Becker's Hospital Review

57 CARE DELIVERY Solving Staffing Conundrums: A System-Wide Domino Effect By Max Green S taff scheduling is an ever-present headache in hospitals and health systems of all sizes. Facilities incur major financial expenses and oppor- tunity costs craing schedules that account for staff availability, qualifi- cations and the budget and needs of the facility itself, among other things. e hurdles resulting from staffing conundrums are attributed to inefficient systems negatively affecting morale, patient outcomes, and ultimately, reimbursements. But new technologies are allowing for improved scheduling that can create a domino effect across a system, resulting in cultural shis within hospitals, im- proved outcomes and significant savings, according to Karlene Kerfoot, PhD, RN, chief nursing officer for API Healthcare. "If you look at the way staffing has been done traditionally, it has been on paper and pencil and spreadsheets," Dr. Kerfoot says. "Further back than that in staffing offices you'd see little yellow stickies or magnets on the wall." In the past, scheduling managers or nursing administrators would physically move the magnets or pieces of paper that represented different staff members to create a schedule. e next evolution of these clunky, analog systems was the spreadsheet, which is more sophisticated than a wall chart but still not equipped to solve major scheduling issues or account for the complexities that arise from managing a large staff. "e problem is that wall boards don't think and spreadsheets don't think," Dr. Kerfoot says. "ey don't give you data to really look forward to see what's happening and look backward to see what happened, so you're limited to a very primitive way of doing things." In recent years electronic recordkeeping in healthcare has become the stan- dard, with approximately three-quarters of all physicians adopting some type of EHR to better manage patient care and data. But for whatever reason, staffing procedures and scheduling systems have oen been le in the dust, relegated to inefficient sticky notes on a wall or cluttered Excel spreadsheets. is problem is only compounded when mergers and acquisitions come into play. "For systems that are acquiring five hospitals, 10 hospitals, surgery centers and so on — there could be a huge variety in the way people do staffing and scheduling, all the way from paper and pencil to one or two different scheduling systems that don't talk to each other," Dr. Kerfoot says. "e administration can't get a view of the entire system, including staffing, quality and finance, with those tools." For Tulsa, Okla.-based Hillcrest Healthcare System, a six-hospital system with more than 6,000 employees and 1,800 physicians, staffing needed to be streamlined following a merger. API Healthcare's ShiSelect technology not only addressed immediate staffing needs, but anticipated new problems before they arose. Paring down to a single staffing system Jennie Bible, RN, director of the Hillcrest Health System Resource Team, witnessed complications in managing staff scheduling since the beginning of her career. With more than 30 years of practical and management experience Meet the 2016 Family Physician of the Year By Emily Rappleye The American Academy of Family Physicians awarded the 2016 Family Physician of the Year title to Maureen Murphy, MD, for her compassionate, comprehensive care. Dr. Murphy, originally a Joplin, Miss., television reporter, discovered she wanted to be a family physician while working as a public relations specialist for the Society of Teachers in Family Medicine in the Kansas City area. She earned a medical degree in 1985 from the University of Kansas School of Medicine in Kansas City. Dr. Murphy now works as part of Cabarrus Family Medicine in Concord, North Carolina. She "has established herself as a highly respected, clinically adept and dependable source of care for thousands of patients," according to the AAFP announcement, and, "her leadership contributions and passion for teaching have inspired many young people to learn about the role of orga- nized medicine in medical education." The AAFP also honored the follow- ing physicians: Theodore Wymyslo, MD, CMO of the Ohio Association of Communi- ty Health Centers, earned the Public Health Award. Michael Obiekwe, MD, pres- ident and founder of Arms of Care International, earned the Humanitarian Award. Nathan Newman, MD, national urgent care medical director and vice president of medical operations at Concentra, received the Robert Gra- ham Physician Executive Award. Macaran Baird, MD, professor and head of the University of Minneso- ta Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, received the Thom- as W. Johnson Award for his contribu- tions to family medicine education.n

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