Short staffing is a common problem in the nursing industry. There are times when there are simply shortages of nurses available to a particular area. At other times there are more patients than usual or more patients with serious illnesses. This can cause a facility to be short staffed in comparison with their patients needs. Sometimes short staffing cannot be solved or cannot be solved immediately. In cases such as these, it is important to look for tips to cope with short staffing.
If you realize that you are short-staffed for a shift, contact the nursing administrator or your immediate supervisor, right away. Hopefully he or she can call some other nurses to see if they can come in for an extra shift or to help during the busiest hours. If this is not possible, they might be able to call in some additional nursing assistants and other support staff members.
You should realize that teamwork is more important than ever when you are short-staffed. Along with other members of the healthcare team, you must work together well to make sure the needs of all patients are met. Nursing supervisors and administrators might need to take on more direct patient contact duties during times when there is a shortage of nurses.
Organization is also crucial when your facility is short staffed. Everyone needs to know what they are expected to get done during their shift. Nurses should ensure that they have all of the necessary materials with them when performing a procedure for a patient. It is also necessary to prioritize. All nurses must work together to decide exactly what needs to be done first and to determine if there are any tasks that can wait until more nurses come on shift.
To avoid frustration and misunderstandings, good communication is essential when you are short staffed. You do not want any duties to take longer than necessary or to go undone as a result of poor communication. To ensure everything runs smoothly, nursing supervisors must communicate well with their nurses and nursing aides to make sure their is a clear understanding of what to do and what to expect.
Ask family members if there is anything they would prefer to do to help their loved ones, non-medical, of course. For example, they might prefer to brush their loved one’s hair, rather than having a nurse or nursing assistant do so. You should not, however, discuss any problems regarding short-staffing directly with family members.
If you are a nursing administrator or a healthcare manager, it is probably time to set up a meeting with the other administrators and nurse managers. You need to identify all problems associated with being understaffed. For example, are there certain shifts when staffing problems are worse than others? You need to all work together to try to figure out why you are short-staffed and if there is anything that can be done to help resolve the problem.