Whether you’re feeling overwhelmed by ongoing essential labor or you’re coping with a new remote work environment, here are eight helpful time management tips for remaining productive each and every day.

1. Set Goals

If you work in a high-paced field, such as healthcare, you’re likely used to trying to keep track of a plethora of different work-related tasks. Goals can be a productivity lifeline in the midst of a chaotic work-life. Goals are also something likely to come up in a job interview, so whether you are happily employed or looking to switch careers or even apply for a promotion, it can pay to think critically about personal and professional goals. They can, and should, be set for various lengths of time, including:

• Daily goals: What small-yet-important tasks are you going to accomplish today?
• Weekly goals: What ongoing efforts or challenges must be resolved by the end of the week?
• Monthly goals: What tasks require a steady, productive effort over the next few weeks?
• Annual goals: What long-term goals, such as improving a skill or getting a promotion, are you aiming for over the next twelve months?

As you identify your personal goals, make sure to write them down in an easy-to-reference place. Consider using a calendar or scheduling app that allows you to set reminders and due dates for your goals as well to help with accountability.

2. Prioritize Tasks

Often time management doesn’t suffer from a lack of effort so much as a failure to point that effort in the right direction. Enter prioritization. If you find that your mind is constantly buzzing with various tasks and responsibilities, it may be time to address the stressful situation.

Sit down and write out all of your current tasks. You can do this with a piece of paper and a pencil if you want to go old school, or you can use a list app that allows you to rearrange items after they’re added.

Once you’ve written everything down, rearrange your list in order from most important to least important. This will give you a blueprint for where to direct your energy first and what can wait until another time.

3. Stay Organized

Organization is a critical requirement in every workplace, and it’s a great soft skill to be able to list amongst your personal professional strengths. It can also be a critical piece of the time management puzzle.

There are many ways to apply organizational techniques in a professional setting. For instance, setting goals and prioritizing tasks are both forms of organization. Other examples include:

• Maintaining an updated schedule to track work appointments and deadlines.
• Keeping a dedicated space (either at home or at work) that is specifically for you to work in.
• Decluttering your workspaces regularly.
• Creating morning and evening routines that can help you prepare for and detox from work each day.

If you can stay organized before, during, and after work, it can be a tremendous tool to help you manage your time.

4. Streamline Your Process

It’s easy to get stuck in a rut when attending to regular work routines. However, if you want to remain efficient and time-sensitive, it’s imperative that you regularly assess how effective each of your work processes is at the moment.

Some processes remain effective in perpetuity. Others only produce healthy results for a season. Make sure to consider how you’re going about your work on a regular basis in order to see if anything can be streamlined, reworked, or even completely rehashed in order to make you more productive.

5. Delegate Tasks

If you’re a manager, a project leader, or even an employee with a surplus of responsibilities, time management can quickly become an issue. It’s easy to become overwhelmed and ineffective as you try to attend to too many concerns at a time.

As a solution, look for ways to delegate some of your current tasks to others so that you can provide quality attention to your remaining workload.

As a boss, this can be accomplished by delegating work to employees. As an employee, you can advocate for change by talking with an employer or even coworkers in an attempt to collectively find a healthy solution for everyone.

6. Allocate Time for Tasks

Just because you apply yourself to a task for a long period of time doesn’t mean you’re going to be productive while you work. In fact, it’s recommended that you should spend no more than two hours on a single task before you switch to something else or take a break.

With that in mind, if your workload is flexible, consider creating a schedule for how you go about your workday. Allocate specific times for particular tasks and make sure that you’re not spending too much time on any one activity.

7. Communicate

Time management is nearly impossible if you can’t communicate with those around you. This is especially true if you work in a highly collaborative workspace, such as a doctor’s office or hospital.

Communication with clients, patients, employers, coworkers, labs, suppliers, and so on must remain open and effective at all times. Active listening should be regularly employed, as well, in order to truly understand one another.

If quality communication can be maintained, it can go a long way in helping individuals structure their workload and remain efficient with their time.

8. Avoid Multitasking

Finally, avoid the temptation to be proud of being a multitasker. Many industries are struggling with labor shortages at the moment, and it can be tempting to play the hero by taking on extra activities in an attempt to get everything done.

However, taking on multiple activities at the same time, while impressive, can cripple your productivity. It strains your mind and doesn’t actually help you get things done faster. On the contrary, it often leaves you more distracted. Instead, try to focus your efforts on one primary task at a time.

That doesn’t mean you can’t listen to music or have a conversation while you’re working. However, if you try to get multiple responsibilities done simultaneously, you’ll likely find that both tasks take longer, are done poorly, or both.

