Worker Safety and Well-Being
A major concern during the pandemic is helping mitigate staff burnout and providing resilience tools.
The American Nurses Association (ANA) addressed the issue of nursing burnout in a Joint Commission report in July, 2019.
This study found that:
- Over 15 percent of all nurses reported feelings of burnout, with emergency room nurses at even higher risk.
- Nurses also noted that less than 5 percent of their organizations were effective in dealing with issues that caused burnout— and this was prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Staff burnout was also one of the leading causes impacting patient safety and quality.
Highlights of this study can be found .
To combat burnout and help nurses address their concerns, particularly during the COVID-19 crisis, the ANA offers a number of free tools on their website. You will find:
- Access to online counseling,
- A communication forum with other healthcare providers,
- Access to mood evaluating apps,
- Mental health support services.
You can access The ANA’s Well-Being resources
Process Improvement
Because the pandemic is forcing hospitals, nursing homes and other healthcare facilities to rethink how they deliver patient care at scale, a number of process improvement opportunities have emerged, with a focus on digital readiness and delivery.
- Digital tools that help frontline healthcare workers triage patients more effectively, using symptoms and severity which then align with the most applicable next steps.
- Bots that screen for potential infection.
- Apps that screen healthcare workers for COVID-19 symptoms as well as evaluate point-of-care delivery to enable providers to tweak or change processes in real time.
These are trying times. But in every aspect of patient care you will find innovative changes that will improve the experience on both sides of healthcare delivery.
