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- January 12, 2023
Dossier + ASHP Launch Only Pharmacy Technician Training Program
PharmTech Ready helps prepare technician workforce, top priority for pharmacy leaders nationwide
Palo Alto, California, January 12, 2023 – To prepare those interested in a pharmacy career, Dossier, a digital competency platform, and the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) collaborated and have launched PharmTech ReadySM, a pharmacy technician training program.
PharmTech Ready, provides learners with:
- More than 160 hours of entry- and advanced-level content
- More than 70 topics
- Didactic learning requirements and supplemental materials to support all aspects of a technician training program
- Access to exclusive ASHP continuing education, tools, and resources
- Alignment with PTAC accreditation requirements and the ASHP/ACPE Model Curriculum for a Technician Training Program
“PharmTech Ready offers learners access to ASHP’s unparalleled educational content on Dossier’s cutting-edge platform,” said Daniel J. Cobaugh, PharmD, FAACT, DABAT, vice president of publishing at ASHP and editor-in-chief of AJHP. “ASHP is pleased to have launched this comprehensive training solution as part of our longstanding commitment to the recruitment, training, advancement, and retention of pharmacy technicians as we support their essential roles on the healthcare team.”
PharmTech Ready uses the Dossier platform, providing users with a great learning experience and easy, dashboard reporting.
“We’ve been collaborating with ASHP on several initiatives now, and we’re thrilled to be able to develop a resource that meets a critical need in the pharmacy space,” said Roger Lee, COO – U.S., Dossier.
ASHP has 80 years of experience developing and implementing world-class education, content, and practice resources for the pharmacy workforce. This unique position enabled their staff and member to collaborate, marrying excellence in content development capabilities with real-world practice perspectives. For more information about PharmTech Ready, visit ashp.org/pharmtech-ready.
About Dossier
Dossier offers a healthcare competency management platform that provides full visibility and real-time reporting by individual, department, facility, or enterprise. With Dossier, competency plans can be created, updated, and assigned within clicks – giving your team more time, for themselves, for training, and for patients. Healthcare organizations embarking on digital transformations rely on Dossier’s platform to help maximize their return on investment (ROI) from their learning assets because it provides visibility into course completion.
About ASHP
ASHP is the collective voice of pharmacists who serve as patient care providers in hospitals, health systems, ambulatory clinics, and other healthcare settings spanning the full spectrum of medication use. The organization’s more than 60,000 members include pharmacists, student pharmacists, and pharmacy technicians. For 80 years, ASHP has been at the forefront of efforts to improve medication use and enhance patient safety.
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- January 12, 2023
Competency: Is it the Wonder ‘Drug’?
Management Matters
Palo Alto, California, January 12, 2023 – Geir Arnhoff, CEO and co-founder of Dossier, Bari Berger and Iris Meyenburg-Altwarg, managing director at Com-P-Tense Germany GmbH, address the value of competency in modern healthcare. The two-part article explores the link between healthcare professionals’ burnout, morale, and competence level. It considers competence level as the key to improving the quality of care and decreasing staff turnover.
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I am fortunate to meet and work with some really smart and admirable healthcare executives. I recently had the opportunity to speak with one such individual – someone I consider to be very strategic and forward-thinking. We discussed the outlook for 2023. Her priorities and outlook align very well with what we also see at Dossier and with our customers.
There is no doubt that there is a shift occurring in healthcare.
But what are we shifting to?
During the pandemic, we began speaking about ‘the new normal.’ It turned out that the new normal is everything but normal. We’re facing a shifting macro economy, global staff shortages in healthcare, budget constraints, a tripledemic (RSV, flu and COVID – at least for a while) to name just a few of our current obstacles.
The Biggest Healthcare Challenge in 2023
How do we respond and stay agile while learning, improving and staying one step ahead?
Here are four key takeaways from our conversation that I think could be the baseline strategy for a lot of organizations over the next year. If executed properly, they can help combat soaring costs, ease resource pressures and help you better navigate the uncharted waters of the new normal.
