Workers in almost every industry have spoken, and their voice is clear: they want flexibility and control over their schedule. That desire has many skilled nursing facilities asking questions around how to adapt their staffing strategy to attract great talent and will a change in processes be worth the effort?
For SNFs that build a strategy to utilize flexible staff and adopt technology to streamline those efforts, they often discover it is.
Here are the top four benefits of adopting technology and streamlining a flexible workforce model for skilled nursing facilities.
Fully staffed shifts
When staff call out, SNFs are left scrambling. Those untimely cancellations lead to a stream of calls and texts to individual caregivers and nurses to try to fill that open shift. But one person can only call or text so many people at one time. Considering the personal and professional schedules of caregivers and nurses and the small window between call out and shift, SNF operators often struggle to reach the high volume of outreach needed to find someone available on short notice.
With technology like Kevala’s Agency Management Software, SNFs can broadcast an open shift with a few clicks to all relevant pools of talent. The software can immediately alert full-time staff, agencies or internal float pools.
The result? A larger pool of caregivers and nurses alerted to the open shift with less effort and, most importantly, more shifts filled.
Quality caregivers
The hard truth is that not all caregivers and nurses give equal quality of care to their patients and residents. And there is often no way for a SNF to know which flexible staff members have a great history and which don’t. It’s unrealistic for any one person to remember every staff member who has worked at their facility and how that shift went.
That is why SNFs need a reliable source of information that tracks past shifts, allows for staff ratings and is easily accessible. An easy-to-use software solution like Kevala, that shows detailed staff information for every shift, will pay back dividends in keeping SNF operations running smoothly with the best talent.
Saving time
In the workplace, time savings is the holy grail of technology. The benefits of adopting new technology are already being enjoyed by the forward-thinking organizations that are willing to try.
Automated workflows, real-time information dashboards and centralized data can remove hours of administrative tasks a day for multiple staff members.
Saving money
Skilled nursing facilities have the unique challenge of ever-changing census numbers. Often filled at around 50% with relatively short-term patients, the number of beds needing care can fluctuate suddenly and often. A flexible workforce available at the few clicks of a button allows a facility to operate without the heavy cost of full-time employees.
An added benefit of using technology like Kevala to lean into a larger pool of flexible workers is more competition for each shift. You now have options when it comes to your flexible staff, and you can choose the right balance of cost and quality for a shift at any time.
In a time when there are so many aspects to staffing outside of a SNF’s control, operators should take advantage of those opportunities to drive positive change in their facilities. Through the utilization of a flexible workforce and the adoption of new, innovative technology like Kevala, SNFs can keep their shifts full and provide the best possible care for patients and residents.
This article is sponsored by Kevala, an agency management software and supplemental staffing provider developed in 2020 to help solve the health care staffing crisis. To learn more about the power of sharing open shifts with a massive pool of talent from staffing agencies, float pools or even Kevala’s own Care Network, visit kevala.care/go/agency-management-software.
