Combating Roadblocks To New Technologies

In my last post, I discussed how technology, specifically the iPad, is finding its way into hospitals and other healthcare settings nationwide – and in some cases, even becoming company sponsored.  But along with the adoption and implementation of high tech devices and programs, often comes the problem of how to ensure staff members fully understand how to navigate and utilize the new technology to its fullest.  Several factors often emerge as common roadblocks to an employee fully embracing new technologies.

Employees have a negative attitude towards the change.
Trainings given by an enthusiast of the technology may help shape a positive attitude toward the change. Someone who fully backs the product will be excited to teach others how to use it.  They will be able to answer any questions about how to perform required job duties faster and easier with the new technologies.

Inundate employees with positive communication surrounding the new technology.  Require senior management, top level managers and immediate supervisors to lead by example and utilize the technology to its fullest capabilities, eliminating the outdated technology and SOP that everyone was accustomed to.  Optimism spreads! This will convert your Negative Nancys to Gung-ho Gracys.

People are good at different things – some people just flat out don’t have the knack for technology.  
The solution to this is fairly obvious – hire a professional to enter your organization and present a well-organized and formal training to your employees for the new technology that you have adopted.  This will give your staff a chance to learn all the ins and outs by a true expert and fanatic of the new technology.

However, formal trainings are not always feasible in large organizations.  In that case, develop an incentive program to reward employees who make efforts to teach themselves the new technology or seek out training during off-hours. Rewards may be anything from tuition to be used toward more self-education to movie tickets.

Your organization may have shot its wad on the new technology and there just aren’t enough funds to spend on formal training.  
If funds aren’t available for professional trainings, there are alternatives.  Identify staffers who have a knack for grasping new technologies – either naturally or are driven to teach themselves.  It may be the nurse who blogs or the tech who tweets.  More than likely, these individuals will catch on quickly and will be excited to get their hands on the new technology.  Once these techies teach themselves how to fully navigate the new technology, allow them to lead training sessions for their peers and superiors.  Be sure to publicly praise and recognize these employees for fully embracing the technology and for their extra efforts in educating their co-workers.

You CAN teach an old dog new tricks.
Older employees may use their age as an excuse that they can’t learn new technologies.  The hard part may be convincing them that they are in fact perfectly capable of learning new things.  Hopefully, your organization has implemented a mentoring program; aging employees are paired with a younger co-worker to impart their wisdom and show them the ropes.  Use this program to also reverse mentor – require younger employees who are most likely comfortable with technology to educate their mentors on the new technology your organization has adopted.

Regardless of the roadblocks in your organization’s way to a fully engaged staff, creating a culture of knowledge-sharing will help.  Encourage employees to teach themselves and others while communicating with each other what they’ve learned.

Filed under: communications, healthcare, retention, technology

iPads: Just What The Doctor Ordered

Remember the days of good old pagers?  Doctors sure do.  They and other healthcare professionals have taken advantage of mobile technology for quite some time now.  But, instead of the pager or cell phone, more recently, it’s the iPad that’s become increasingly popular for doctors to carry.  Chilmark Research concludes that 22% of doctors within the United States use iPads.  Regarding those that haven’t yet adopted the iPad, 25% of Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) members surveyed  plan to utilize the iPad and other iOS devices immediately while 70% are planning to within a year.  And it’s not just any tablet that healthcare providers are choosing; they’re specifically favoring the iPad.  To be exact, 79% of healthcare professionals would choose the iPad for professional use over a Windows PC (12%) or an Android-based tablet (9%). 

Even Apple has taken note of the iPad gaining traction within healthcare settings.  During his presentation of the iPad 2, Steve Jobs featured a testimonial from Dr. John Halamka, CIO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.  During which, Halamka claims “Sometimes doctors are overwhelmed with data, what we have tried to do with the iPad is to give doctors at the point of care, the tools they need at the exact moment the doctor can make a difference. We’re finding with the iPad doctors are spending more time with patients. In fact, doctors are engaging patients by showing them images, showing them data on the screen.”

The iPad does foster physician-patient interaction while serving as an educational platform for patients with its impressive graphics and visual capabilities.  But that’s just one of many reasons healthcare professionals are choosing the iPad as their mobile device of choice.  A host of point-of-care applications have been developed specifically for the iPad, resulting in the doctors’ ability to have faster interactions with patients.  Doctors can instantly order tests, submit prescriptions and view X-rays, MRI results and ultrasound scans on the iPad.  Apps have been developed to allow remote access to fetal monitors, lab results and other electronic medical records, enabling physicians to view and evaluate symptoms and monitor patients from home in real time.  There are also applications to aid in general admission, billing, coding and claims.  The  iPad is still convenient and small, despite its’ huge capabilities and like the traditional clipboard, it  contains a large screen when compared to a smart phone.  

