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August 23, 2024
for clinicians
In the diverse world of healthcare, workers are exposed to challenges and concerns every day. From different diseases to physical strain to mental health pressures, ensuring the safety of healthcare professionals remains a pressing issue.
In the diverse world of healthcare, workers are exposed to challenges and concerns every day. From different diseases to physical strain to mental health pressures, ensuring the safety of healthcare professionals remains a pressing issue. To dive deeper into this crucial issue, everyone at The Patient Company has provided their perspectives on the greatest challenges facing healthcare worker safety today. Through their insights and experiences, we aim to highlight the complexities involved in safeguarding those who tirelessly care for others.
In a post-COVID environment, it’s impossible to ignore the struggles faced during the pandemic and how they have shaped the challenges we now see today. These struggles include but are not limited to... working in a completely unsafe environment due to the pandemic itself, the severity of patient conditions, the overwhelming influx of sick people overrunning hospitals, a lack of PPE, unclear information and understanding of the situation, staff exodus from hospitals, long hours, patients treating staff poorly, and insufficient hospital budgets. I know, I'm sure I missed a lot.
Many of these issues persist, creating new problems or exacerbating existing ones. Over the past six months, in my dealings with hospitals across the country, it has become evident how rapidly things are changing. Therefore, I believe the biggest challenge in healthcare worker safety today is the instability on which new healthcare worker safety standards are being built. This instability is clear when comparing major hospitals with established employee safety systems to those still developing theirs or just starting out.
In hospitals where programs had not been built, there is a mass of ideas from the beginning of COVID until today. There's a clear frustration with the speed at which they are trying to create programs compared to the acceptance from the hospital. This frustration is furthered due to insufficient staff, forced prioritization of multiple changes at the same time, and other common Post-COVID problems.
In hospitals building their systems, there is a noticeable lack of available data, budget, and other resources to justify solving clearly identified problems. This may result from overcompensating during or immediately after COVID, prioritization of other projects, or by things as simple as making purchases of products or services that haven't fully solved their problems, but not having enough data to show that's the case yet.
Conversely, in hospitals where employee safety standards are well-established and successful, a gap is forming between them and their less developed counterparts. These hospitals have significant knowledge in the space, rich data sets for decision-making, and substantial budgets due to their proven track record of success.
The challenge lies in elevating hospitals who are dealing with so many significant problems while their employee safety efforts are in the early stages of development relative to the level where the most developed hospitals currently stand. This is the challenge I am most excited to support with The Patient Company.
The biggest challenge for healthcare workers safety today is the inability to slow down. Our clinicians have so much pressure put on them, they are unwilling to take a few seconds to use safety equipment every time they should, endangering themselves. With high census and low staffing this creates a perfect scenario for clinicians to avoid using safety equipment for their own, and patient protection.
One of the biggest challenges in ensuring healthcare worker safety is the lack of systems designed to deliver practical, real-world solutions. Healthcare staff are overwhelmed by high patient volumes, nursing shortages, and the pressure to quickly heal and discharge patients. While new policies are generally viewed as positive, they often face resistance because the associated programs and products can significantly disrupt workflow. Given the high turnover rate in nursing, it’s essential to engage process champions who can foster a supportive culture within their departments. These champions can help evaluate products and policies that address the needs of their colleagues while also aligning with the goals of their facilities.
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