Patient safety and other healthcare outcomes are largely dependent on adequate staffing levels. However, nurse staffing is among the most significant challenges health systems face. Staffing apps can help improve safety by allowing healthcare facilities to maintain adequate levels of nurses and other staff at all times. Facilities can find much-needed coverage quickly and adapt to fluctuating patient censuses.
How can healthcare facilities maintain safe staffing levels?
Maintaining safe staffing levels is no simple task. A research survey of 203 hospital executives commissioned by Nursa found the following challenges to nurse staffing:
- Of the chief financial officers (CFOs) surveyed, 41 percent have trouble filling open slots in their schedules over the next two weeks.
- Two out of three CFOs surveyed have trouble filling roles over the next 13 weeks and longer.
- A whopping 86 percent of hospitals and health systems saw 10 percent or more of their nursing staff quit in 2023—despite increased wages.
Although nearly all respondents agreed that nurses are critical to quality care delivery, their facilities and health systems struggle with recruitment and retention.
To address the nurse staffing shortage, over half of the health systems surveyed are using four or more strategies.
One staffing strategy that has exploded in recent years is contracting temporary staff. The survey found that contract nurse volume more than doubled from 2019 to 2023.
Most health system leaders (93 percent) do not believe nurse employees are more valuable than independent contractors. On the contrary, many view the addition of contract nurses positively. Of the surveyed health system executives, 63 percent believe they could offer greater flexibility to staff with a larger pool of nurses.
How does technology contribute to patient safety?
The Nursa-commissioned survey found that most health system leaders believe technology is crucial to overcoming obstacles in nursing, including understaffing.
- Four out of five health system leaders believe technology can alleviate administrative burdens, allowing nurses to focus on patient care.
- Three out of four believe technology can more effectively connect nurses to patients.
- Two out of three believe technology platforms can help hospitals reduce the costs associated with filling nursing shifts.
- Of the chief human resources officers (CHROs) and HR executives surveyed, 60 percent believe using staffing platforms that facilitate rapid filling of per diem shifts would significantly impact their organizations.
In short, technology can reduce the burden of non-nursing tasks, allowing nurses to focus on patient care. It can also facilitate interaction between nurses and patients.
In addition, technology in the form of platforms or apps can streamline the staffing and scheduling processes, helping facilities cost-effectively maintain safe nurse-to-patient ratios at all times.
Which nurse staffing app is best?
Nursa is a healthcare staffing app that connects facilities and clinicians directly for per diem shifts.
Helping facilities find qualified, reliable nurses at the lowest cost, the staffing app allows facilities to post PRN jobs and clinicians to view and request available shifts in real time.
Here are some of the advantages of using Nursa as a staffing strategy:
- Transparency: Facility managers and schedulers can approve pricing before posting a shift. There are no hidden fees or employee benefits since clinicians on the platform fall under the 1099 work model.
- Flexibility: Healthcare facilities only post the shifts they need to cover. There are no minimum quotas or long-term contracts. Facilities only pay for the hours worked.
- Quality: Clinicians must upload their licenses for verification and undergo background checks before picking up shifts. Facilities can also customize lists of required credentials to get the ideal candidates for each position.
- Reliability: Clinicians on the platform do not take their commitments lightly. Nursa has a strict Call Out Policy, so clinicians rarely miss shifts.
Why are adequate nurse staffing levels important?
Adequate nurse staffing levels are critical for patient safety.
According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, insufficient staffing can lead to missed nursing care—necessary care that is not completed. Missed nursing care, in turn, can lead to negative patient outcomes, including mortality.
Nursing levels and missed nursing care can impact all of the following:
- Length of hospital stay
- Patient dissatisfaction with care
- Hospital readmissions
- Increased risk of death
An article published in ScienceDirect, titled Nurse staffing levels and patient outcomes: A systematic review of longitudinal studies, found the following positive impacts of higher nurse staffing levels:
- Most analyses showed an association between higher nurse staffing and reduced mortality, particularly in acute care settings.
- Higher than average registered nurse hours per patient day (HPPD) in the first five days of hospital admission was linked with a reduced risk of adverse events, including death, cardiac arrest, and unplanned ICU admission.
- One study found that patients’ length of hospital stay was reduced on average by 0.23 days for each additional registered nurse HPPD a patient experienced.
- The same study estimated that an increase of one registered nurse HPPD could avoid 657 deaths and save over 30,000 bed days through reduced lengths of stay over three years.
- Higher nurse staffing levels also appear to have a protective effect in relation to infections, pressure ulcers, and lengths of stay.
Although some states have mandated nurse-to-patient staffing ratios for specific settings, appropriate staffing is a complex issue that should factor in staff qualifications, experience, patient census, and workload.
Prioritizing patient safety cost effectively
Healthcare leaders and care providers want to keep patients safe.
Hospital and other facility managers know adequate staffing levels are critical to patient safety. However, maintaining safe nurse-to-patient ratios is challenging amid a nursing shortage and heightened nurse burnout and turnover.
Staffing apps improve patient safety, allowing facilities to adapt to a fluctuating patient census by filling gaps in their schedules with PRN clinicians on demand.
Healthcare facilities can keep costs down by simply paying for the hours worked—no overtime or employee benefits—while ensuring adequate coverage at all times.Facilities can sign up with Nursa for free and begin posting PRN shifts to improve patient safety.