The new features of the iPad 2 will surely enhance its’ use within healthcare settings.  

• The new version features front- and rear-facing cameras plus a gyroscope.  A picture says a thousand words.  Doctors can use the camera to capture still images or a video of a patient’s visual symptoms and discuss them with fellow colleagues via Apple’s video chat app, FaceTime.
• It contains an A5 dual-core processor that enables it to run much faster.  The iPad 2 processes images up to nine times faster than the original iPad, allowing for even quicker access to X-rays and CT scans.
• The second generation is 33% thinner, 8.8mm, versus the original version’s 13.4 mm.  It’s also 15% lighter.  The new version weighs in at 1.3 pounds compared to the old version’s 1.5 pounds – making it even less burdensome for doctors to carry.

As a result of increased popularity and functionality within the medical realm, some healthcare providers are beginning to support iPads on the backend or even roll out initiatives to provide them to employees.  Vendors are developing EMR applications specifically for the iPad such as ClearPractice’s Nimble.  It’s projected that the market for mHealth in the enterprise will reach $1.7 billion in 2014.

Your healthcare organization may not have deployed company-issued iPads.  But that doesn’t mean your employees aren’t using them.  If haven’t seen your doctors and nurses carrying them around, you may not be looking hard enough. Apple has not been pushing the iPad into the enterprise market; employees are.  Healthcare personnel are toting their personal iPads to work and using them on the job and by their own volition.  Check their lockers or their lab coats; you’re sure to turn up at least a few iPads.

Filed under: healthcare, technology

Cell Your Jobs

Hospitals across the nation are beginning to embrace mobile technology and implement mobile systems of communication within their organizations. One such hospital rolled out an iPhone platform for its’ nurses this summer.  The mobile technology allowed for critical care alarms to be sent to nurses and enabled these employees to make voice calls and send and receive text messages.  Hospital executives say using iPhones as a medium of communication resulted in nurses’ ability to respond to patients faster and reduced the number of overhead pages by 78%.

While it’s certainly beneficial that mobile technology provides opportunities for improved operations, it’s also vital to realize these efforts provide a unique opportunity to enhance recruitment efforts.  If your healthcare organization has adopted new media technologies, it’s imperative to include these initiatives while selling and promoting your vacancies to job candidates.

Tout your organization’s use of technology.  Healthcare employees desire to work for innovative organizations that deploy best in class technology.  Candidates are dissuaded from organizations with outdated equipment and lack of materials.  It’s also important to healthcare employees that they be employed by organizations on the cusp of research and development, providing them with opportunities for training and enhancing their skills.  Your organization’s use of mobile technology demonstrates it is not afraid to try new things and advance.

Promote your organization’s stellar internal communication.  Hospitals utilizing mobile technology receive the added benefit of an increase in and improvement in communication.  For example, nurses equipped with iPhones and Blackberries are provided two-way communication abilities with their co-workers as opposed to one-way communication inherent to pagers. Studies estimate that nurses spend 10 % to 25% of their time tracking down their co-workers. Mobile technology and social media increases the efficiency of communication with co-workers, patients and patients’ families.  This enables nurses and healthcare employees to spend more time doing what they enjoy most, attending to patients.  Because deploying mobile technology platforms may lessen a nurse’s workload, the number of nurses needed to adequately staff a floor may be decreased, possibly cushioning the blow of the nursing shortage and allowing room in the budget for a potential salary bump for employees.

Sell your organization’s superb patient care.  Mobile technology certainly can improve the manner in which patients are cared for.  Not only do mobile initiatives allow nurses more time for attending, they also ensure the reduction of overhead pages, resulting in a quieter environment for patients to heal.  Many smart phone applications exist that are able to house a patient’s medical history, track their progress, their medication dosage, etc.  The applications help to improve a nurse’s performance and accuracy.  Nurses and healthcare employees want to work for organizations providing superior patient care – that’s most likely why they chose healthcare in the first place.

Use mobile technology to communicate and interact with candidates.  It’s important to realize that a vast majority of candidates are accessing the internet via their smart phone are receptive to advertising.  According to Neilson, 28% of the mobile web audience is between 25 and 34 years old while 38% are between 35 and 54 years old. A Pew study found that 32% of all Americans have accessed the internet via their cell phone.  Minorities lead mobile technology adoption with the majority of wireless internet users being African American. Because most people carry their cell phone with them at all times, you’re most likely to reach them in a timely manner.  Candidates may receive your messages even when they are “unavailable”; while they’re in a meeting, traveling, after business hours, etc. Furthermore, the recall rate of ads appearing on iPhones is 41% and 33% for other mobile devices and a third of those recalling the mobile ad will respond to it. Because more and more candidates are adopting mobile technologies every day, it’s imperative to include these initiatives in your recruitment strategy.

