I regularly speak to educators about challenges in the workplace and we often brainstorm about ways to overcome them. A frequently heard challenge is short staffing. Short staffing can be described as having fewer staff members than is usual or desirable. When you see it in print, it doesn’t seem so bad, but when you work in such an environment everyday, it can be exhausting and disheartening.
Short staffing may be brief due to maternity leave or an acute illness of a coworker. Or it can be long term, such as the departure of an employee with the inability or reluctance of management to fill an open position. A compounding issue is that many healthcare professionals come to work early and stay late, thus not giving a true measure of how much staff is really required to get the job done. These days, most hospitals and clinics are already running lean and mean due to budget constraints at the local, state or workplace level.
Here are three strategies to try when faced with short staffing:
1.) TEAMWORK
This means from the bottom up. Of course educators need to help each other out with workload, but this also includes staff talking to and working with management and human resources to discuss solutions.
2.) BRAINSTORMING, PRIORITIZING and RESTRUCTURING
In other words, decide what you need to do for your patients/clients versus what you would like to do.
Tasks like returning phone calls and reviewing food and blood glucose records are necessary, but eat away at precious time. At my previous position in outpatient diabetes education, we educated our gestational diabetes patients in a one-on-one setting. After our one-on-one sessions, patients would fax us food and blood glucose records and call us frequently with questions. There was not enough time or staff to review so many records and return calls while seeing other patients. So we set up a Gestational Diabetes Class once per week, with a follow up class one week later. Patients brought their questions as well as their food and blood glucose records to the follow-up class. This change accomplished many positive things! It saved us from scrambling to answer calls and faxes during the week, allowed the patients to develop a great support system with each other, and generated additional income for our facility (as we could charge for follow up class). Group classes are more cost effective because you can see three to eight patients in the same hour that you would normally see one patient. The time it took to plan and implement the class was well worth it and it ended up saving time and resources.
3.) UTILIZING ALL AVAILABLE RESOURCES
Most educators I know try to do it all. Think about using other resources, such as volunteers, interns, support staff and software to help you out.
If your workplace hires volunteers or interns, get one for your department. They can make reminder phone calls, help with class set up, answer phones, greet patients, copy insurance cards, etc. Support staff can schedule appointments and classes. Often educators may want to make all phone calls personally. If it is something that doesn’t require clinical assessment or judgment, let someone else do it.
Are any of you still charting with pen and paper? I was up until about one year ago.
Look into Diabetes Self Management software. There may not be funds in your budget for additional staff, but there may be money for this type of expenditure. This type of software is simple to use and makes charting and tracking outcomes quick and easy.
Working in a short-staffed environment may be a reality for many of you, but allocating some time to try the above strategies will enable you to utilize your resources more effectively. During these challenging times, remember to maintain a positive and professional attitude in front of your patients and staff. No one likes a cranky educator!
What are your strategies to make the best of an understaffed workplace?
Cathy