Today, AMN Healthcare, the nation’s most comprehensive healthcare workforce solutions and staffing company, along with Avantas, an AMN Healthcare company and leading provider of strategic labor management solutions and technologies, released the findings of its survey, Predictive Analytics in Healthcare 2016: Optimizing Nurse Staffing in an Era of Workforce Shortages –an assessment of over 5,600 nurse managers, including interviews with 35 nurse managers, finance managers and registered nurses.
The findings show that hospitals are struggling to provide or utilize tools to assist with nurse staffing, particularly predictive analytics. With shortages of nurses and other healthcare professionals becoming a chronic problem, optimizing the nursing workforce is imperative to maintaining quality patient care, reducing staff burnout and increasing nurse retention.
· 1/4 of managers use paper-based staffing tools; 23% percent do not use any scheduling tools at all
· 19% of nurse managers use simple digital spreadsheets
o Of those nurse managers, with access to technology-enhanced scheduling tools, 43% still depend on manual scheduling
· 80% of nurse manager are not aware of available technology that can accurately forecast patient demand and staff needs
There’s more at stake than under or over staffing. Nurse managers said scheduling and staffing problems directly impact the quality of patient care and staff morale:
· 70% are very concerned about the impact on patient satisfaction
· More than 50% are concerned about the effect on quality of care
· 94% believeunderstaffing has a negative impact on morale