More work with fewer employees is a universal standard, regardless of the industry or occupation. Hence, augmenting workers’ productivity is a general struggle across different industries. The healthcare sector also endeavors to meet the shortage of workers and the growing demand for healthcare services with better productivity.
Every healthcare facility requires well-trained and efficient workers to facilitate patients and achieve benchmarks. Better productivity is also necessary to ensure quality care, augment patient satisfaction, reduce readmissions, and minimize healthcare expenditure. But mere theoretical correlations and numerical calculations do not translate into tangible outcomes. Tangible outcomes require solid and earnest efforts. The healthcare sector cannot achieve productivity and performance standards without investment, time commitment, sustainable policies, monitoring and evaluation, and a better work environment.
Continue reading below to explore how to boost the productivity of employees in the healthcare sector.
1. Implement management technologies
Technology is an inseparable part of the healthcare system. Technological solutions like quality management, data processing, communication, project management, and workflow management software minimize human involvement, workload, expenditure, and time commitment. Workers can manage and supervise several tasks in parallel, from booking appointments to consultations.
Likewise, laboratory information systems help manage, analyze, trace, produce results, and distribute clinical records of thousands of patients to relevant departments and authorities within instants. And the entire flow and processing of information are less prone to human errors with hospital management technologies. Hospitals can implement quality controls and augment administrative functions whenever necessary without an overhauling procedure with better technological solutions.
2. Improve coordination
Better outcomes and productivity require rigorous teamwork, coordination, and collaboration across the organizational hierarchy. Loopholes at any stage can delay work, cause errors, consume more resources, and increase confusion and agitation. Poor coordination and organization are more problematic during healthcare emergencies and unexpected circumstances, leading to a commotion. If you correct one thing, the other falls apart. And when you have so many loopholes, you cannot identify factors or persons responsible for gaps and apply a restorative procedure adeptly.
It is impossible to single out one individual or hold everyone accountable for the losses. Hierarchical control measures, protocols, and regulations rest fruitless in such a disorganized and poorly coordinated workplace. No doubt, productivity loss is inevitable. So, healthcare facilities and authorities should endeavor for better coordination within departments and the workforce to improve productivity.
3. Evaluate hindrances to performance
Evaluation is necessary to identify gaps and gauge what factors undermine performance and productivity. Lack of productivity is not only a problem from the employer’s perspective alone. Workers aim to improve their performance, achieve milestones, adhere to healthcare protocols, and deliver quality services, yet their efforts fall short.
Systematic hindrances, lack of support, and resource constraints hinder their struggle to materialize efforts. In such cases, data and numbers from parameters like attendance checks, patient satisfaction levels, audits from a third-party expert, written exams, video monitoring, and direct supervision can help correlate and evaluate expected outcomes and performance.
Performance reviews and patient feedback can also help observe where the healthcare system and workforce engagement need modifications. In addition, make workers a part of your evaluation process to understand gaps and loopholes better. Get their suggestions on how to improve things. They can better tell what changes can simplify their chores and help them achieve desired outcomes. If they need assistance and training to acquire new skills or polish their expertise, facilitate them with resources and a flexible work schedule.
4. Acknowledge performance with tangible rewards
Healthcare occupation may seem inspiring and highly lucrative, but it is open to various challenges. Healthcare employees also face obstacles and get disheartened like workers in other workplaces. Lack of administrative support, unsatisfactory wages, extensive working hours, short holidays, occupation-related healthcare risks, and unrealistic performance benchmarks are pervasive issues that permeate the healthcare sector like other occupations. As a result, healthcare workers’ performance and productivity dwindle. But if you see their efforts from an employee’s perspective, you will realize how much they endeavor to give their best in such a challenging occupation.
Therefore, do not keep the bar of your expectations to an unsurmountable level and overlook their sincere endeavors. Celebrate their achievements and triumphs and reward them for their efforts, no matter how trivial. Since actions speak more than words, compliment your encouragement with tangible rewards for better performance and higher productivity. Bonuses, gift baskets, free dining, salary raises, discounts, paid leaves, or healthcare insurance are necessary to motivate them for good work in the long run.
5. Do not overlook employees’ well-being
Undeniably, health and well-being issues harm the quality of life of healthcare workers. Health issues impair their work performance and productivity. They’re also less reliable for sensitive jobs. Unfit and unhealthy workers haste and try to wind up work without ensuring quality, overlook protocols, and cause more errors in patient-related affairs. Since their negligence and noncompliance translates into a loss of productivity, do not disregard employees’ health merely to prioritize patients’ well-being.
Bridge disparities to employees’ well-being and facilitate everyone with the same benefits and privileges. If your workers are unhealthy, they cannot withstand workload pressure and provide the best results. So, do not hesitate to invest in the maintenance and welfare of your employees if you want to prevent a sequence of unmanageable losses and ensure patient safety. Prioritize the well-being of your workers, and you will see better performances at every stage of the healthcare infrastructure.
6. Improve working conditions
A better work environment augments satisfaction, which leads to higher productivity among healthcare workers. But keeping workers under harsh conditions and expecting better compliance and productivity are unrealistic expectations. The work environment affects their psyche, behavior, and their performance. It is hard to adjust to a stressful, unsafe, and unhygienic work environment and yield expected outcomes.
Several research studies also lament that an unhealthy and unsustainable work environment increases healthcare challenges and absenteeism of healthcare workers, constituting two percent of healthcare expenditure. It may not seem an astronomical expense, but the cost to the workforce level can be unmanageable for many. Staff at the lower tiers of a healthcare facility can barely fulfill their day-to-day needs, let alone look after their health. Even if they get healthcare coverage and insurance, they lose more from prolonged absenteeism and unsatisfying performance. In short, it’s better to exclude the root causes of productivity loss than to bridge the gaps after the issues worsen.
Conclusion
Achieving productivity and performance benchmarks is not a one-sided effort. Since productivity losses are multifaceted, employers are as responsible for the results and shortcomings as the workers. Thus, concerned authorities must conduct a thorough evaluation to identify gaps and streamline functions. Equip healthcare workers, boost their confidence, and stand by their sides through thick and thin to achieve lasting results. Until everyone joins hands and works on the obstacles, productivity lapses are unavoidable.