Shared Insights: Four Priorities for Organizational Success in Healthcare
- Put quality of care and patient safety as priority number one. That sounds easy, but it means empowering employees to master their professions by having the confidence, focus, and capabilities they need. Now more than ever, leaders need to nurture their teams by being supportive and encouraging focus. 2023 will be the year of core business, removing hurdles, and giving team members the autonomy to focus.
- Digitize at a faster pace so teams can maximize their resources. While digital transformations are occurring in healthcare, the pace at which these transformations are happening needs to escalate. Team members need to modernize how they work, and they can’t do that without digital tools. Everything from virtual care to removing papers and cutting corners by reusing data has accelerated to a speed we never thought possible in the healthcare industry. We cannot slow down. These technology investments need to continue. Incremental improvements have proven to be superior to large-scale tech projects. Organizations need to maintain efforts to modernize their healthcare organizations. Breaking down digital projects into sprints and measuring the ROI of those can be helpful.
- Maximize the value of the tools currently available. We hear a lot of hospitals having thousands of different systems. These system investments can – and should – be maximized. At Dossier, many of our customers have a lot of great systems and resources for learning and professional development. Let 2023 be the year we connect systems to maximize the use and ROI of digital portfolios.
- Celebrate and share successes! All organizations have success stories. Improvements have been made, teams are working smarter – helping the organization move forward. All these activities yield positive outcomes. Those stories should be shared – put them in the spotlight. Doing so is the most cost-effective, fastest, and most powerful way to demonstrate to your staff that you are willing to invest in their needs. It boosts morale, which helps you build a strong team in a challenging time!
Bring it on, 2023! We are ready!
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How technology is reshaping the clinical pathway and redefining the patient experience
The pandemic continues to add pressure to healthcare organizations across the U.S. From increased pricing for drugs and equipment to recruitment challenges to the great resignation, healthcare CFOs, HR and quality managers, and department directors are left wondering if there is an end in sight. Sadly, it may get worse before it gets better.
According to a May 11, 2022 report from McKinsey , the U.S. could see a deficit of 200,000 to 450,000 registered nurses available for direct patient care by 2025 if there are no changes in current care delivery models.
To put that into perspective, McKinsey estimates that for every 1 percent of nurses who leave direct patient care, the shortage worsens by about 30,000 nurses. The impact this will have on care delivery and the patient experience is concerning, especially when considering the aging population.
By 2030, 71 million Americans (about 20% of the U.S. population) will be 65+, a demographic known to have complex health problems, chronic illnesses, and disabilities. If things don’t change in the U.S. healthcare system, there will be more patients than nurses to care for them.
Aggressive international recruiting brings with it its own set of concerns and challenges. It’s a short-term fix to a long-term problem.
While filling the nurse pipeline is one solution, it takes three to four years to train a nurse. The U.S. would need to double the number of new graduates entering and staying in nursing every year for the next three years. The challenge is there aren’t enough nursing programs and educators to handle the influx. An analysis of graduating nurses shows the decline – dropping from an increase of 4 percent in 2019 to only 1 percent in 2020, far short of what’s needed to support our healthcare system.
And that’s just part of the healthcare crisis problem.
The Financial Impact of COVID on Healthcare Organizations
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there have been more than 97 million COVID-19 cases, 1.06 million deaths, and more than 21 million hospitalizations in the U.S. This has placed an enormous strain on healthcare workers. When combined with rising costs for medications, equipment, etc., these numbers have resulted in billions in lost revenue.
More than 33% of hospitals are operating on negative margins, according to the American Hospital Association.
Many can’t get the nursing staff needed to increase surgeries and cover the budget shortfall. Typically, when there is a staffing shortage, the budget used not paying salaries can be reallocated for increased costs; however, hospitals were paying travel nurses to help address the staffing shortfall.
In 2019, hospitals spent a median of 4.7 percent of their total nurse labor expense for contract travel nurses. That number skyrocketed to 38.6 percent (median) in January 2022. Contract labor rates skyrocketed 213 percent compared to pre-pandemic levels. Medical supplies and drug expenses were up 20.6 and 36.9 percent, respectively.
When considering the financial impact these factors have had on healthcare organizations, it becomes clear that adding headcount isn’t going to fix the problem.
