ORLANDO, FL – To combat staffing issues, Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) implemented a scheduling tool from workforce management company Kronos for its nursing units several years ago.
The tool “equalized staffing, so ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ are a thing of the past for us,” said Kathy Baker, VCU’s director of nursing management, emergency department and transport services. “Those units that were wrong sized were a drain on the entire system. Fixing our staffing demonstrated improved quality for us.”
According to Baker, the benefits of the Kronos tool include the ability to:
- designate “novice nurses” so the schedule does not include too many first-year nurses at once;
- track non-productive time;
- proactively audit unit schedules to ensure appropriate staff usage;
- measure overall resource allocation (not just averages); and
- capitalize on in-house resources to reduce use of outsourced nurses.
“We struggled with nurse staffing and productivity,” Baker explained to an audience Tuesday at the KronosWorks2011 conference in Orlando. “There wasn’t a lot of science to how (the schedule) was managed, and it was somewhat political.”
Some units were “flush” with staff, while others were chronically understaffed, she said.
Healthcare providers are facing increasing complexity in care, lower reimbursements, a decreasing supply of qualified nurses and an increasing demand for care from an aging population, said Baker. “There are no concrete answers. We need an adequate tool kit to face workforce management demands.”