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In addition, many healthcare workers have families to care for on the homefront.

If you’re a healthcare worker that also has or is going to have a family to care for, it can be difficult balancing a life filled with both patient care and parenting responsibilities. Here are a few tips and suggestions to help you reign in the busyness and put your best foot forward in both areas of your life.

Look for a Flexible, Convenient Healthcare Job

One of the best things about working in the healthcare sector is the fact that it has a huge variety of both horizontal and vertical professional opportunities. If your job at a hospital isn’t working out, you can try to pick up work at a private practice or you can even make a more dramatic pivot in your field by applying for a job in nursing informatics.

The point is, as a nurse, you have options — which is good if you’re also a parent. Finding a healthcare job that can adapt to your particular needs and parenting lifestyle is an important first step in establishing a stable schedule.

Fortunately, there are many different nursing careers you can choose from, such as:

Registered Nurses

An RN can apply for a job at a hospital, which typically is open 24/7 and gives you access to a slew of different shift options. This can help you adapt your work schedule around your parenting responsibilities, allowing you to work early in the morning, late in the evenings, overnight, or whatever else is required.

School Nurse

A school nurse specializes in promoting health and safety within the student body of a particular school. It can be an ideal job if you have school-aged children and are able to work during school hours. You may even be able to get a job at your child’s school, making the personal and professional logistics that much easier in the process.

Lab Tech Assistants

While medical assistant positions often pay less, they can also be lower pressure. By applying to play the support role to someone who is able to bring their full attention to a high-pressure role, you give yourself access to steady work that is often more flexible in nature.

These are just a handful of the options available, demonstrating how adaptable a nursing career can be, especially when it comes to fitting it in with family responsibilities.

Build a Good Support System

If you’re going to be committed to both a healthcare career and being a parent, it’s important that you develop a good support system. This doesn’t just mean you find someone who can watch your kids while you’re working.

It requires building a network of support that you can trust and who feel appreciated by you and invested in your children. This can include people such as grandparents, other family members, friends, and even neighbors. You can begin to build a good support system by asking yourself the following questions:

• What do you need in a trusted support person — i.e. dependability, trust, good morals?
• How can you appropriately reciprocate and thank each person for the recurring help you hope to receive from them?
• Will your children have opportunities to make new friends, learn new things, feel comfortable, and generally thrive within your support system?

As you identify individuals who meet these requirements, begin reaching out and developing each relationship. Remember to treat them as two-way interactions and not simply a chance to get some free babysitting.

Consider Working Night Shifts

One of the benefits of being a nurse is the flexibility that comes with the occupation. While it’s demanding when you’re on the job, a nursing career can often be molded to fit a personal lifestyle, such as being a parent.

With that said, one option that can help you balance your professional and personal responsibilities is taking on night shifts. This can allow you to be around during the day for your children and still cultivate your career at night.

If you want to take on night shifts, though, it’s essential that you find a schedule that you can stick to on a regular basis. Getting enough sleep can be challenging when you’re active during the night and the day. Identify how working night shifts will be sustainable before you commit to taking them on.

Try to Limit Time On-Call

There are many healthcare-related responsibilities that require an individual to be on-call, such as taking after-hour calls or being available to be called into work over certain times of the day.

While this unpredictable schedule works for some, it’s difficult to be on-call when you have children that depend on your presence for school, sports practices, and general life activities. Whenever possible, try to avoid or, at the least, limit the time that you spend on-call.

Don’t Work in Emergency Rooms

Emergency room nurses are heroes, and you may be attracted to the work professionally. However, if you’re a parent, it’s important to remember that your loyalties are divided between work and home.

If you work in an ER, you may find that you’re called in at unexpected hours or an emergency situation develops right before your shift ends, making it difficult to leave on time. In general, it’s best to avoid ER work when you have children who count on you to be there on a regular basis.

Remember to Take Some Time For Yourself

Finally, if you want to maintain a healthy balance between working and parenting, it’s important that you also occasionally carve out time for yourself.

With chronic healthcare staff shortages putting more demand on existing healthcare workers and children always requiring your attention, you must find ways to recharge in order to stay the course over time.

You can practice self-care and exercise your stress management skills by:

• Drinking plenty of water and eating healthy food.
• Trying to get at least seven hours of sleep every night.
• Exercising often.
• Creating regular routines.
• Meditating and praying to start each day.
• Taking up healthy habits like reading and journaling.

If you can take small chunks of time to give yourself a little attention, it will go a long way in helping you come through for others in both your personal and professional lives.

