remind employees to take time off for self-care and offer flexible scheduling.
As a company, try offering open forums where employees can address their concerns and feel heard when they need assistance. By giving your employees the consideration and attention they need, you can work to avoid widespread burnout and potential staffing shortages. Remember to encourage healthcare workers to care for themselves and create healthy boundaries. Setting a positive tone in the workplace is an excellent step toward addressing staffing issues in healthcare.
3. Cross-Train Employees
Encourage cross-training among your staff to develop a versatile workforce. You can mitigate the impact of absences or shortages by training employees to handle different roles. Ensure employees receive comprehensive training and ongoing support to guarantee their readiness to step into other positions when necessary.
4. Continuously Review and Improve Workflows
Regularly assess your operational processes to identify inefficiencies and bottlenecks. Analyze administrative tasks and determine where automation or streamlining can be applied. Standardize procedures and eliminate unnecessary steps to optimize workflows. By optimizing workflows, you can maximize productivity and reduce stress on your staff. Here are two websites you can explore and implement strategies for continuously reviewing and improving workflows.
Trello is a web-based project management tool that streamlines workflows and enhances collaboration. With Trello, you can create boards, lists, and cards to map out your processes visually. It allows you to assign tasks, set deadlines, and track progress, making it easier to identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies in your workflows. Using Trello, you can continuously review and improve your operational processes, enhancing productivity and reducing stress on your staff.
The Lean Six Sigma Institute offers a comprehensive approach to process improvement. Their website provides resources, training, and tools to implement Lean and Six Sigma methodologies, which focus on eliminating waste, improving efficiency, and standardizing procedures. By adopting Lean Six Sigma principles, medical practices can identify and address workflow inefficiencies, optimize processes, and enhance productivity.
5. Hire the Right People
The hiring process is instrumental in setting employees up for success. Now is the time to examine your hiring and HR processes and look for gaps or weaknesses. Even if employees have the right qualifications, this doesn’t mean they’re suited for all open positions. Be upfront about job expectations from the beginning of the hiring process.
Make sure to outline daily processes, such as scheduling, routine duties, and the working environment. Consider giving potential employees a chance to visit your site to understand better how your healthcare system works. If you don’t recruit and hire properly, you may face high turnover rates and staffing shortages that can create instability in the workplace.
6. Utilize Temporary Staffing Solutions
Temporary staffing can be an effective short-term solution to manage staffing shortages. By leveraging the services of temporary staffing agencies, you can gain access to a pool of qualified temporary staff to cover gaps in your workforce.
Consider the following steps.
- Partner with a Reliable Staffing Agency.
- Choose a reputable staffing agency that specializes in the medical field.
- Work closely with the agency to communicate your specific needs, preferences, and requirements.
- Collaborate to establish clear expectations regarding the roles and responsibilities of temporary staff members.
- Maintain Open Communication.
- Regularly communicate with the staffing agency to provide feedback on the performance of temporary staff.
- Provide clear instructions and guidelines to ensure smooth integration within your medical practice.
- Open communication is vital to ensure that temporary staff can quickly adapt to your practice’s unique requirements.
- Assess the Potential for Permanent Hires.
- While utilizing temporary staff, be open to identifying potential long-term employees.
- Observe their performance, work ethic, and cultural fit within your practice.
- You can fill staffing gaps by considering temporary staff for permanent positions while building a skilled and committed team.
7. Upgrade Training Processes
When organizations are understaffed, the need to quickly hire emerges. However, hiring workers too fast can overwhelm existing employees who help train new hires. Examine your current training processes to look for gaps and weaknesses that may not prepare workers appropriately. If your training processes don’t fully address the needs of new workers, they may be discouraged from the start.
Talk to other employees about where training can improve, and mindfully incorporate their feedback where possible. Take input from your HR department to check for recurring issues or concerns from your latest hires. Training sets the tone for how your workplace operates. By ensuring this process is comprehensive and smooth, you can work to address and combat staffing issues in healthcare.
