Update: Time Is Of The Essence- How To Maintain Productivity For Nurses!
A nurse has a number of essential, life-saving tasks to complete each and every day! These can range from giving patients their medication, to documenting all necessary information and everything else in-between. Did you know that nurses walk an average of four to five miles during a 12 hour shift? This means that these nurses are constantly on the go, getting things done.
When being so busy, it is not unreasonable to assume that they may forget a task, forget to write something down or quickly get overwhelmed with the stressful jobs at hand. The best way to ensure quality patient care and prevent nurse burnout is to be sure that they have all the tools they need to reach their max level of productivity. This could mean personal methods of productivity or storage systems like nurse server cabinets. This also includes a significant amount of stress management.
How Is This Done?
Ensuring optimum productivity can depend on the person at hand. Everyone works differently, thus each nurse will need different things to help them be productive; however, there are bigger elements that can be tackled to help all healthcare providers practice more productively and more stress-free.
Stress Management
It is common for physicians and nurses to feel burned out. This can cause a number of different emotions such as: anger, depression, sickness, low morale, staff turnover and more!
How does burnout happen, exactly? Well, it seems to be caused by a number of issues that seem to pile up over a long period of time. It can start off as something simple like covering someone’s shift.
The main causes of medical staff burnout are from:
- Long and tiring shifts
- Always having to put patients and other first
- The very high-stress scenarios and life-threatening situations
- The more patients and less nurses there are.
- Do you find yourself needing ways to cope with daily stress? Follow these simple tips such as deep-breathing to taking a break every once in a while.
Communication
This may seem like such a simple thing that can increase productivity, but it is sometimes the source of a lot of problems, both inside and out of the hospital. So, what can nurses do to better communicate and increase overall productivity?
– Make sure that all communication with patients is clear and concise. It is recommended that nurses use direct wording and avoid using euphemisms. Remember, you are speaking to someone who, in most cases, has no medical training. Being clear can make your patient or their family understand better, which can make your job easier.
-Be clear with your coworkers. If you need help with something or think something may work better if done differently, speak up!
-Have honest communication with yourself. What are you doing that is preventing you from being your most productive self?
Design Methods
A design method that should be implemented in every hospital for healthcare storage solutions are FlowCARE Nurse Servers. The nurse server cabinets can save everyone valuable time, from hospital staff to pharmacists.
It can save nurses time when looking for needed supplies because they are strategically located inside or directly outside all patient rooms. Furthermore, they allow nurses to be at the patient’s bedside at any given time.
A number of studies show that nurses who spend more time at their patient’s bedside help the patient overall. The patient experiences less falls, infections, medication errors, and will be more satisfied with their overall care.
Making sure that your health facility is promoting and supporting productivity as best they can is key in ensuring happy nurses and happy patients. Being sure to communicate, destress and implement a storage system like the nurse server cabinets can make all the difference!
