Our Co-Founder and Chief Nursing Officer, Chris Caulfield, RN, NP-C, joined the Annals of Long-Term Care podcast to discuss nurse burnout, the factors that contribute to burnout, and the steps facilities can take to reduce burnout among their staff.
For long-term care facilities, what is it about that environment that encourages higher rates of burnout?
“Skilled nursing facilities, more than other settings, rely on overtime and doubles, due to the frequency they are encountering short staffing. This is obviously a big cause of the burnout.
In general, these facilities don’t have the HR resources or tools to recruit, engage, and refill shifts like big hospitals do. Many of the facilities that my organization is working at, have three units and there’s three nurses working at night time. With a lack of efficient resources, it’s really hard to move and flex nurses around in a skilled nursing facility in the way that bigger hospitals can.
Ultimately, a lot of times it’s that nurse that’s working 3:00 to 11:00 and they’re having to stay until 7:00 even though that’s usually the time they sleep! There’s typically not a big pool of staff that the scheduler or director of nursing can call on, and they don’t have resources to refill shifts at the last moment.”
Listen to the recording of the podcast and read the full transcript here.