Becker's Hospital Review

54 CMO / CARE DELIVERY patient care nursing assistants to mitigate the nurse shortage in recent years, according to Dr. Zinner. e purpose of the hospital's PCNA support program is two-fold: to better support med-surg nurses and to build a pipeline of future nurses via professional development efforts for PCNAs. BJC Healthcare is also looking into adopting robots and how technology can be implemented to vital sign machines and other medical equipment so that repetitive tasks can eventually be the exception, not the rule, for nurses. "If I'm a registered nurse working in a med-surg unit, I should be able to expect that I don't have to double document vital signs. I don't have to double document IV drips and things of that nature," Dr. Austin said. "I think there are certain things organizations should put in place so that the work environment is a lot easier." BJC HealthCare has also "heard loud and clear" from nursing staff that they want more scheduling flexibility. e system rolled out a flexible scheduling app earlier in 2023 for nurses to pick up as many or as few additional hours as they like. Address the pay gap One area that would be remiss not to mention is compensation. Increasingly, "when you talk to new graduates, their primary objective is get a couple years of experience and then go travel," Dr. Austin said. And understandably so, as the weekly average for travel nurse pay remains nearly 30 percent higher than pre-pandemic levels, according to data from Vivian Health, a national healthcare hiring marketplace. Overall, med-surg nurses tend to earn less than nurses in specialties like intensive care or emergency department, though it's difficult to put hard numbers on the comparison given a range of factors that play a role in salary, such as nurses' level of experience. Still, to retain experienced nurses in med-surg, any considerable gap is worth leaders' attention. "We're trying to work on that pay gap because … whereas an ICU nurse is focused on the technical skills of taking care of two critically ill patients, you have to have a broad range of skill sets to be able to take care of six patients at a time," Dr. Austin said. "To me, the skill sets are equivalent, but used differently to take care of different patient populations." Bottom line, hospitals need more med-surg nurses. Getting them — and getting them to stay — requires a range of efforts to reduce workload burden and ensure the specialty remains just as attractive as others. n 'There's nothing new going on': ANA president pushes for nurse scheduling changes By Bari Faye Dean I f hospitals listened to nurses and acted on their suggestions, staffing challenges likely would be much less severe, Jennifer Mensik Kennedy, PhD, RN, president of the American Nurses Association, told Becker's. But this is not happening, she said. "We see the same thing over and over again," Dr. Mensik Kennedy said. "Nurses say they're not actually heard or listened to in their organizations. Hospital leaders are talking about engaging nurses and empowering them, but nurses continue to say they don't feel heard." "Everyone is saying nurses should be making scheduling decisions, but that's not happening. Nothing is changing. Hospitals talk about all the new innovative models they want to launch. But there's nothing new going on." ANA is a proponent of "enforceable" nurse-to-patient staffing ratios because safe minimums are the least nurses are requesting, she said, noting ratios would add consistency across the industry. "Ratios won't solve all the staffing issues by any means," Dr. Mensik Kennedy said. "But it's one way of showing nurses that people are listening to them." The Partners for Nurse Staffing Think Tank — a consortium of industry groups — released a list of 65 suggestions to help alleviate the nursing shortage in a May 10 report. Participating organizations included the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses, the American Organization of Nursing Leadership, the Healthcare Financial Management Association and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. The think tank's recommendations, "Priority Topics and Recommendations," published in April 2022, focused on strategies that could be implemented in 12 to 18 months. While the ANA's call for minimum ratios has received a lot of attention, Dr. Mensik Kennedy said there is another task force suggestion that deserves immediate consideration: flexible work environments that afford nurses the ability to self-schedule their shifts. The think tank suggested that nurses be cross-trained to various units "to support well-being during a shift that incorporates time for professional development and leadership engagement such as shared governance," Dr. Mensik Kennedy said. Strategies that build in flexibility include offering shifts with variable start times and duration. Nurses would also be allowed to work in various roles on different units after cross training. Further, giving nurses the ability to schedule their own shifts within a flexible work environment would go a long way to giving them what they have been requesting, Dr. Mensik Kennedy said. n

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