How Supplemental Staffing Helps Long-term Care Facilities
When long-term care facilities can put their focus on patients rather than on maintaining staffing levels, everyone benefits. It starts with creating a safer working environment for staff and filters through to helping family members of patients feel more comfortable as well.
Coverage Matters for Patient Care and Safety
Staffing levels can fluctuate greatly, especially in a larger long-term care facility. So much can happen that affects staff members and their ability to meet needs. One or two patients coming down with the flu or some other highly contagious illness can wipe out quite a few staff members at once. Beyond that, staff have to be able to physically keep up with patient needs and that often means running from one situation to another. Short staffing means that patients have to wait longer for assistance and that can mean big trouble.
Staff Often Can’t and Shouldn’t Handle Tasks Alone
Long-term care facilities often help patients who have challenges related to mobility. In a short-staffed situation, one nurse may not be able to safely help a patient do what needs to be done. This can be especially true in a fall situation where the patient may be injured further. With plenty of staff, nurses can have much more assistance when dealing with these sorts of situations, which can lead to reducing risks for everyone involved.
Employee Retention Can Be Difficult
Skilled nurses often want to expand their opportunities when they’re able to do so. If that means leaving a short-staffed situation in which it’s difficult to do their job properly, they’re likely going to seek other options. Having supplemental medical staff can change that dynamic, which makes it much easier for long-term care facilities to hold onto their skilled, high-quality staff members.
Families Want to Know There Aren’t Care Gaps
Families of people in long-term care facilities want to know their family members are being taken care of well. That means that there’s a lot of pressure associated with accountability concerns for long-term care facilities. Having experienced on-demand nurses and other staff from supplemental staffing agencies makes this a much easier target to hit on a regular basis.
Using proven, experienced supplemental staffing services improves the likelihood of meeting a long-term care facility’s big goals. Those goals often chiefly involve supporting patients and staff alike with the best care team possible, which doesn’t have to be as difficult as it sometimes seems to be.