Solutions for the Healthcare Crisis
Digital Transformation
Digital transformation in healthcare translates to the ability to serve patients better digitally. It means adopting technologies to improve workflows, efficiency, and patient care. One area that could easily be improved involves shifting from paper-based competency management (for orientation packets, skills check-offs, and annual mandatories to name a few) to a digital competency management platform.
Only 20 percent of what staff needs to know is captured in learning management systems. The other 80 percent is competencies – knowledge, skills, judgment, and behaviors. Information that is critical to their roles, but currently captured on paper and stored in three-ring binders. This paper-based approach creates enormous waste and inefficiencies, further draining healthcare resources.
Antiquated Processes Hemorrhage Resources
Consider the waste in paper-based competency management:
- Wasted time
- Chasing papers and/or redoing lost paperwork
- Updating competency plans for individuals, departments and facilities, and the time spent printing out plan changes and updating binders – hours upon hours of time when hundreds of staff are involved
- Cost of paper, binders, storage areas
- Duplication of competencies from one department to another because of the lack of visibility
- Inability for those onboarding or going through training to easily and clearly see where they are in the process, what’s required of them, etc.
In the current paper-based competency management environment, when changes are needed, time is spent going into each individual’s plan, making changes, printing the changes, finding the staff member, finding the person’s binder, switching out the plans, putting the binder back, etc. When you multiply the time spent doing this by the number of staff members involved, the need to go digital becomes clear.
The Care Team of the Future
To improve patient outcomes by delivering better quality and focusing on safety, schedulers need to know and be able to track that team members have the skills, knowledge, judgment, and behaviors required for what’s expected of them. And they need that information at their fingertips – not spread across a hospital in lockers, on desks, and in storage rooms.
When plans are digital:
- Plans are created and pushed to appropriate staff in minutes
- Updates happen with a few clicks
- Reminders are easily sent to those falling behind
- Reports for regulatory agencies occur in real time
If you are ready for the next step, request a 15-minute meeting.
- Wasted time
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Paper-based competency management is a drain on healthcare organizational resources. Papers get misplaced. Plan updates are time-consuming. Staff, who are already overworked, are taking paperwork home with them to make updates – making their long workdays longer. The waste of valuable resources – time, money, and talent – contributes to the enormous burdens already felt by overworked care teams.
Modern healthcare organizations are undergoing digital transformations, the timing of which is greatly beneficial to those on the front lines of healthcare. While technology holds great promise to improve operational efficiencies, in turn improving staff satisfaction and retention, heavily manual processes need to be taken into consideration and prioritized.
Digitizing Competency Plans Should Not Be Overlooked
Antiquated processes and systems can be viewed as a way of doing business, but in a digital age, it’s important for healthcare executives to understand where resource waste occurs. Currently, managing orientation packets, skills check-offs, and annual mandatories, for example, are paper-based, creating a drain on healthcare organization resources – paper, binders, storage space, and, most important, staff time. Updates are time-consuming and create more waste.
As healthcare organizations assess their digital needs, one area to prioritize is competency management. Digitizing competency plans means record updates can be made at the point of care – making data immediately available. Reports, either for departments or regulatory agencies, can be run in real time with just a few clicks.
Benefits of Digital Competency Management Software
While the benefits of digitizing competencies extend to healthcare executives and leadership teams, it’s the platform users who benefit the most. Here are six ways nurse educators benefit from shifting from paper-based competency management to digital.
- Standardize onboarding with clearly defined roles and expectations
Great onboarding is well structured and engaging, which drives job satisfaction. With a digital platform, everyone gains visibility and understands what’s expected of them. Defining scope of practice eliminates ambiguity, resulting in more efficient, productive, and effective training. - Empower those onboarding to own their part of the process
Nurse educators and those onboarding see – in real time – the progress being made and understand what’s needed from them. This dramatically reduces the time nurse educators spend managing and monitoring progress. - More time for training and patients
No more chasing paper or binders. Eliminating the paper chase means more time for training, patients, and self-care. - Real-time reports
Whether reports are needed to manage the onboarding process, monitor staff progress or needed for regulatory agencies, cloud-based, real-time data means reports can be run with just a few clicks by anyone at any time. - More time for themselves
Nursing shortages have left many nurses feeling overworked and overwhelmed. Since digitizing competencies allows for real-time updates, it eliminates the need to bring paperwork home at the end of the shift. Giving nurse educators better work/life balance while giving them more time for training and patients improves job satisfaction. - Better manage version control
The frustrations that come with version control from paper-based competencies are eliminated when orientation packets, skills check-offs, and annual modalities are managed digitally.
