Madison Genthry 
Incorrect nurse staffing often leads to attrition, and this issue highly impacted the healthcare industry during the COVID-19 pandemic. The healthcare industry is finding solutions to hire nurses with less attrition.
The problem won’t be eradicated with a single step, as multiple approaches can only help to get the outcome. Check out several issues that hinder nurse staffing and also learn about the strategies used by a health staffing agency.
Nurse staffing issues
Turnover rates
Nurses don’t quit their job because of the complexity of caring for patients. Poor administrative support, an unhealthy work environment, and incorrect staffing can nudge the nurses to quit their jobs. Healthcare units endeavor to hire well-qualified nurses but ignore incentives that influence nurse retention rates.
Employee burnout
Several factors have a compounding effect on nurse turnover, from anxiety to burnout and PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). Moreover, it can also influence patient care and safety.
A survey found that the burnout rate for nurses is more than 70%, whereas doctors and practitioners have reached nearly 50% burnout rate. Many patients have also noticed the impact of burnout and reported lower satisfaction rates.
The higher dissatisfaction rates lead to emotional distance between clinicians and patients. Cynical and less empathetic attitudes from nurses make the patients unhappy.
Factors like underappreciation, lack of authority, job restrictions, workload, and employees’ feelings contribute to burnout. Nurses must adapt to handle stressful situations, but many healthcare workers look for different jobs due to challenging threats that deteriorate their emotional health.
Staff shortage
Most hospitals utilize the assistance of a health staffing agency as recruiting process in the healthcare industry is more complicated. It is also estimated that more than one million nursing jobs will be vacant by the end of the year.
As people belonging to the baby boomer generation are aging, the staffing requirement in the healthcare industry is considerably increasing. Moreover, the nurses from this generation are getting retired.
The successors of baby boomers look for job opportunities with benefits and career development. Healthcare providers endeavoring to hire members of Gen X should consider including attributes like training, development, advancement, and competitive packages for new hires.
Training and development
Lately, nurses desire to learn new skills while employed in a hospital, and this kind of employee engagement is crucial. Many nurses desire career advancement for nurse practitioners, nursing managers, and more.
Strategies to empower nurse staffing
Recruiters in the healthcare industry face the above-specified challenges. Continue reading more detail about the simple strategies to boost the recruitment process.
Evaluate the workload
When hiring staff, it is crucial to evaluate how they spend time in the healthcare unit beforehand. Making minor tweaks in the staffing model can reduce the workload, and HR professionals can re-evaluate the importance of a process or task if it seems unnecessary.
Evaluate the time spent on EHR documentation
Recent research emphasized the impact of EHR usability on nurse job satisfaction and patient outcomes. It would be helpful if healthcare units could streamline the documentation process and nurses could spend their time on other work.
Wrapping up
Nurse staffing is one of the most exhausting tasks in the medical field as the staffs have more responsibilities, and taking care of patients can be challenging throughout the day.
Hiring reliable staff is vital for rural clinics and big city hospitals too. Human resources in the healthcare industry find it challenging to deal with a staffing shortage, employee burnout, and more. You can hire a nurse staffing agency to overcome these hurdles.
