Healthcare leaders can employ a range of strategies to ensure that patient safety is not compromised when care teams are stretched thin.
Inadequate staffing poses a challenge for maintaining patient safety, whether there is a shortage of staff or patient volume increases and puts pressure on provider-patient ratios.
Patient safety, including avoidance of hospital-acquired infections, is a top priority for health systems and hospitals. But what happens when a care team staff is understaffed?
In this episode of HL Shorts, Kevin Post, DO, CMO of Avera Health, gives his perspective on maintaining patient safety when patient volume increases and strains provider-patient ratios.
Click on the video below to see Post share his views.
Christopher Cheney is the CMO editor at HealthLeaders.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
The No. 1 strategy to maintain patient safety when there are workforce shortages is to put processes in place and establish new workflows to ensure that staff can be successful.
Technological solutions such as virtual nursing can relieve burdens on staff who are working in an area experiencing workforce shortages.
Provider-patient ratios are set with input from human resources and the finance team, and a CMO needs to serve as a clinical staff advocate to make sure provider-patient ratios do not compromise quality or patient safety.