Healthcare in America is transforming. Technology has allowed for many new and innovative options for receiving quality care as a patient. Telehealth, 3D printing for medical use, and electronic documentation have allowed for better patient satisfaction and care.
Aside from new forms of technology, healthcare in the U.S. is changing in many other ways. The country is currently experiencing a nursing shortage. According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing,
“The Bureau [of Labor Statistics] projects the need for an additional 203,700 new RNs each year through 2026 to fill newly created positions and to replace retiring nurses.”
There are many different causes of the nursing shortage including:
- An aging registered nurse population
- An increase in baby boomers living longer
- An increase in chronic illness
- An overall decrease in nursing school enrollment
- A lack of nursing school professors to properly teach and train nursing students
- Insufficient staffing which cause unnecessary stress on healthcare professionals
With the nursing shortage affecting the American population and its access to quality care, it is more important now than ever for health care facilities to think about their efficiency and effectiveness.
There are many different facets to what makes a healthcare facility efficient including its clinical variation, staffing model, and team based operations. International registered nurse staffing can help in these areas.
Benefit #1: Less Clinical Variation and Higher Patient Satisfaction
Patients find it difficult to deal with many different points of contact and changing processes. In the book Leading Medical Transformation by Vic Arnold and Matthew Bates, it reads:
“It’s important that you do everything in a consistent way for every patient across ever practice in your system…from your hours of operation, to how you check in patients, to how you handle charting, to how you check blood pressure and vital signs, to how you refer patients to other practices.”
By deciding on policies and procedures that will be carried out across the board by each professional, patients are less likely to become confused, frustrated, and dissatisfied. It also allows for there to be more structure and guidance for any staff members filling in for short or long-term needs.
While travel nurses can step in and handle short-term needs that need to be filled for a period of weeks at a time, international registered nurse staffing can offer a long-term solution. By becoming a part of your facility’s staff for an extended period of time, these professionals can learn the policies and processes that your facility decides to put into place.
Having these policies established helps the international nurse assimilate into your facility quicker and more effectively. It also allows for him or her to learn these policies and help establish them at your facility. It also allows for more long-term team members who you will not have to retrain every few weeks on these policies.
Long-term care patients in your facility are also more likely to have the same healthcare professionals care for them, which can lower clinical variation and create a better patient experience.
Benefit #2: International Registered Nurse Staffing as an Effective Staffing Model
Another issue many healthcare facilities face is under staffing. When a facility that is understaffed runs the risk of becoming inefficient in its operations. Many times, facilities under staff due to a budget concern, but instead of looking ahead to the future and focusing on what makes the most sense financially in the moment, they run the risk of losing more money. This creates a cycle of under staffing and lack of efficiency that can lead to low patient satisfaction scores, continuity of care, and HCAHPS scores.
Many times healthcare professionals end up becoming “burned out” when the patient to healthcare professional ratio becomes too skewed. This can cause the problem of unrealistic expectations for a clinician and decreased patient satisfaction. According to Arnold and Bates,
“Finding the balance between patient demand and provider capacity is an important area of focus in order to get the right staffing level in place to ensure efficient and effective care that in turn drives high patient engagement.”
An important aspect of finding the correct staffing model includes ensuring that you are also considering other skills when choosing who to place at your facility. You want the registered nurse you choose to also have soft skills such as knowing how to be understanding and compassionate towards a patient’s current health situation and their needs.
International registered nurses have clinical experience from abroad and crave new knowledge. They are very open to studying and learning new skills. They also have experience working in situations that require them to have situational empathy and possess soft skills such as communication, adaptability, teamwork, and creative problem solving.
By integrating more international registered nurses in your facility, you can move towards a long-term solution to filling core staffing needs, meeting staffing needs when your facility is projected to have exponential growth in the future, and cutting rogue spending.
Benefit #3: Increasing Operational Efficiency with International Registered Nurse Staffing
The efficiency of a healthcare facility’s operations hits an all-time high when there is a team-based approach. By working together as a team, physicians are not left with the heaviest responsibility load. Registered nurses, medical assistants, and other clinical professions can also step in and help in order to ensure continuity and a higher quality of care for patients.
If each each level of the organization has the proper tools (such as information systems, software, etc.) and healthcare professionals with the correct skill set working together, the entire organization thrives. When implementing international registered nurse staffing, you have the opportunity to interview the professional about their skills and experience. International registered nurses are submitted to your facility for review and are matched based on the facility need and their applicable experience.
Many international registered nurses have years of experience and are highly-skilled in their profession. By staffing more skilled international registered nurses to fill core needs, you can help better patient experience and therefore better health outcomes for patients at your facility.
International nurses are also required to have strong soft skills such as communication, teamwork, and conflict resolution skills. This helps to ensure they will succeed in working with others to increase the operational efficiency at your facility.
Looking for highly-skilled international registered nurses? MedPro International can help!
Our international program provides a strategic solution to filling core positions and offers a new pool of healthcare professionals who are educated and trained to meet quality and U.S. licensure standards. International registered nurses are motivated to learn and grow, and the majority are looking for a long-term home. There are numerous benefits to working with MedPro International including establishing a strong culture at your facility, instead of a constant rotation of travel healthcare professionals coming in and out of your organization. For more information on MedPro International, please click here.
