Rural organizations’ strategies effective in addressing staffing woes
Leadership, planning and technology are beginning to make an impact to make clinicians’ lives easier and meaningful.
Staffing has been an ongoing, overarching concern for healthcare organizations for years, as demographics, burnout rates and work pressures have caused clinicians to move on to greener pastures.
The COVID-19pandemic poured gasoline on those transition embers. Without even mentioning the precious lives of clinicians that were lost as they gave the last full measure of devotion to serving others, the pandemic exacerbated the forces that cause turnover.
Some data indicate staffing concerns have stabilized, but there are still dire statistics aplenty that paint a grim picture for healthcare staffing. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 190,000 registered nurse openings are expected annually through 2033. Meanwhile, the Association of American Medical Colleges projects a deficit of nearly 90,000 physicians by 2036, recent reports indicate.
Even so, some evidence exists that turnover is slowing down. As noted in Wednesday’s newsletter, a recent report from Lotis Blue and SullivanCotter indicates that staff churn is abating, indicating that healthcare organizations are improving efforts to find, retain and optimize staff.
The prognosis for rural facilities
But is all the happy news extensible to rural facilities? These organizations are even more challenged in attracting and keeping clinicians, even as they face far more logistical and financial pressure that’s threatening their existence.
Importantly, there are some positive signs indicating that rural organizations have been able to adapt and be nimble. Credit for this information goes to the American Hospital Association and reporting by Jennifer Parello, the director of content for the AHA’s Center for Health Innovation.
Her article gathered information from a presentation from the AHA’s Rural Health Care Leadership Conference in February. That session highlighted how five rural healthcare organizations are being proactive in developing and using customized workforce strategies that are already delivering results.
During the session, presenters discussed approaches that addressed issues beyond recruitment incentives “to address the full workforce lifecycle – from early exposure and training redesign to culture-building and leadership development.”
Here are some highlights from presenters:
In her article, Parello concludes that “Rural workforce challenges are solvable when organizations are willing to innovate across the full continuum — from early exposure and training to culture, care models and leadership.”
Technology can pitch in, too
There’s growing hope that technology can provide assistance – both by reducing heavy workloads as well as serving as an attractive recruitment tool.
Previously, Health Data Management wrote about 99-bed CGH Medical Center in Sterling, Ill., a community hospital that serves an area with 105,000 people and operates more than a dozen outlying clinics. Late last year, it flipped the switch on its own Epic healthcare information system, demonstrating that records systems from the Verona, Wis.-based company may now be appropriate for installation in smaller healthcare organizations, which also may be able to effectively use AI use cases to achieve significant efficiencies.
That might come into play increasingly, as artificial intelligence will play an increasingly important role in assisting clinicians in documenting patient visits.
This past week, for example, Epic released AI Charting, a feature within its information system that listens to clinician-patient dialogues and drafts notes for the clinicians, as well as enables other simple but administrative functions.
As such capabilities are incorporated into Epic and other information systems, rural healthcare organizations may be able to take advantage of them, providing active support for clinicians. Technology won’t solve all factors impacting rural healthcare, but it can provide crucial assistance to lessen the burden clinicians are bearing.
Fred Bazzoli is the Editor in Chief of Health Data Management.