8. Introduce Telemedicine Services
Telemedicine allows healthcare professionals to remotely provide consultations, follow-ups, and triage services. By implementing telemedicine, you can reduce the need for in-person visits and optimize the use of available staff. Explore various telemedicine platforms and choose one that best suits the needs of your medical practice and patients.
9. Implement Patient Self-Service Tools
Allow patients to take an active role in managing their healthcare by implementing patient portals and self-service tools. These tools enable patients to schedule appointments, access medical records, and complete necessary paperwork online. By providing self-service options, you can reduce the administrative burden on staff, freeing up their time for more critical tasks.
10. Embrace Electronic Health Records (EHR) Systems
Implementing an EHR system improves the accuracy, accessibility, and efficiency of medical records. By digitizing patient information, you eliminate the need for extensive paperwork and streamline administrative processes. Ensure your staff receives proper training to utilize the EHR system effectively and maximize its benefits.
11. Foster Community Partnerships
Collaborating with local educational institutions and community organizations can provide access to a talent pipeline and additional resources during staffing shortages.
Consider the following approaches:
- Establish Internship Programs.
- Forge partnerships with local medical schools, colleges, and vocational institutions to create internship programs.
- Interns can assist with non-clinical tasks under supervision, gaining valuable experience while contributing to the smooth operation of your practice.
This partnership provides an opportunity to assess potential long-term hires while supporting the development of future healthcare professionals. Engage with Volunteer Networks. Connect with local volunteer networks, such as community organizations or retired professionals, to recruit individuals who can assist with administrative tasks and support during peak periods or staff absences. Volunteers can contribute their time and expertise, alleviating the strain on your existing staff and ensuring uninterrupted patient care.
Related Reading
- Employee Retention in Healthcare
- Recruitment Challenges in Healthcare Industry
- Healthcare Data Analyst Requirements
Healthcare Staffing Shortage Statistics
Healthcare Workforce Crisis: The Overall Shortage of Critical Employees
By 2028, the healthcare sector will experience a shortage of approximately 100,000 critical workers.
Help Wanted: Nursing Assistants
A projected shortfall of over 73,000 nursing assistants by 2028 is anticipated, attributed to challenges in retaining positions that require lower education or certification levels.
The Registered Nurse Shortage: A Mixed Bag
While some projections suggest a slight surplus of registered nurses nationally by 2028, specific regions, particularly New York and other East Coast states, are expected to face shortages.
The Nurse Practitioner Supply and Demand Imbalance
Despite a projected 3.5% growth rate, a nationwide shortage of nurse practitioners by 2028, combined with physician deficits, could disrupt preventive care across various states.
Physician Staffing Concerns
A modest national surplus of about 28,000 physicians is projected by 2028. However, states like California, Texas, and New York may experience significant shortages, with deficits of approximately 2,580, 2,830, and 2,706 physicians, respectively.
Geriatricians: A Specialized Workforce in Need of Help
The U.S. currently has about 7,400 board-certified geriatricians, far below the estimated need of 30,000 by the end of the decade, which poses challenges for the care of the aging population.
Book a Call to Learn More About Our Provider Credentialing Services
Healthcare staffing issues have reached crisis levels. Healthcare organizations nationwide are looking for innovative ways to ease the burden on their workers and improve operations overall. One of the best solutions for resolving healthcare staffing issues lies in improving master data management to eliminate data silos, and reduce operational redundancies that create unnecessary workloads for healthcare staff.
Azulity specializes in healthcare master data management and provider credentialing services, bringing proven expertise in implementing healthcare data solutions and credentialing across the US. Our comprehensive platform ensures consistent patient, provider, location, and claims data synchronization across all systems and departments.
Key features include: healthcare MDM, provider MDM, reference data management, credentialing, and provider enrollment. We serve healthcare technology leaders – from CIOs and CDOs to VPs of data platforms and credentialing – helping them eliminate the costly problems of fragmented data systems. Book a call to learn more about our healthcare master data management services today!