The demand for post-acute and senior living care is rapidly surging. The number of elderly in the United States is projected to double by 2050, climbing to 83.7 million. While finding and keeping the right staff to care for senior living residents is increasingly problematic, senior and post-acute care facilities can take steps to ensure a productive workforce and a well-cared-for patient population.

Counteracting caregiver burnout

Staff burnout and high employee turnover rates — at an average of 42%— continue to pummel the industry. Disengaged and unhappy employees can lead to a host of negative consequences for senior care providers, from lower patient satisfaction to higher costs and poor health outcomes. In an exceptionally competitive labor market where everyone is being asked to do more with less, providing a consistently positive experience for senior care workers is essential for success.

A viable way to attract and hold on to high-performing employees, from clinical to clerical staff, is automation for work management. This technology can reduce time-consuming manual tasks, enhance efficiencies to lighten the workload, and empower caregivers to use their time and expertise to focus more fully on delivering quality care.

At the same time, these tools give managers a ready gauge of key labor metrics, from costs to attendance and productivity. They provide an easy means of tracking time, complying with labor laws, and collecting data to better communicate with employees about their work performance.

Coordinating staff schedules

Manually scheduling staff to meet demand can be risky and costly. Scheduling too few workers can jeopardize service quality, while scheduling too many can waste labor dollars, a top driver of operating costs in senior care. Workforce scheduling software, by contrast, reduces management headaches by making scheduling more predictive and easing the effort to create an optimized staffing plan. This, in turn, opens the door to significant cost savings for the facility through reduced overtime and overstaffing.

Automated scheduling also enhances employee satisfaction. With transparent work schedules, shift-trading, shift reminders, and self-service portals, employees can set their needs and availability — gaining more control over their work hours. Empowered health care workers are happy ones, who are less likely to make mistakes, have non-compliant patients, or seek new employment.

Complying with regulations

The use of workforce technologies can also facilitate compliance with government regulations. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has identified staffing as a key indicator of a nursing home’s ability to provide quality care. Staffing information is posted on the CMS Nursing Home Compare website and is also used in the Nursing Home Five-Star Quality Rating System, created to help consumers understand the impact of staffing on quality of care.

Nursing facilities are now required to electronically submit direct care staffing information based on payroll and other auditable data. When combined with census data, this information is now used to report on staffing levels, which can largely impact quality of care. With automated reporting, including the addition of rules and warnings during scheduling, providers can take a proactive approach to compliance, improve resident care, and garner higher star ratings.

Creating efficiencies with point-of-care technologyy

Improved touch-screen technologies are emerging to create efficiencies, extend clinician reach, and improve accuracy at the point of care (POC). Tablet or smartphone apps, for example, consolidate patient documentation and caregiver communication, and provide one patient/resident record across the post-acute care continuum. Care teams can collect vital signs, document daily care and activities of daily living (ADL), and communicate through voice and secure text messaging, conveniently all on the same device.

What to look for in workforce productivity solutions

• Platforms that combine related workflows into one application, enabling users to easily accomplish multiple tasks and eliminate redundant data entry.
• User interfaces that are relevant to actual tasks and intuitive for new staff, reducing the amount of “clicks” required to access common actions
• Analytics and reporting tools that are included “out of the box” at launch and have configurable options to match your staff’s preference and maturity level.
• High reliability to drive user confidence, with stellar support from software vendors and robust hardware if deploying equipment in a post-acute setting.
• Vendors that take an active partnership role in handling regulatory updates quickly and taking user feedback seriously.
• User testimonials that indicate not only efficiency improvements, but also joy in using the solution every day.

POC technologies foster provider collaboration and facilitate unified, patient-centered care. By yielding real-time, accurate documentation, they can also improve ADL scores — critical determinants in receiving proper payment for care delivered. It’s a win for the entire continuum: providers are happier with the enhanced efficiency, payments are more accurate, and residents receive better health care.

Catalyzing the future of senior care

On the road ahead, senior care providers will need to think more strategically about creating work efficiencies, securing the right staff, and engaging teams in delivering quality care. Information Technology department staff will play an increasingly dynamic role in helping their organizations find new ways to compete and add value. Their advocacy for investing in workforce technologies can be the catalyst for achieving shared organizational goals, such as delivering better health care with fewer wasted resources, recruiting and retaining top talent, and reinforcing with staff — every hour of every day — a consistent message: their satisfaction at work truly matters.

Clay Aiena is chief information officer for StoneGate Senior Living, a senior care and housing company. 

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