Staffing issues have been top of mind for ASC leaders for the last several years — and they’re not going away anytime soon.
Amid the turbulence caused by labor shortages across healthcare, ASC leaders have a challenging task at hand: to recruit and retain high-quality teams that can be nimble and keep pace with a dynamic ASC landscape.
Skillset diversity is an essential quality of ASC teams who will succeed in the future, Jeanine Watson, MSN, RN, senior manager of the ambulatory surgery division of the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses told Becker’s.
“In the ASC, you have your circulator, your pre-op nurse, your anesthesia, your surgeon, some charge nurse, manager maybe — all with varying levels of experience. Some of them may be new to OR, or some of them may be new to recovery,” she said. “Some of them may be very experienced in the inpatient world, and can tell you, ‘Oh, you need a different instrument that’s in this totally different set that we can go and get.’ It’s those intangibles that you need. And if you have a very diverse team that has expertise in different areas, if you can strengthen and combine that team collectively, you can really maximize the care that you provide.”
ASC leaders should conceptualize hiring as a process in building a multifaceted team who collaborate effectively to support one another, rather than a full roster of employees with the same exact background, she added.
“If you all know the same thing, you’re going to miss something. Everybody can’t have the same experience,” Ms. Watson added. “When recruiting new employees, really look at their experiences and strengths to determine how that can be used in your center. An ASC team with diverse backgrounds and experiences brings a wide range of perspectives and innovative solutions, enhancing patient care quality and operational efficiency.”
An intentional, creative approach to hiring will become even more essential as the outpatient space becomes more competitive and margins become even more tightly squeezed.
“One of the challenges to that is that the ASCs are financially constrained against really equalizing the compensation of those larger health systems,” Ms. Watson said. “So, ASCs are going to have to be innovative and create different ways to attract, to recruit and retain nurses and ancillary staff.”
Self-scheduling is one non-monetary recruitment tool that Ms. Watson has successfully implemented in her past experience managing ASCs.
“When you’re talking about allowing people to drop their kids off at school and then be at work by 8:30 and stay until 2:30 and need to leave, a lot of administrators were like, ‘I can’t allow that. It’s not fair.’ Well, if you talk to your staff, that’s when [they’re] the busiest,” she said.
This connects to why diversity in hiring is important — having staff with different backgrounds, schedules and lifestyles can go a long way toward ensuring more complete coverage and flexibility.
“You have people that like to show up at 5:30 and 6 in the morning and get the day started. But you don’t need everybody at 5:30 and 6 in the morning,” she said. “So, really stagger and look at your staffing model and allow your staff to say, ‘I can cover that, that, and that. And every once in a while, I can stay late here and here.’ Make it rotational and make it fair.”
Clear communication and expectation setting is absolutely essential in the successful implementation of self-scheduling or similar work-life balance incentives.
“When expectations are transparent and consistent, most staff are willing to step up and support one another, and leaders can address challenges early if coverage becomes uneven,” Ms. Watson said. “The nice thing about ASCs is your employees are usually more engaged and take ownership in the center, making them more flexible and willing to help cover staffing and scheduling.”
