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Staffing was an issue last year, year before. I dont see that the concern is trending down at this point in time. There is a high use of travelers. There is a significant amount of dissatisfaction among staff that are within the organization currently. And theres a significant amount of difficulty with recruiting new staff. Those are what Im seeing as challenges.
So to overcome these barriers, were trying to work very closely with the staff in the organization to identify whats causing their dissatisfaction. And theres multiple things. In the operating room, its not patient load what were seeing on the floor, is because we know every patient deserves a perioperative nurse. However, the hours that theyre working, they may be asked to stay. They may be asked to flex if theres not cases that are scheduled for the day.
And their environment. They may not have the products that they need. They may not have physicians that are cooperating. They may not have their patients fully prepared. So those are all significant dissatisfiers for the perioperative nurse that were trying to overcome some of the barriers to make it a better environment to work in, so that the nurses will choose to stay within the organization as opposed to leaving to become a traveler.
Each one of the departments that we evaluate does have challenges. And thats what we try to work on– to make it a better environment so this is the employer of choice where the staff will choose to stay with that hospital and not leave to become a traveler. And its also to recruit new staff. When we have staff satisfaction, we know that were going to be able to increase staff retention and also bring on additional staff.
