Lack of Job Flexibility in the Hospital

[NBTH]

How many times have we all heard personal stories of a struggle related to "burnout", working through an illness or injury, or sacrificing family need/s just to avoid a loss of income or benefits?

New options exist TODAY that would enable the ability to work from the comfort of home in pajamas, AND preserve being able to keep your hospital job pay and health benefits while achieving personal goals like : staying home to raise a family, recover from an injury or illness, flex your schedule, semi-retire and travel, etc.

It is possible, and these options are coming to certain progressive thinking hospitals in 2018. Generally speaking, I'd love to hear stories of how this type of job flexibility may have had a positive effect within times of your own career or that of a colleague....

BACKGROUND: The reasons behind these options not existing reflect the hospital industry's failure to evolve at the same pace of available technology and existing payment models that support remote patient monitoring and guidance. Some of the 'hurdles' require changes in thinking at the HR level where many policies and procedures fundamentally have changed very little for decades - with the exception of a focus on compliance.

GOOD NEWS FOR THE BAD NEWS: (for the Hospital Industry)

Bad news, this week - "Moody's" just downgraded their opinion of a huge segment of the hospital industry. Moody's is a reliable source of opinion that many banks rely on when making decisions about lending and this downgrade will not be good and will likely translate in making it more expensive for hospitals to operate and meet their cash needs.

A lack of options is not just an isolated issue effecting 'an' employee. Patient care has a 'customer experience' element directly related to judgements being cast from patients onto attending nurse attitude, responsiveness, and personal qualities. And, its not always easy to be ones best if you are feeling sick, feeling burned out, working within a department that is understaffed, or full of temporary help that don't have their hearts or dept familiarity to carry their weight. Like it or not, patient satisfaction scores are pretty high on the list when it comes to judging a hospital and its leadership...but the lack of flexibility forces most hospitals to overwork their existing resources.

Good news, by offering new elective job offerings as an extension to existing roles - this also brings in substantial new revenue for the hospitals! Most of us know that for years hospitals have been focused on cost cutting, but the 'holy grail' quest for financial salvation must come from new revenue ...as cost cutting only extends survival, and does not pave a path toward future prosperity.

Being able to cycle schedules and responsibilities via expanding roles without loosing hospital revenue, opens up in-budgeted FTE's on a department basis and permits more hiring to occur. More nurses in a deptartment, all flexing between home and floor times ...means a generally more happy work force with patients experiencing interacttion within better staffed departments full of more engaged nurses that have more individual choice in flexing their direct patient care schedules.

Summary:

The timeline is good for both the hospital and the nurse employee to collaborate on changes that bring win-win solutions...as troubled times tend to birth more acceptance toward innovative strategies. This united crossroad in thinking between managment and worker will likely be enough to compell HR and Senior Adminstrators to embrace change and consider adding a new value to the hometown patient community that they serve.

Share your thoughts and experiences, how would having more job flexibility and work from home options have changed experiences in your career or other nurses that you know?

Influencing the thinking of current management starts here with the sharing of your thoughts!

[riverlands]

What kind of new elective job offering would bring in new revenue for the hospital? It's basically fee for service or per procedure or per day / per stay room charge that the hospital makes money on now, right? How does adding a remote , not at the facility job position make revenue for the facility? Healthcare is a business, hospitals make money off of their workers for the services we provide. If our working conditions are dissatisfying then in my opinion nurses need strong unionization at the national level and a straightforward bottom line for staffing and working conditions covering all facility types where nurses are employed. There are billions of dollars being made in healthcare. We need to force the healthcare industry to reinvest those profits in ourselves through the application of our collective strength as a profession.

[dirtyhippiegirl, BSN, RN]

Ahhhh. Proofreading is your friend.