Picture this…
Your flight has over-sold. Now you will be sitting on top of the person next you. Your uncomfortable seat is now even more uncomfortable. Making travel plans far from ideal when all you want to do is just get home. This was a situation I experienced a few weeks ago while traveling home from Stat Staff in Albany, NY. I was dreading the flight. Luckily, Southwest has an open seating option so I was praying someone good would sit next to me.
A very friendly lady sat down next to me and we had the usual small talk… “Where are you from?”, “Where are you going?”, “What do you do?”… Turns out she is an Oncology Nurse Practitioner at NYU! About 5 minutes into the flight we both agreed that nurses are over-worked, which directly impacts patient care.
You have probably heard the saying, “If you want the job to get done right, give it to a nurse?” It doesn’t say, “If you want the job to get done wrong give it to an over-worked, exhausted, can’t think straight nurse.” No one wins from this situation – the hospital loses out with costly mistakes, the nurse and their family suffer, but most of all this ultimately hurts the patient.
What can we do to solve this problem?
Many hospital systems are afraid of relying heavily on outsourced labor, but there are alternatives to using many sub-contracting companies which can be a logistical nightmare for them. A hospital system could choose their best agency as a partner in a Managed Service environment together. Therefore, they are keeping their core standards intact while simultaneously keeping their nurses at appropriate levels. Believe it or not, it can be done successfully and in the end everyone wins.
If this sounds like something you would like to do, or if you have a client that you think this would be a good fit for, make sure to attend the Expert Discussion Roundtable Discussions at the Healthcare Staffing Summit. BlueSky will be hosting a roundtable session teaching Staffing Agencies the Six Easy Steps on becoming an MSP.
We look forward to seeing you there!
