How the Right Technology can Simplify a Healthcare Worker’s Life

The following is a guest article by Marcus Mossberger, Future of Work Strategist at Infor.

If the wrong technology can make a healthcare worker’s life miserable, the right technology can do the opposite. Find out how the right technology can improve retention during the “Great Resignation.” 

Virtually every study on healthcare worker burnout and turnover cites technology as one of the leading culprits. For example, KLAS Research released a report on clinician turnover that found that nurses are more likely than other clinicians to leave their jobs, heavily influenced by their struggles with electronic health record (EHR) systems.

Frustration with disconnected processes and workflows is just one of many reasons healthcare workers are quitting their jobs as part of the “Great Resignation.” Today’s workers are willing to sacrifice salary and benefits for jobs that offer more flexibility, more professional growth, more fulfillment, and more appreciation for what they do.

Interestingly, the common solution to counter all these new non-technology reasons for leaving is technology. The hospital and health system C-suite must adopt new, strategic approaches to technology—embracing an effective, objective, and sustainable workplace well-being technology platform. 

Burned Out and Leaving Fast

Let’s start with why healthcare workers—clinical and nonclinical—are burned out. As mentioned, ongoing struggles with their EHR systems are a huge factor. But they’re also suffering from cognitive overload. Whether delivering care or submitting a claim for payment, virtually every task at a hospital or health system is getting more complex, complicated, and time-consuming.

That mental fatigue triggers frustration. All healthcare workers, but especially nurses and other clinicians, are frustrated because they can’t give the optimum level of attention and care to each task or patient. People go into healthcare to deliver the best possible care and services to patients—and their own operational and support systems are getting in the way.

Healthcare workers also feel a lack of control, whether over their work in patient care or administrative tasks or over work hours. Healthcare employers, not the employees, decide when, where, and how long staff work.

According to the KLAS report, the top five reasons, in ranked order, contributing to burnout, cited by clinicians likely to leave their positions, were:

  1. Chaotic work environment 
  2. Too much time spent on bureaucratic tasks 
  3. Lack of effective teamwork in my organization 
  4. No personal control over workload 
  5. Lack of shared value with organization leadership

It’s no wonder, then, that healthcare workers are quitting in droves to work for other healthcare organizations that give them what they want.

Technology Done Wrong 

Today’s healthcare workers put up with poor user experiences on their current technologies. They’re frustrated by unconnected, disparate IT systems that force them to interrupt their workflows to log in and out of a system before they can continue their work. If their current systems do have self-service functions at all, those functions typically are limited or difficult to use. Their systems have no or poor scheduling tools. Furthermore, their systems are plagued by poor navigation, bottlenecking essential data access. 

As a result, hospitals and health systems that refuse to address this user experience will suffer increasing staff shortages, absenteeism, lower productivity, lower profit margins, and, in many cases, adverse clinical outcomes. Giving staff more point-solution technology to use without seeing the bigger picture will only make matters worse. 

Technology Done Right 

The right technology, which is the manifestation of contemporary thinking by hospitals and health systems, does three things on a single, cloud-based platform. It advises. It augments. And it automates. The functionality and capabilities of each attribute are as follows:

Advises 

  • Alerts staff to remote work opportunities  
  • Gives staff access and control via flexible scheduling tools 
  • Helps staff make better decisions faster 
  • Notifies staff of internal work and career opportunities

Augments

  • Generates actionable, accurate data in real time 
  • Is transparent to build credibility and trust with staff 
  • Makes it easy for staff to make the right decisions 
  • Speeds use with intuitive navigation and appropriate prompts

Automates

  • Automates rote, repetitive tasks that require little or no human thinking 
  • Improves workflow by eliminating friction between disparate IT systems 
  • Pre-populates with historic and verified data to reduce rework 
  • Seamlessly runs disparate IT systems on a single platform

The right technology addresses each of the top five reasons for staff burnout identified in the KLAS report. Hospitals and health systems that adopt the right technology, as described above, will enjoy benefits such as enabling workers to practice at the top of their license, renewing workers’ sense of purpose, improving clinical outcomes, and more.

The Role of the Right Technology

While it’s true that the wrong technology or technology used the wrong way can exacerbate the Great Resignation in healthcare, the right technology or technology used the right way can have the opposite effect.

For example, intuitive, self-service scheduling technology can go a long way toward giving employees the flexibility in work hours they need when a permanent or temporary lifestyle change demands it. Technologies that eliminate friction in work processes and workflows can reduce the frustrations that lead to burnout. Technologies that simplify or eliminate repetitive tasks can empower clinical and non-clinical staff to practice at the top of their license or perform higher-level and more gratifying responsibilities. Technologies that help people do their jobs better can improve both job performance and job satisfaction. 

The effects of the Great Resignation are here to stay. It’s a volatile hallmark of the new healthcare economy. Whether a hospital or health system succumbs to it or overcomes it will depend on how well and how fast you adopt new solutions that address the new reasons people are leaving healthcare organizations.

   

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