Filed under: communications, healthcare, recruitment, retention, Social Media

Where Have All The New Grads Gone?

As more Baby Boomer nurses begin to discover the freedoms of retirement or change to a less stressful career, healthcare recruiters are challenged with replacing them. One logical choice is a younger candidate, possibly a recent graduate, who will be able to contribute to an organization for years to come.  But as recruiters begin to seek out new grads to fill these vacancies, they find a sparse candidate pool – a nationally occurring phenomenon.  Where have all the new graduates gone?

When it comes to the nursing challenge, it’s all in the numbers.  The nursing shortage in the United States is projected to grow to 260,000 RNs by 2025.  This shortage will be double what the industry has ever seen since the mid-1960s.  In August, 28,000 new jobs were added in ambulatory care settings and in nursing and residential care while 216,000 (nonfarm payroll) positions were eliminated nationwide.  By 2016, nursing will be the number one profession in the country in terms of job growth with more than 587,000 new positions being created.

These statistics paint an extremely positive outlook for nursing professionals.  You’d think that young people everywhere would be eager to enter into a career with such an abundance of available jobs.  And in fact, there has been a heightened interest in nursing.  In 2008, enrollment in entry-level baccalaureate programs in nursing increased by 2.2%, translating into 3,069 more entry-level students.  Since 1980, the total number of RNs has grown at every 4-year interval. However, the nursing population growth rate has recently slowed.  From 2000 – 2004, there was only a 7.9% growth.  For comparison, the nursing population grew by 14.2% from 1992 – 1996.  Obviously, this small surge in enrollment and nursing population growth will not satisfy the projected demand for nurses.  The Health Resources and Services Administration officials say, “To meet the projected growth in demand for RN services, the U.S. must graduate approximately 90 percent more nurses.”

However, most people who want to become nurses can’t.  The acceptance rate for nursing school is only 42.3%.  Despite the urgent need for more new grads, 49,948 qualified applicants were rejected from baccalaureate and graduate nursing programs in 2008 due to a lack of faculty, classroom space, clinical sites, preceptors and budgetary constraints.  It’s estimated that 56% of nursing schools have vacancies and need additional faculty; 21.1% of nursing schools do not have vacancies but need additional faculty members.  The faculty shortage will only increase as professors age and retire.  Currently, the average age of professors is 59.1 years old.  In hopes of combating this issue, Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) introduced the Nurse Education Expansion and Development Act, nicknamed the NEED Act, to aid nursing schools in increasing faculty.  Approval would result in Capitation Grants for nursing schools to hire more professors and accept more students.

Despite the high demand for nurses, there are a few students graduating from nursing school who can not find employment.  Because of the economic downturn, retired nurses are returning to the workforce, nurses previously working part-time shifts or per diem are choosing to work full-time and nurses who were voluntarily unemployed are returning to the workplace.  These more experienced nurses are taking open positions that have been traditionally filled by new graduates.  The adverse economy also affects patients’ healthcare decisions.  Many people are choosing to forego medical insurance and are opting out of preventative healthcare, non-emergency care and elective surgeries.  This means there is a lesser demand for nursing services and many hospitals have implemented hiring freezes and some have even terminated members of their staff.

So, where have the new grads gone?  In short, they’ve gone nowhere.  There’s just an exaggerated demand for them.  Until more funding becomes available to educate more students and those students graduate, recruiters are stuck trying to attract new grads with a limited supply of candidates.  More importantly, once a new grad is hired, they must be retained. That’s no easy task given that 37% of newly licensed nurses desire to change jobs after only one year and 24% plan to change jobs after two years’ tenure.

TMP Worldwide specializes in retention and is able to provide expertise regarding the retention of younger employees.  It’s best to invest in the recruitment and retention of new grads now, while the state of the economy is preventing many older nurses from retiring.  Once the economic winds change, more Boomer nurses will leave the workplace.  Nurses who were once voluntarily unemployed will once again end their employment and nurses previously working part-time hours may choose to revert back to their previous schedules, leaving many more nursing vacancies than their currently are.  All of these factors will result in an ever greater demand for new graduates.  Will your organization be left understaffed?

Filed under: healthcare, recruitment