Make Onboarding and Nurse Training Better with Digitized Competency Plans
In an age when staff shortages, especially among nurses, are on the rise, obtaining and retaining talent is critical. Onboarding becomes significantly easier for all involved when competency plans are digitized. Request a 15-minute meeting with Dossier to learn more about our cloud-based competency management software and how it can help improve your onboarding and training process.
- Standardize onboarding with clearly defined roles and expectations
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Healthcare organization leaders are under enormous pressure to get their institutions operating in the black. Rising costs, staffing shortages, cybersecurity threats, and growing attrition rates are among their leading challenges. While faced with all this, healthcare workers must maintain an unwavering focus on the quality of care and meet the ever-changing demands of regulatory agencies. As healthcare executives invest in digital transformations to help combat some of these urgent priorities, Dossier’s competency management platform offers departments, facilities, and health systems the opportunity to modernize competency management by moving it to the cloud, which improves efficiencies, eliminates waste and strengthens job satisfaction. Our evidence-based ROI calculator demonstrates more than $1M savings for a 1,000-employee nursing department, which means more nurses seeing patients and significantly more confident staff.
90% of nurses who participated in a recent HealthITNews survey said they are considering leaving the profession within the next year.
Managers and directors greatly benefit from the transition to cloud-based competency management. Not only does the shift help to combat waste – no more papers, binders, or storage space, but managers and directors gain reassurance in their care teams. The training compliance is up to date and visible at any time, either for a Joint Commission survey or staffing and forecasting purposes.
Get Control of Healthcare Resource Drains
Dossier digitizes competencies to help healthcare organizations better control their resources – time, money, and talent. Immediate benefits include eliminating competency plan redundancies, paper, binders, and storage space.
It sits on top of learning management systems – providing complete visibility so managers and directors can report on learner progress. In-system reminders allow managers and directors to nudge those falling behind. Having access to this level of data in real-time means leadership can ensure the right team is scheduled for every patient. Why? Because about 20% of what staff need to know is captured in the learning management system. The other 80% of what staff need to know pertains to competence – demonstrating the knowledge, judgment, behaviors and skills – for the roles they perform.
The outcome: better patient care
Shifting from Paper to the Cloud
Along with better patient care, the benefits of digital competency management afforded to managers and directors include:
- A boost in confidence among care team members because they know they are current on training and competencies.
- Digitizing competencies is key to strategic and operational resource management, retention, utilization, and forecasting.
- Aligns all learning and development sources for strategic priorities with visibility into progress.
- Boosts the value of digital learning investments through standardization and increased use.
- Makes educators and subject matter experts more efficient contributors by enhancing an interface into the full learning and development ecosystem.
- Increases job satisfaction, confidence and retention among staff.
- Increases patient safety and quality.
- With Dossier, you gain the benefit of having one tool to create, assign, update and monitor all competency requirements – be they organizational, departmental or regulatory.
- Competency plan version control – never have issues again.
- A competency tracker that makes it easy to run and deliver reports to regulatory agencies.
"Game Changer!"
What do you like best about Dossier- Digital Competency Management?
Well, first, everything I do now is paper, and this program has taken that paper and almost fully automated it. Secondly, a dedicated team is setting up our facility/department-specific portfolio.
What do you dislike about Dossier- Digital Competency Management?
There is nothing that I dislike about this program/platform so far.
What problems is Dossier- Digital Competency Management solving and how is that benefiting you?
Dossier is giving me the ability to manage competencies in real-time and make them meaningful.
G2 Dossier ReviewRegulatory Reporting Has Never Been Easier
Survey Day can be stressful, and with paper-based competency management, it’s easy to understand why. The amount of time chasing people and papers is inefficient and ineffective. The margin of error is astronomical for paper-based processes, and it’s not hard to understand why. Papers get lost, shoved in bags, left in lockers, passed around, misplaced and taken home.
