Saving staff time through technology

The staffing crisis is not news to long term care community leaders, yet the situation continues to worsen, according to McKnight’s Senior Living, nursing and residential care facilities lost 38,000 jobs in September. Vaccine mandates, better pay and better working conditions elsewhere have accelerated the staffing challenge in long term care.  Technology can improve working conditions and allow staff to “do more with less” by streamlining or eliminating non-care activities.  Leading long term care provider EmpRes recently conducted a controlled study evaluating the impact of How’s Mom on staff activity and saw annualized savings of $300k+ per facility in non-care-related activity time.

Long-Term-Care staffing crisis won’t end soon

Approximately 4% of direct care workers were displaced during the second quarter of 2020. A year later, few had returned to direct care, according to a new study by PHI and the Health Workforce Research Center on Long-Term Care at the University of California, San Francisco.

Recruitment and retention are major challenges in senior living and care across the board. According to PHI, long-term care employers will need to fill 7.4 million job openings in direct care from 2019 to 2029, including 1.3 million new jobs to meet rising demand and another 6.1 million job openings to replace workers who leave the labor force or transfer to new occupations.

EmpRes saves significant staff time with How's Mom

Long-Term-Care staffing crisis won’t end soon

Leading long term care provider EmpRes recently conducted a 6-month controlled study comparing labor costs for family communication in 24 facilities.  12 facilities relied on phone calls to communicate outbreaks or other important facility information to family members.  The other 12 used How’s Mom to automate communication and progress note creation.

The results were staggering.  How’s Mom cut phone calls with family members by 95%, reduced the time per call from 14 minutes to 4 minutes. Thanks to How’s Mom, EmpRes saved 55 hours per month per facility in staff time – a financial benefit of nearly $3,000/month/facility.  “That represents time that could be spent providing better care, preventing a fall or a re-hospitalization,” noted EmpRes’s TK King.  Staff members embraced the technology, too.  In a post-test survey, staff members even said, “If you take this away, I’ll pay for it out of my own pocket.”  As a result of the test, EmpRes will be rolling out How’s Mom to all 60 facilities.

Start addressing the staffing crisis

The Long-Term-Care staffing crisis is devastating communities around the country and it’s here to stay.  Tech can help save staff time and reduce the impact of staffing crisis.  How’s Mom has demonstrated the ability to save thousands of hours and dollars in staff time.  Contact us today to learn how it can help you gain back precious staff time.