5 Staffing Strategies for Engaged Nurses Better Patient Outcomes | 13
and management experience in hospital, home
health, education and long-term care settings, she
headed up Hillcrest's staffing overhaul and is now
responsible for the development and direction of
more than 140 employees.
"Our goals were to lower agency usage across the
division and hire nurses in their place," Ms. Bible says.
"So it seemed simple. We thought we would just
determine where these agency nurses were working
and then fill those spots. Well, it turned out that just
to find out where they were staffed was a challenge."
When the resource team began looking through
the disparate facilities' scheduling systems, they
found some hospitals were using pen and paper,
some were using computerized systems, and some
had scheduling managed by a handful of people,
all with different information that needed to be
taken into account
"It was even difficult to figure out who to talk to at
each respective facility," Ms. Bible says. "We had
nurses with specific qualifications who wanted
certain shifts in certain units on certain days, and
we'd have to call and email their managers to
navigate their individual schedules."
Writing policies and procedures for a large teaching
hospital in addition to a rural facility and a handful of
others was an enormous workload that took a lot of
time for a little return. If a facility had 10 nurses, Ms.
Bible says, it may be a task that a CNO or administrator
could do in a number of hours, but when dealing with
over 100 nurses, it became clear that Hillcrest needed
to expand to an automated system.
Once ShiftSelect was expanded across all of
Hillcrest's facilities, administrators and staff were
able to make changes in scheduling by clicking
through an electronic system, doing away with the
need to make contact by phone or email to confirm
shift coverage or availability. The automated system
allows for details about particular staff members,
such as experience, certifications or unit preferences,
which can be taken into account during scheduling.
"Because the systems were so quick, the nurses were
able to see things that administrators may have missed,
too," Ms Bible says. "They know what their respective
skill sets are and whoever is making the schedule may
not remember that a nurse is also qualified to work in a
different area. The system has the ability to search for
all of the shifts staff members are qualified for, it also
enables us to broadcast open shifts, so nurses save
time by logging on and making requests."