Learn more about our compliance audit tool.
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On the Brink of a ‘Tripledemic’ and a Plan to Support Healthcare Workers
The New York Times recently ran an article highlighting concerns about increasing cases of COVID-19, the flu, and RSV and the strain they’re putting on pediatric hospitals. COVID cases are rising, and the flu season is starting earlier than usual.
The cases of children infected with RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), a common respiratory virus that usually causes mild, cold-like symptoms, but can be serious in children and older adults, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indices, are on the rise. Hospitals across the U.S. are drowning in RSV pediatric cases, as stated by NBC News reporter Aria Bendix in an Oct. 14, 2022, article.
Bendix also reports that California, Illinois, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Rhode Island are reporting pediatric hospital bed capacity is strained due to the influx of RSV patients. It has us all questioning: Is our healthcare system on the brink of collapse?
Steven Ross Johnson, a U.S. News reporter, states in a July 28, 2022, article that these challenges are exacerbated amid ongoing reports of staffing shortages choking the U.S. healthcare system. In fact, Johnson lists the shortage of healthcare workers as the nation’s “top patient safety concern.”
Let’s not forget the portions of our population that are most likely to get the flu are children and those 65 and older. With more than 46 million people living in the U.S. over age 65, the concerns and need to support healthcare workers have become increasingly evident.
A Plan to Support Healthcare Workers This Winter
While there isn’t a magic cure to the problem, there are opportunities to ease pressures and improve operations to help healthcare workers work efficiently and get access to the information they need.
Technologies, such as Dossier’s competency management software, can:
- Provide competency plan updates, skills check-offs, orientation packets, and annual mandatories to staff quickly
- Equip schedulers with the knowledge they need to ensure the right team with the right skills is assigned to every patient
- Reassure managers and directors (who are managing hundreds and sometimes thousands of staff) that their team has the skills, knowledge, judgment, and behaviors for the tasks at hand
- Allow staff to free up time because they can work more efficiently – giving healthcare workers more time for training, patients, and themselves
These elements are critical for maintaining quality and patient safety. Because when patient admittance soars and teams are overworked and overwhelmed, burnout sets in, and mistakes happen. Dr. David Weill, a USA Today contributor, reports in his Oct. 24, 2022, article that nurses are already sounding alarms over their concerns for patient safety.
We need to ensure that as we enter this Winter season and face a potential ‘tripledemic,’ we are equipping healthcare teams with tools that will help them, not hinder them.
Conclusion
The hits to healthcare workers and public health just keep coming. While in an ideal situation, hospitals would be able to hire more staff, that isn’t possible. The talent pool needed for that just doesn’t exist.
We have to consider other, sustainable options – ones that help healthcare workers, department heads, and hospital administration. Technology advancements and digital transformations are already occurring in hospitals, but tools that immediately benefit those delivering care, especially when it comes to competency management, aren’t being prioritized.
It’s time to make the shift to digital competency management. The risks to quality and patient safety are just too great. Implementation for tools takes weeks – not months or years and the benefits to all are immediate.
If you are interested in speaking with the Dossier team, we’re ready and available to help.
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Throughout the pandemic many healthcare professionals have expanded work functions and taken responsibility for new tasks. This role expansion put a spotlight on the need for digital tools that help staff quickly and efficiently convey information and guidelines to large numbers of employees.
We recently spoke with Eddy Mikkelsen, advisor in the Department for Subjects and Education. Ms. Mikkelsen manages the Dossier competence portal at Haukeland University Hospital in Bergen. We discussed how Haukeland University Hospital has used Dossier during the pandemic.
“Competence plans help us get things in order. We all know what is needed, and if staff need to be relocated, we have requirements for competence and competence plans, which they must implement before they can be included in the operation,” Mikkelsen said.
At the request of the clinical professional environment and the top management at Haukeland University Hospital, Mikkelsen and her colleagues prepared several new COVID-19 focused competency plans, including plans that cover undressing and dressing, as well as guidelines for patient cleaning and hygiene.
