Managing Healthcare Workforce Burnout Risk with Empathy & Technology

Overview

Triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic and rising expectations of people from healthcare workers to be more patient-centric, the global healthcare system is on the cusp of burnout today. In the last two years, when the pandemic was at its peak, healthcare providers across the world underwent trials and tribulations not everyone can understand. Lack of rapid testing equipment, patient facilities, and increasing demand for efficient services pushed healthcare workers to overburden themselves and make personal sacrifices for the global good.

According to a Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation survey of more than a thousand front-line healthcare workers in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic, an overwhelming 55% of front-line healthcare workers reported mental and physical exhaustion from chronic workplace stress. Symptoms like lack of sleep, anxiety, continuous fatigue, and frustration, if left unaddressed can lead to deeper mental and physical health issues.

How Healthcare Worker Burnout is Impacting the Talent Landscape

While limited staffing was always a challenge, the current landscape looks far more intense in terms of a consistent shortage of skilled staff to effectively handle unforeseen events, thanks to the Great Resignation, a trend that has encouraged employees worldwide, including many in the healthcare segment, to quit to improve their work-life balance. Many of those still in their jobs are also considering leaving the field, adding to the worries of employers who see growing demand for care without enough hands at the bedside to cater to their patients.

Healthcare is a specialized field and requires qualified, well-trained, and credentialed professionals to discharge duties. Organizations invest significantly in training human resources to meet their patient care and other supporting needs. An exodus of trained talent is not only affecting their care standards but also reducing their returns on investment.

Solving The Burnout Challenge with Technology and Empathy

Adopting an empathetic worker engagement and management approach supported by new-age digital tools is an effective way to solve the burnout problem.

Below are some actionable ideas that will help your organization in extending a caring hand to employees while improving their retention.

• • Provide Psychological Support to Your Staff
    Isn’t it ironic that healthcare workers are leaving organizations because of wellness issues? Healthcare employers won’t find it too challenging to offer dedicated mental health care to their staff. Enroll experts to build a psychological support group to which employees can reach out for help. Ask the expert group to develop mitigation strategies to identify employees who are at greater mental health risk. Some people might not be comfortable reaching out directly to the support group. Set up a helpline for such employees. With cost-efficient technology available for the purpose, this is not going to be a big ask. Your in-house experts can also devise wellness programs that will help soothe the troubled minds of affected people. Moreover, they can also be delivered through collaboration tools so that your staff can access them at their convenience. This will be helpful to those people who might not be comfortable talking in person about their problems.

• • Build Better Time Management and Schedule Plans
    One of the most common reasons for employee burnout is working extended hours for a long time. Building a care-oriented work schedule that considers every employee’s workload is the need of the hour. Developing a schedule in which everyone is allotted a definite number of working hours in advance will be helpful. Providing the schedule in advance will allow the workers to plan their lives better. It might be difficult for organizations dealing with a talent crunch to implement such a work schedule. However, if they do not start working in this direction, they are at risk of losing more good talent. There are various time management tools with built-in analytics available that you can use to plan schedules and assess whether the new calendar is helping your staff or not.

• • Improve Workforce Management With Digital Dashboards
    Automating and streamlining workforce activities can eliminate a lot of stress on the system. Digital dashboards can help integrate health data across the organization into a centralized dashboard for easier workforce tracking and maintenance. Apart from giving a quick overview of the current status, this dashboard can help customize workflows by keeping a track of timelines, and schedules and indicating crisis response during emergencies. This will allow employees to easily access, transfer, and assess patient-related information. Employers can use the tools to get an overview of their workforce and operational tasks. They can utilize built-in analytics to better manage their teams and their workloads.
• • Provide Extended Care Support Through Digital Wellness Apps
    Digital apps are developed to make the healthcare ecosystem more patient-centric. However, they can also come in handy to prevent burnout in healthcare workers more efficiently than ever. These apps have a wide variety of features such as personalized consultation and remote medication management allowing your employees to get quick assistance. Such applications can help your workforce better monitor their health by getting help from the comfort of their homes and even on the go. Many apps offer tailored plans to businesses and subscribing to one will enable you to offer extended healthcare support to your employees.

 How Compunnel Healthcare is Helping Healthcare Talent Avoid Burnout Risks?

At Compunnel, we believe in utilizing advanced tech to magnify the impact of human expertise. While working closely with reputed healthcare organizations during the peak of the pandemic and beyond, we closely observed and assessed the burnout risk. Below are a few human+tech  strategies that we use for taking care of healthcare consultants aligned with us.

• • Consistently Engaging Consultants Through Our Talent Engagement Platform
    Utilizing our internally developed talent engagement platform, we regularly engage our consultants through a series of human and automated interactions. Sharing helpful resources, inquiring about their wellbeing, and just lending an ear to them helps consultants in relaxing.

• • Leveraging Analytics To Assess Their Workload And Suggest Mental Care Tips
    Leveraging the advanced analytics capabilities of our talent engagement app, we gain deeper insights into the workload of our various healthcare consultants. Based on the insights, our engagement specialists offer them tips and suggestions to better manage their work.
• • Offering Support Through Multi-channel Communication Infrastructure
    We encourage consultants to reach out to us at any time for assistance. They can reach us through phone, email, and our talent engagement app’s chatbot. Moreover, our engagement specialists conduct periodic calls to connect with the professionals to discuss any challenges they might be facing.

Contact Compunnel Healthcare today to discover more about our empathetic and tech-driven, approach.