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Learn MoreThis blog is taken from a recent HealthStream webinar entitled “Floating Employees During Flu Season – How to Let ShiftWizard Guide Your Scheduling Decisions.” The webinar was moderated by Sarah Enders, HealthStream’s Senior Product Marketing Manager and featured Gia Milo-Slagle, Senior Product Director and Richie Hernandez, Senior Solution Advisor.
The webinar addressed critical aspects of managing float pools during the annual scheduling nightmare known as flu season. The composition of the flu vaccine has been updated and vaccine manufacturers are currently estimating that they will be able to supply the U.S. with as many as 170 million doses of the vaccine, but the onset of flu season and the severity of the flu is unpredictable. This leaves healthcare leaders with a significant staffing challenge – a challenge made even more difficult due to the ongoing nursing shortage. So, what can leaders do to ensure safe coverage?
Milo-Slagle began by addressing some of the areas on which HealthStream customers have been focused as the nursing shortage continues to change how organizations build their staffing strategies. Leaders are looking for solutions that can be efficiently implemented enterprise-wide, allowing them to prepare for high and fluctuating patient demand, allowing credentialed staff to be floated effectively while still ensuring seamless care, and preserving nursing satisfaction. Creating a solution that can address each of these concerns is a tall order, and can best be addressed with the help of technology.
Accomplishing these objectives requires careful planning if healthcare leaders want to remain compliant with the American Nursing Association (ANA) and Joint Commission guidelines on floating. First, Milo-Slagle shared the ANA’s definition of floating. “The reassignment of staff from one nursing unit to another based upon the patient census and acuities.” When floating is possible, it does have the potential to save money, particularly over the more expensive options of agency and per diem staffing.
Both the ANA and the Joint Commission have guidelines that inform how healthcare organizations manage their floating practices. The ANA has the following guideline. “Registered Nurses must have the professional right to accept, reject, or object in writing to any assignment that puts patients or themselves at serious risk for harm.” The Joint Commission’s policy on floating is that “when an employee is asked to float to a different unit, that unit must be similar to his or her own and that the nurse must demonstrate competencies specific to that unit”.
Floating can certainly have an impact on patient care, and their perceptions of care, but it can also significantly impact nursing satisfaction. Milo-Slagle shared a pre-pandemic study conducted in 2019 by the Nursing and Health Sciences Research Journal. The study reported that 44% of nurses were unhappy working in acute care hospitals that required them to float. In order to build a better float pool process, they recommended the following strategies to improve nurse comfort with floating.
Float Pools can be inherently problematic. Milo-Slagle shared that access to float pool staff can be uneven across the organization in terms of knowing which staff are available and/or qualified to work in a particular unit. Manual processes can be disjointed, inefficient, and very labor-intensive. Traditional methods for floating staff make it very difficult to float staff across multiple campuses. In addition, float pools typically don’t mature along with organizational goals and initiatives, and fail to grow in ways that will support the organization as it changes and grows to meet patient and staff needs.
While there are many floating options in healthcare today, there is one option that is emerging as a better, technology-enabled solution for healthcare organizations – flex pools. Milo-Slagle shared that a float pool is defined as a pool of in-house staff that may be shared across departments. A flex pool is defined as an internal pool consisting of staff that specifically wish to flex across all departments and may be compensated for their ability to work in multiple areas. She pointed out that flex pools allow organizations to use trained, internal staff that have autonomy over their schedules, but that this solution requires a solid technological foundation to be effective.
Hernandez demonstrated how ShiftWizard can help streamline employee scheduling for healthcare leaders while empowering nurses to take control of their own schedules. He began with the user-friendly dashboard that helps managers quickly establish whether a unit is properly staffed, and reassign staff members as needed. Hernandez also shared that employees are able to use ShiftWizard (including a user-friendly mobile app) to let managers know when they are available for a shift.
Because ShiftWizard can be integrated with an organization’s electronic medical record (EMR), it can also be used as a predictive census tool to help realign staffing and scheduling to the data found in the EMR at 30, 60, 90 or even 120 days into the future. In addition, ShiftWizard provides productivity reporting to help leaders easily see units that are over or under-staffed. There is also a communication feature that allows leaders to quickly communicate with staff by text, voice mail or email when there is an open shift.
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View All Learning & PerformanceHealthStream offers performance learning management solutions to help develop your healthcare staff into leaders and reduce turnover.
View All ProductsHealthStream works with healthcare organizations to create engaging and high-quality training videos for your staff and management.
View All ProductsImprove care quality and save money by making informed decisions about your healthcare facility and staff with HealthStream's reporting analytics solution.
View All ProductsHealthStream's proven methods for the improvement and overall engagement of your healthcare staff foster a positive workplace and increase retention rates.
View All ProductsWhen you enact HealthStream's quality compliance solutions, you can do so with the confidence your healthcare organization will meet all standards of care.
View All Quality & ComplianceBe confident in your staff’s ability to reduce risk by providing compliance training that changes behavior.
View All ProductsDevelop next-level people for next-level care by prioritizing quality and safety improvements.
View All ProductsStandardize policy and procedure management with an automated, customized, and centralized system.
View All ProductsEstablish a culture of belonging with education supporting DEI, wellness, engagement, and leadership development.
View All ProductsHealthStream offers professional training and education on how to best optimize your reimbursement process within your healthcare organization.
View All ReimbursementStreamline the revenue cycle management process and protect your bottom line with expert-backed education.
View All ProductsExpand the decision-making skills and effectiveness of your healthcare workforce with HealthStream's clinical development programs and services.
View All Clinical DevelopmentLearn about our advanced resuscitation training solutions. Our solutions are designed to help improve patient outcomes.
View All ProductsUnlocking the full potential of clinicians goes beyond aspiration – it’s a commitment we embody. Our competency development solutions help personalize learning for every clinician so you can confidently bridge the gap between theory and practice for your nurse residents while meeting the unique development needs of your seasoned clinician.
View All ProductsEnhance maternal & child nursing care with solutions focused on improving the quality of care for mothers, infants, and children.
View All ProductsAddress staffing challenges, standardize orientation and onboarding, and deliver an effective training program for your team to easily achieve and maintain certification with our critical, emergency, and acute care solutions.
View All ProductsWe understand the critical importance of earning and maintaining your patients' trust in the delivery of exceptional sedation and surgical outcomes. As a premier provider of healthcare education, we are committed to empowering you in promoting safer, more successful outcomes for each and every patient, without exception.
View All ProductsOur solutions are meticulously designed to cater to the diverse needs of patients, healthcare professionals, and organizations. Within this innovative framework, we have curated specialized subsets of solutions aimed at addressing the ever-evolving challenges faced by individuals dealing with illnesses or chronic conditions.
View All ProductsMake sure your healthcare staff can schedule out appointments and work schedules with ease using HealthStream's line of software solutions.
View All SchedulingHealthcare workforce management is essential. We provide advanced scheduling solutions for organizations to solve issues such as nurse retention
View All ProductsComprehensive, industry-leading provider onboarding and credentialing software that validate health outcomes and support provider assessment.
View All CredentialingOur affordable CVO credentialing services establish patient safety by enabling primary source verification for your healthcare organization.
View All ProductsIntegrate with Epic to validate and add new providers directly to your provider master file.
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