Solving workforce retention and burnout Issues in Long-Term Care

Empowering families with self-serve resources to reduce low-value staff interactions

Stress and burnout among long-term care staff

Although many long-term care workers are highly committed to their work and derive satisfaction from it, research has extensively documented the many difficulties of the job. Repetitive administrative tasks and time-consuming, but non-care-related family requests take time away from rewarding patient care activities and increase work stress.  That leads to significant turnover, low morale and decreased quality of care.

Annual CNA turnover has reached as high as 97%, RN churn has hit 52.5%, and overall staff churn has reached 69%.  

In surveys, many nursing assistants say that they routinely do not have enough time to complete their basic tasks. This sense of time pressure takes the enjoyment out of their work. Nursing assistants report that when time is short, they are not able to do more personal, satisfying tasks, such walking with residents, talking to them, helping with grooming, and so forth. As caregiving work is reduced to the most difficult and least gratifying tasks, and staff feel that they do not have time to complete even these tasks, job stress and burnout increase.

In 2019, a survey discovered that 30 percent of long-term care nurses exhibited signs of burnout. 50% said that in their previous shift, they had not been able to carve out time for a comforting talk with a patient; nearly one third had been unable to adequately monitor patients.

COVID-19 has exacerbated this problem, with increased family concern for resident well-being.  Family members contact facilities with requests for resident information, care questions – and more recently, visit scheduling.  Each of these interactions, while individually short and simple, take time away from patient care and add to staff stress. 

Empowering families to reduce low-level staff interactions

Providing families with secure on-demand access to patient care information, simplifying outbound communication and automating visit scheduling can dramatically reduce the need for time-consuming interactions with family members.  These common family requests represent a significant impact on staff workload.  How’s Mom by Safekeeping puts these capabilities in the hands of family members and saves significant staff time.  Here’s how:

On-Demand Patient Data Access

How’s Mom’s Chart View provides resident health information to authorized family members, including medication lists, vitals, conditions and nutrition orders.  Access to each of these data sets can be customized by your facilities. 

Mass Notifications

Through the How’s Mom app, email or text, facility staff can automatically deliver COVID-19 updates, policy changes or other facility updates.  This Mass Notification feature allows facilities to send information to family members via their preferred vehicle, with little staff time required. 

Automated Visit Planning

As facilities begin to re-open from COVID-19 restrictions with controlled family visits, our Visit Planner allows families to self-schedule visits, without staff intervention.  Residents and staff stay safe, while families reconnect in person with their loved ones.

Reduce your staff’s stress level and empower family members

Non-care related work keeps staff from critical patient interactions and adds to their work stress.  At the same time, families want to keep track of and connect with their loved ones.  With How’s Mom, facilities have the ability to meet family needs and reduce staff burnout. 

Schedule a demo today to learn how How’s Mom can help your facilities.

Data:  Skilled Nursing News, 3/17/21, Washington Post, 13/3/20