The post-acute care providers often deal with some of the most challenging patients in all of healthcare, including those who have just undergone surgery, patients with severe mental illnesses, physical disabilities, and even elderly individuals with dementia or other cognitive declines. Because of this high-stress environment and stressful situations, focusing on even the most mundane tasks can be challenging when dealing with patients and family members. Unfortunately, neglecting simple details can lead to disastrous results in the workplace, so the following five key challenges that providers face must address to maintain productivity and efficiency.
1. The Complexity of Care for Patient Populations
The high-intensity, low-complexity population continues to be one of the most challenging care areas for post-acute providers. To be successful, have an intimate understanding of what motivates this patient population, including personal values and belief systems, with empathy and compassion. That allows providers to best advocate for them as they navigate discharge from post-acute care.
As the nature of care becomes more complex, managers need a way to understand better how their employees are dealing with their patients and make changes accordingly. However, they can’t provide insight into a situation if they don’t know it exists. It’s, therefore, crucial to seek assistance in challenging areas from professionals such as senior care consulting firms. They will help you to promote measurable care improvements through education on providing quality care in these often-ignored populations.
2. Maintaining Compliance With Federal Regulations
Failing to comply with federal regulations can lead to fines, damaged reputation, and lost customers. It can also open a company up to unfair liability lawsuits. Tying to meet these requirements while still providing high-quality patient care is challenging. Fortunately, post-acute care providers can hire independent professionals as consultants to help you handle compliance issues.
Post-acute care providers who fully ensure regulatory compliance can perform these tasks without lowering their clients’ quality of care. They will also be able to identify and fix workplace or OSHA violations that could impact your business or employees. Employees can prioritize their time daily, increasing patient care efficiency.
3. Managing Patient Flow
One issue post-acute care providers face is maintaining a healthy patient flow. With an increasing demand for nursing care services and higher rates of hospital readmissions, it can be challenging to balance client acuity. When there are too many high-needs patients and not enough nurses, more frequent reassignment between units becomes necessary, which causes less continuity of care for new and established patients—resulting in low patient satisfaction.
However, collaborating with professional MDS coding and documentation experts will help keep you on the leading edge. They can provide a solution by developing efficient workflows and implementing best practices to manage your patient load.
4. Infection Prevention and Control
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that all healthcare facilities develop and implement a written infection prevention plan to reduce the transmission of pathogenic microorganisms, including preventing infection from staff, patients, visitors, or other persons not associated with the facility. A post-acute care provider must also have an up-to-date exposure control plan. However, these facilities have a challenge in establishing a safety program that includes an occupational health hazard identification procedure.
The facilities may also lack the capabilities to provide employees with training on recognizing, avoiding, or minimizing hazards to work safely. However, post-acute providers can hire a team of qualified Infection Preventionist Consultants to help establish and maintain your IPC program to maintain patient safety and employee wellbeing. They will also provide training, education, and resources to protect workers and residents against biohazards in the workplace. If you do not have enough time or staff to complete your IPCP correctly, let a consultant know today!
5. Quality Assurance (QA) Audits and Monitoring
QA audits and monitoring ensure that these facilities can provide high-quality care to patients. The practice also helps identify issues such as maintaining infection control, performing patient assessments, and correctly administering medications. These are all essential tasks for delivering quality care. And while it is difficult for any business or organization to keep up with strict compliance regulations, it’s even more challenging when there are multiple rules and guidelines to follow.
To ensure they’re meeting their obligations without cutting corners or risking their licenses, providers need accurate data on what they’re doing well and not so well. That is only possible through a thorough audit process. For assistance, post-acute providers can hire medical billing and coding professionals specializing in QA auditing. Not only will this help them stay compliant with regulations, but it will also improve patient care by implementing corrective measures where necessary.
Conclusion
Post-acute providers face challenges in the workplace, but many have found that infusing innovation into their care models is beneficial. Post-acute providers can increase productivity by implementing new technologies such as telemedicine and virtual visits. As more hospitals focus on preventing readmissions and limiting costs, these organizations must find solutions for the daily occupational challenges post-acute providers face to remain competitive. Hiring professionals who can assist in medical procedures is an excellent way to improve efficiency, prevent staff burnout, and reduce turnover rates
