How the Flu Affects Staffing Concerns
The flu has a massive impact on so many people, especially when it’s as widespread as recent versions of the flu have been. One area that can experience the full effect of a flu outbreak is any facility in which many patients live and recuperate together. How nursing staff is able to respond to increased flu cases can be a vital part of keeping everyone as healthy as possible. In some cases, staffing agencies are a huge help.
Nursing Staff Might Be Restricted to Certain Groups
As the flu becomes more and more prevalent, nursing staff may find that it’s far more effective to restrict specific nurses to certain groups. Unfortunately while that solves certain issues, it can create others. Nursing staff that were able to navigate throughout the facility now don’t have that same ability, creating shortages in other sections.
Patient Requirements Might Drastically Increase
Nurses in a particular group or section are intimately familiar with the needs of their patients. When more than a few patients develop the flu, those needs change dramatically. It’s difficult for the same nursing staff to manage those significantly increased demands. The other concern is that the more that staff is forced to run at full speed, the more likely they are to lower their own immune systems.
Nursing Staff May Experience Illness
When staff are busy helping people who have the flu and taking care of larger and larger numbers of people who are sick, that can make illness more likely for nursing staff. This chance is less likely if they’ve been vaccinated, but that doesn’t mean that nurses and support staff won’t also get sick. When too many nurses and other support staff are sick, that means someone has to fill in.
Staffing Agencies Can Resolve Many of These Issues
The good news is that even when facilities are dealing with these sorts of difficulties around an increase in flu cases, staffing agencies can make up the difference. A staffing agency can ensure that a nursing home or other type of facility has the staff that they need in the event of a flu outbreak, whether that’s among patients or even staff.
Solving the challenges that the flu brings can mean juggling quite a few different solutions and options. Having a staffing agency to turn to offers a much more comprehensive range of answers when a facility is in the midst of a staffing crisis due to the flu.
