Any nurse knows that a “stress-free” workday does not exist in any hospital environment. Each shift can be exhilarating and exhausting, emotional or rewarding... or perhaps all of these. But one thing for sure—it is rarely dull! But what if the job could be just a bit less stressful? Would your clinician satisfaction and retention improve? How would patient satisfaction scores be impacted?
Why a Nurse's Day is Stressful
Nursing teams are at the epicenter of processes, protocols, and procedures. Nurses are at the bedside extending patient care, supporting and trying to track down physicians, meeting with families, supervising assistive personnel, and—don’t forget—updating notes in the EMR, just to name a few of the myriad tasks they undertake daily. All of these activities are important and demand a nurse's time and attention. This means that admitting a new patient into the mix can be a delicate balancing act.
Research shows that nurses spend 12% of their day on workarounds caused by inefficient processes. This is particularly true during discharge and admit processes. Shift-to-shift discrepancies, variances in room environments, lack of interconnectedness among support services, and diminished communications can create unwarranted stress for nursing teams and the patient alike.
The Solution—Nurse-ready Rooms
For a patient room to be "nurse-ready," it means that all the support teams such as environmental services, patient transport, technology, clinical protocols, and other services are 100% ready before the nurse enters the room.
A nurse-ready room driven by ReadyList's integrated digital workflow application assures that support teams have the tools they need to complete a high-quality room clean and stage—helping nurse teams perform their job functions more smoothly and efficiently. Through a simple, easy-to-use touchscreen interface, tools such as electronic checklists and workflow automation allow support and quality teams to document completion of work and communicate with each instantaneously.
With this innovative application, nurses can spend less time on duties such as seeking help from environmental services to clean the room further, tracking down bioengineering teams to deliver/repair technological tools, or contacting security to access a cabinet with a previous patient's belongings. And with shared visibility of the entire process, along with alignment toward a common goal—actions of the whole team are more effective and less stressful. Digital workflow solutions also help minimize extra meetings and discussions by fostering a collaborative work environment among nursing teams and other colleagues.
Ultimately, a digital workflow app supports safer patient care, improves clinician satisfaction, and optimizes support team workflows. Most importantly, it provides nurses time to do what they do best—attend to their patients. Learn how one academic medical center is doing just that in this resource.
Brian Herriot is a hospital operations leader and Co-Founder of ReadyList, Inc.