Efficient Collaboration
The Department of Subjects and Education worked closely with the e-learning team and produced short videos about the use of CPAP and respirators. This content was then distributed via Dossier’s competency platform, which pushed information to the right groups quickly and allowed for easy follow up on implementation status and competency progress.
“It is an advantage that employees know what is expected of them at all times. This means that both managers and employees have good insight into competence requirements. It benefits us all,” Mikkelsen said.
“We use competency plans to ensure employees are current on competency and in possession of the right competencies at the right times and places. In addition, we freed up a lot of time by avoiding manual review, updates and follow up. Employees automatically receive a notification when a competence requirement expires, and we have much better oversight.”
When COVID-19 entered Norway, having Dossier in place proved to be a great advantage as staff were already familiar with structured competence management, and thus, also with effective procedures for competence development and quality assurance.
“Everything has gone a little faster, and the need for new competence plans has been great. Fortunately, we work closely with those responsible for infection prevention, with directors and with those who have the professional responsibility for content. When we had to push plans for undressing and dressing throughout Helse Bergen and Haukeland, we used Dossier’s platform to immediately push those updates to 16,000 employees and students,” Mikkelsen said.
Easier Implementation
Today, Dossier is used by most of Norway’s healthcare system, as well as in Region Zealand in Denmark and Region Skaane in Sweden. Haukeland University Hospital in Bergen has been a pioneer in competence management. They were some of the first to use Dossier in 2014 when Dossier launched its new technology targeting healthcare competence management. The project was developed in collaboration with Norway, Dossier and Eddy Mikkelsen, as well as the Department for Subjects and Education at Haukeland Hospital.
The digital competency solution replaces many manual processes in a sector where there is a great need for training and competencies to be updated frequently. And during a time when complexity and documentation requirements have increased going digital makes sense and minimizes opportunities for error.
For many years, managing employee competence has been in physical and electronic folders, where it has been difficult to get a comprehensive look at competencies and competency gaps. With Dossier’s competence solution, competence development and certification can be managed and followed up within the digital competence portal, providing both managers and employees with an overview.
Overall Impact
When exploring the healthcare sector as a market opportunity, the team agreed there needed to be a strong focus on change management, especially in relation to getting employees and managers to see the usefulness of digital competence management.
One approach to address concerns was to share stories about how shifting from paper to digital would improve efficiency and staff job satisfaction. As a result, those metrics were monitored.
The Dossier team knew they needed to select committed, ambitious partners, so they intentionally sought health systems with numerous competence requirements and documentation (e.g. in relation to introductory programs and medical equipment).
The collaboration with Helse Vest resulted in a powerful, robust platform that meets the needs of healthcare systems around the world. When you join the staff at Helse Vest today, you are automatically assigned a competency plan, which includes competency plans for hygiene, information security, fire and rescue, and first aid. The plan is valid for one to two years, and employees are notified by the Dossier system when plans expire.
To verify critical competence, digital signatures from skill assessments, return demonstrations and preceptor-based training sessions were crucial to gather evidence that satisfied regulatory requirements from auditing authorities.
In Conclusion
The COVID-19 crisis provided Mikkelsen with new opportunities for the competency portal, “Users are more positive. We have worked systematically since the beginning, and we were able to stay one step ahead during the pandemic. Some of the doctors have previously been difficult to motivate due to busy lives, but they quickly saw the benefits of working with digital competency plans. Those who previously had reservations, now see the value.”
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A CFO asks a CEO: “What happens if we invest in developing our people and then they leave us?”
The CEO responds: “What happens if we do not and they stay?”
We are often asked, “What is competence and how do leading organizations develop it?” The answer is dependent on the organization and the situation. Competence occurs when people demonstrate expertise in their roles. Competence development, then, is the ongoing assessment and improvement of the knowledge, skills, judgement and behaviors that roles require to build and sustain expertise. For organizations to excel, leaders must be strategic in their approaches to competence development, as it is essential for continuous improvement.
Defining Competence Requirements
The strain of the pandemic has been felt at both the individual and organizational level. Many executives have used the pandemic as an opportunity to identify and close competence gaps. Evaluating employees, tasks, behaviors, processes, etc. to create standards for competence and, then, identifying individual performance gaps helps to ensure the organization and staff are on the path to excellence. This requires executives to view professional development as an investment in the organization’s future.
