Empower nurses to have work-life balance—Part 2
In our last blog, we discussed how this year’s National Nurses Week theme “Nursing: the Balance of Mind, Body, and Spirit” reflects a priority being advocated across our industry. It’s increasingly being recognized that we need to take better care of those taking care of patients—for nurses’ wellbeing and because happy, healthy nurses makes for happy, healthy patients.
Toward that end, health organizations are implementing workforce strategies that help nurses have work-life balance and improve their job satisfaction. One such strategy is Collaborative Staffing.
Empower nurses with a Collaborative Staffing approach
The old way of staffing was a top-down approach. Nurses were assigned shifts by their manager. But staff know their preferences and availability better than managers. By giving them control over the shifts they pick up, they enjoy better work-life balance and an increased sense of autonomy.
Collaborative Staffing is a staff-partnered process that empowers employees by giving them visibility into organizational needs and enables them to be part of the workforce solution. It’s a joint effort between managers and staff to fill open shifts in a way that meets patient care needs and takes employee skills and preferences into account.
A best-practice methodology that gives nurses a voice in the process, Collaborative Staffing helps nurses feel empowered and trusted to make important decisions. And engaged, happy employees perform better, which in turn yields better patient outcomes.
Collaborative Staffing also makes managers happier because they can spend less time on scheduling and more time with patients—which is what they got into the caregiving profession to do.
And because Collaborative Staffing provides interdepartmental visibility and communication, nurses can fill available shifts that they’re qualified to work outside their home unit. Everyone reaps the benefits of this approach with system-wide staff optimization, decreased overtime and premium labor costs, and increased employee engagement.
Learn how you can take advantage of Collaborative Staffing with CentricityTM ShiftSelect®.
Together, Microsoft and GE Healthcare are dedicated to making sure the voices of nurses are being heard and that our digitally transformative eHealth solutions address their needs. So please let us know if you have any feedback or questions via email, Facebook, or Twitter.
And please also let us know if you’re interested in blogging for the nurses’ blog. It’s a place for nurses to be inspired and collaborate with other nurses—a platform to amplify nurses’ voices and their influence on health IT.
