Bruce Baron

 

April is Stress Awareness Month. High standards of care, long hours and constantly changing situations lead to high stress levels at eldercare providers. Chronic stress in the workplace can impact employee performance, employee turnover and ultimately the P and L for the eldercare provider. 

Additionally, a recent National Institute of Health study, titled Nurse staffing, burnout and health care- associated infection, made the case that stress and burnout have negative consequences in the care of patients – in this case – leading to a higher incidence of infections in acute care facilities.

Eldercare providers have an incentive to reduce employees stress levels, especially when they look at burnout and turnover.

An accomplished director of nursing recently told me that finding replacement staff to cover for staff call-outs is a key contributor to stress at her community. These calls can come at any time day or night. She told me that she and her scheduler can spend hours finding coverage for a staff call-out and invariably often end up giving the shift to someone on overtime. This causes further anxiety when the executive director reviews the weekly expense reports.

There are easy-to-use technology solutions that can reduce the burden of staff call-outs. Many eldercare providers are reaping the benefits of implementing these solutions. As a result, they are driving down the time to find replacement staff from hours to minutes, reducing overtime expenses and eliminating a potential stressful situation.

April is a good time to take stock of your workplace stress levels and take actions to reduce those levels.  And according to the NIH, it could lead to healthier seniors at your community.

 

Bruce Baron is CEO of VoiceFriend. He can be reached at [email protected]. Contact VoiceFriend at 781-996-3123 or email us at [email protected].