Four Steps to Stabilize Access to Care and Maximize Healthcare Capacity

Health systems should aim to be proactive and get ahead of the curve through their Health Workforce Deployment (WWD) methods. The following section discusses four target areas where health systems can focus to reduce unintended workforce utilization waste, to increase quality, and to sustain service delivery. These approaches support employees in their resiliency so that they can continue to provide excellence in care while feeling valued and safe.

Step 1: Operationalize balanced, long-range schedules

A first step is balancing the staffing baseline and ensuring it is widely communicated and understood. The baseline defines the required number of staff per shift per day for a given unit and occupation type, ensuring the optimized requirements for the delivery of patient care. Baselines should be a function of the intended model of care, and also be informed by numerous data points in order to take advantage of any cyclical or predictable spikes, or dips, in acuity, census. These factors drive the definition and acceptance of “smart and safe” staffing levels. This clarity and intelligence enables access and drive efficiency in flow.

Step 2: Improve the capacity of part-time, per diem & relief workforces

For groups of employees and units relief/PTO needs are often predictable and can be covered in advance at straight time. Leaders should recognize that having employees pre-scheduled and “standing by” can be less costly than trying to fill shifts at the last moment. Part-time employees and casual/per diem relief staff are often shuffled to fill gaps, and their utilization reflects a second-class status with limited or no predictability. When a workforce can move into regular positions from a world of unpredictable random contingency, those care providers can enjoy a stable set of shifts ultimately able to provide extra backfill capacity. This stability positively affects a healthcare organizations ability to confidently schedule patients into procedures.

Step 3: Engineering flexibility into your business processes

An employee’s schedule is the interface between work and home. Transparent, equitable business processes maintain the schedule and can ensure employees can leverage flexibility. With the right business processes in place, partnered with a high-quality, long-range schedule, an increase in flexibility is inevitable. It is important to ensure that employee requests (such as swaps or PTO requests) are answered as soon as possible and that those decisions follow expected timelines. A quick decision and explanation of the rationale when requests must be denied, returns agency to the employee, who can then confirm their plans or make alternate arrangements. When staff are consistently uncertain of hearing back and/or receiving approval, they may simply stop asking. As trust breaks down, employees may choose not to enter their availability or are ‘forced’ to call sick.

Step 4: Clean data, daily

For analytics and reporting to be meaningful, they must be based on accurate, real-time data. Substantial faith has been vested by healthcare in artificial intelligence (AI) solutions, and applications have delivered tremendous innovation.

However, the data, any predictive analytics or automation achieved, are only as good as the quality of the inputs and your ability operationalize real-time information. If leaders cannot trust the data they see, “workarounds” develop, and decisions are made based on inaccurate information, no better than a hunch. Having precise data enables an organization to: