On Oct. 21, Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts announced the lifting of the directed health measure halting elective surgical cases requiring inpatient admission. However, Nebraska Medicine will continue limiting such surgical cases for now.
“We are all eager to return as quickly as possible to conventional operating status across the health system,” said Cory Shaw, Nebraska Medicine executive vice president-chief operating officer. “However, given the continued burden of COVID-19 in our inpatient environment, the persistently high demand for inpatient beds from other patient populations and our continuing staffing challenges, we are not prepared to lift our self-imposed limits on surgical schedules.”
To accommodate that high demand for inpatient beds, staff have had to carry larger patient loads, patient educators, leads, and supervisors were placed into staffing and the work of pharmacy, respiratory therapy and physical therapy/occupational therapy teams were modified. Ambulatory and procedural teams have been challenged with consistently managing overnight stays in the PACU and observation spaces, caring for complex patients in the clinic, and delivering difficult news to patients seeking access to care that would otherwise be readily available
Traveling nurses added to the workforce
There is a positive development to help alleviate some of the strain. Human Resources has contracted with a large number of travel nurses to help support the inpatient teams.
“While our preference would be to staff all services with permanent team members, this influx of staffing will help ease the heavy burden carried the past several months,” Shaw said.
However, these contract workers are not a permanent solution to offset the workload.
Human Resources is working on compensation programs for staff to reward existing overtime commitments and agree to work additional shifts in support of our efforts. Additionally, Nebraska Medicine will be working aggressively to retain the existing workforce, pilot new care models given the available workforce (RN, CNA, paramedics, etc.) and recruit winter graduates and experienced staff back to the bedside.