An organization’s competence plan should be operational and not so overarching that it only becomes words without real content. The plan should define the guidelines necessary to to mobilize, further develop, or acquire competencies. It should also be operationalized through an action plan with specific activities and an implementation timeline.
Building a Competence Strategy: Your Path to Organizational Standardization
Standardizing competence helps organizations, especially those in healthcare, ensure the right people have the right skills for the tasks they are responsible for. While industry standardization is the goal, organizations can standardize competence to ensure staff knowledge while identifying and closing performance gaps. Staff appreciate the investment in professional development, which helps to boost morale. As well, organizations are rewarded with higher-quality performance.
The competence strategy, established at the organizational level, defines the vision. When creating a competence strategy, a good starting point is for executives to answer the following:
- What risks are the organization exposed to if there isn’t a focus on competence? Starting with this question helps executives come to consensus about the value of this investment – allowing them to stay the course when budget constraints are needed.
- What trends will affect the business?
- Who will place higher demands on competence and what will that look like? I.e., healthcare experiencing higher expectations for delivery of care or changes in care models that affect delivery of care
- What goals do we want to achieve in the next three to five years?
- What competencies will the organization need to achieve these goals?
In addition to building the competence strategy, executives should also assess the environment and capture anything (internal or external) that could influence competence development and desired outcomes. This level of scenario planning can help identify budget needs and help ensure the company is adequately prepared for possible disruptions. This critical step helps to identify opportunities for changes and ongoing improvement. It may be necessary to document re-evaluation periods, times when changes to plans may be needed at the strategic level based on changes to the environment.
Establishing a clear vision for organizational competence is only part of the strategy and should be included with other goal and management documents.
From Strategy To Measurable Action Plans
Once the organization has clearly defined its vision for competence, it’s time to assess performance against that vision. Identifying gaps is a critical step in developing the action plan and a timeline for measuring improvement. Once gaps are identified, competence development can occur. Competence plans are built, implemented and monitored at various levels within the organization.
Competence development takes place in many different forms, from comprehensive formal education to more informal side-by-side instruction. Plans should use a blended learning method.
In some cases, all employees may need to be trained when, for example, an organization introduces new digital systems. In other cases, a select few may need new skills in connection with the work they perform. The starting point for prioritization should be the organization’s current situation, then future needs.
Competence development is an essential investment by the organization and needs to be viewed as such by leadership. Just as upgrading technology is regarded as an organizational priority, competence development should be, too.
Once the training needs for staff have been identified, a budget should be built. Protecting the budget from being reduced or removed, especially during recessions, is highly recommended.
When operationally mapping which competencies should be developed, involve key people in the organization in workshops designed to discuss current issues and scenarios. To be sure you have come up with the most relevant competencies, have discussions with individuals at different levels and within different departments. Systematically review each work area, department and facility. Assess instructions, procedures and requirements for the different roles. Then you can use goal and development interviews as a basis for preparing and updating competence profiles for each individual employee.
- Assess how critical or vulnerable the various competencies are (critical competence = difficult to replace by external recruitment. Vulnerable competence = important competence that only one or a few in the organization have.)
- Focus on identifying hidden competence. Tacit knowledge is often found in the performance of an activity.
The next step is to document and educate staff about the expectations and their competency plans. Be clear about the measurable outcomes of demonstrating competence. Each action plan should be as specific as possible, but not so extensive that staff get stuck. Plans should contain the following:
- An overview of who will implement which measures
- A schedule for the activities
- Cost estimate
- Information about who is responsible for following up
Competence development should always be adapted to the organization’s ambition level and access to resources. The goal should be to make your plan thorough, but simple. Good luck in your work with strategic competence development!
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The Great Resignation is a sad and sobering reality and one we will likely be dealing with for years to come. Our healthcare system has been hit particularly hard. While the U.S experienced nursing shortages prior to the beginning of the pandemic in 2019, they were exacerbated when the pandemic hit. In the U.S., about 1 in 5 healthcare workers have left their jobs since the pandemic began. With the pandemic entering its third year, questions continue about the stability of our healthcare system when frontline workers are experiencing extreme burnout.
