by Mark Garver, June 2, 2022
In a recent survey in Healthcare IT News, 90% of nurses are considering leaving their profession for a variety of reasons, and many state they would like to depart in the near future. It is well known that there is already a shortage of licensed healthcare professionals so this will only compound the problem. There really isn’t any healthcare tech available today that can take the place of a nurse, or even a doctor, instead technology assist them, but it hasn’t gained the traction needed to solve the issues these nurses are facing today! Certainly, during the COVID pandemic, increased patient loads and changing treatment options certainly led to burnout among the professionals, but why is it continuing?
I have previously written about the issues with the increased administrative tasks being placed directly on licensed healthcare professionals like nurses and it is a real issue. These professionals entered the field to take care of patients and would like to spend more time with them, however there are several things keeping them from that passion.
- Staff shortages can have a significant impact on the patient to nurse ratio, meaning they are being asked to care for more patients and able to spend less time with each
- Emergency Room Nurses state they seen patients including ones with acute health conditions leave the ER due to wait times
- Administrative tasks are still at the top of the list and this is an area where the right approach to health tech could greatly resolve this issue
- Poor processes and operational workflows
Technology alone cannot solve each of these issues, but it can fix most of them. Hospital administrators may look at things like Robotic Process Automation (RPA) as the holy grail, but unless you fix the processes and operational workflows before “automating” them, you have not achieved the desired goal.
Licensed healthcare professionals need to be a part of the process of fixing what is broken, laying out new workflows then working with both the IT department and the technology or solution provider to truly solve the process. Until they are a part of the solution, they will be dealing with the problems and the consideration of leaving their profession.