Nearly 400,000 healthcare workers have left their jobs since the start of the pandemic, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In January 2022, hospitals in 18 states reported critical staff shortages, including Kentucky. 60 Minutes recently shared a segment highlighting the challenges felt by three hospital CEOs in Kentucky, which was cause for concern. Is our healthcare system teetering on the brink of collapse? It could be if actions aren’t taken to address frontline worker recruitment and retention.
In a recent survey by the American College of Healthcare Executives, hospital CEOs ranked personnel shortages among their leading concerns, outpacing financial challenges for the first time since 2004. Overwhelmed clinical AND non-clinical staff are leaving for better pay, more benefits, and less stress. In light of this, hospital executives are forced to make retention and recruitment their top priorities.
How To Increase Employee Retention in Healthcare
Healthcare workers chose to work in healthcare because of their passion to help others. They are continuously learning and growing so they can provide better care to patients. With the staff shortage, these essential workers are left with just enough time to put out fires. They don’t have the luxury to spend the time they want with patients. They don’t have the luxury to spend time looking after themselves. They are overwhelmed, overworked, and burned out.
How are hospital executives trying to solve this? Becker’s Healthcare interviewed 22 executives asking what changes are needed to improve retention.
To no surprise, mental health and wellness was cited as one of the most important factors to reduce and manage burnout. A strategy could be as simple as an executive walking the halls and wards thanking the staff. This is effective in a crisis (such as the pandemic) but is not sustainable or scalable. Hospitals should also look for simple-to-implement, innovative methods to help staff free up time, and allow them to take that critical mental break.
Focus on Healthcare Employee Engagement
Another critical and effective strategy to improve retention is staff engagement. During times of high-stress, it’s easy to lose sight of one’s sense of purpose and deprioritize individual growth. Hospital executives can help staff keep purpose and growth top of mind.
An effective onboarding process helps to set employees up for success — helping new hires acclimate to the culture of the hospital should be part of the onboarding process. Hospital executives that include recognition and professional growth as part of staff orientation can help to keep staff engaged — which affects retention through job satisfaction. In a recent Becker’s Healthcare article, two statements, in particular, support this need for staff engagement as a retention strategy:
“Providing managers and leaders with tools through focused education and training is imperative to a successful engagement culture.”
Paula Pritzl
Director of Employee Relations
Marshfield Clinic Health System“In addition to all our efforts and successes in retaining what staff we have, we will have to continue to recruit new healthcare workers.”
Scott Dimmick
Chief Human Resources Officer
Lakeland Regional HealthThe Importance of Career Advancement
For existing employees, gaining new knowledge through upskilling and career laddering helps them feel valued by the organization and reinforces that their careers are moving forward. Staff feel valued by their organizations when they experience professional growth and career advancement. And that translates to increased job satisfaction.
Culture Change in Healthcare
Millennials are now the largest generation in the workforce. They value diversity, equality, empowerment, involvement (a respected voice in what is going on), flexibility (real flexibility, not just bid shifts), formal professional development with planned (guaranteed) career advancement, all things technology and mobile, and organic cultures with much less structure. Hospital cultures need to evolve with the wants and needs of this modern workforce. Hospital executives can support that evolution by focusing on these values and incorporating them into the organization’s culture.
Ways To Improve Employee Satisfaction and Retention
As an industry, our goal should first be to help our current workforce regain their personal time and focus on their wellness. This will help to address burnout and increase attrition. Then, focus on professional growth. Career advancement is important; it helps establish value between employer and employee. We also need to look for new, creative ways to onboard and train new staff so we can easily and quickly ensure their competence and continue to deliver high-quality patient care.
In Conclusion
Through the heroic efforts of our healthcare leaders, clinicians and other essential workers, we have kept up with the demands placed on healthcare—in many cases, just barely. But this is not sustainable unless things change. Healthcare is feeling the pressures of digital transformation. Historically, it’s been slow to invest and evolve. But now, we are at an inflection point. We MUST embrace technology if we are to sustain the level of healthcare quality and safety that is expected today.
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