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While proper communication between healthcare professionals is essential to high-quality care, it’s also important for staff to consider how they’re interacting with their patients, too. This task doesn’t just fall to physicians, but to nurses, as well. A key component of a nurse’s job description is communicating with and educating patients, helping them feel comfortable with their care plan, and welcome to ask questions.

Here are five recommendations for ways that medical staff can improve patient education.

Establish Trust Between Patients and Healthcare Professionals

First and foremost, if a proper exchange of information is going to take place, trust must be established between a patient and their healthcare professional. The ability to show empathy and create a rapport with patients is one of the key skills of successful nurses.

Initially establishing a solid foundation of trust encourages patient adaptation, collaboration, and security in the healthcare process. In contrast, an absence of trust can lead to a lack of respect and poor overall quality of care.

In order to cultivate patient-provider confidence, RNs should focus on the five antecedents of trust:

• Building trust on the initial visit.
• Meeting patient’s needs.
• Respecting the patient.
• Giving adequate time.
• Providing consistent care.

If trust can be fostered from the inception of a relationship, it can streamline and promote health education in the future.

Take Advantage of Technology

There is always a natural barrier of information and professional expertise between patients and nurses. This is only exacerbated by the fact that 40-80% of all medical information given to patients is forgotten immediately.

Not only that, but the more information shared, the lower the retention rate. This makes important transfers of information, such as teaching an amputee to use a wheelchair or a prosthetic limb, especially difficult, due to the large amount of data that must be communicated.

It’s wise, therefore, to always be on the lookout for technology that can enhance the patient education experience. A few examples of current technology that aids in health education include:

• Online patient portals: These easy-to-access online systems enable patients to see test results, locate prescriptions, and study informational material related to their diagnoses.
• Remote patient monitoring: RPM enables healthcare professionals to gather and exchange important information with patients quickly, efficiently, and outside of traditional healthcare settings.
• Text reminders: Patients can even be kept abreast of the logistics of the healthcare system by utilizing texts for things such as appointment reminders and prescriptions refills.

These are just a few of the many ways that health education can be enhanced through the use of technology. Caregivers with a particular interest or talent for balancing technology with clinical medicine can even specialize in informatics and support greater use of digital tools to support healthcare. The critical factor is that nurses and educators maintain a continuous learning mindset in order to take advantage of new tech-driven skills and tools as they are developed.

Understand Patients’ Different Learning Styles

Everyone has a different learning style that they prefer, and it’s important that healthcare professionals learn to accommodate these learning styles in the name of quality health education.

While there is a great deal of nuance in each individual situation, the various styles of learning are often broken down into four distinct categories:

• Visual learners.
• Auditory learners.
• Reading and writing learners.
• Kinesthetic learners.

It’s critical that educators use the trust that they’ve developed with a patient in order to identify their preferred style of learning. Then, they must try to adapt the needed information to that format.

On the one hand, if you encounter a patient who prefers a visual or reading learning style, this is often an excellent opportunity to utilize the various technological tools, such as using online portals to provide visual and written resources.

On the other hand, children, who are typically kinesthetic learners, may require one-on-one teaching and demonstrations rather than information-dense resources. Regardless of the situation, healthcare providers should always strive to accommodate each patient’s individual learning proclivities.

Be Mindful of Patients’ Strengths and Weaknesses

It’s important to remember that patients are not in the same place or state of mind as the members of their care team. In fact, particularly when relaying important information in connection to a medical diagnosis, patients will typically be in a deeply personal, often agitated or overwhelmed state of mind.

This is why it’s crucial that anyone providing health education keeps the patient’s natural strengths and weaknesses in mind as they go along. At times physical weaknesses must be addressed, such as using speech-to-text devices to help a blind person share information.

At other times mental instability, emotional exhaustion, or even age, such as communicating with a very old or young individual, can impact a patient’s ability to retain information.

It’s wise to always use the teach-back method in order to ensure that a patient has properly grasped what is expected of them. Share critical information using their learning style and available tech and then have the patient teach the information back to you. This allows you to confirm that they understand what has been taught or to provide correction if necessary.

Keep Family and Loved Ones Involved

Finally, it’s important to remember that part of the metaparadigm of nursing is maintaining a holistic experience that considers the personal component of the patient, including their family and friends. This isn’t just referring to keeping everyone up to date on a current medical diagnosis. It’s also essential that the right people surrounding a patient are educated on what may be expected of them.

With this in mind, nurses should always stress with their patients how important it is for loved ones to be in-the-know and understand all medical procedures and processes that they may be required to help with.

Patient confidentiality should obviously always be observed. However, whenever a patient-sanctioned opportunity to instruct a friend or family member arises, healthcare professionals should do their best to accommodate accordingly. The dissemination of health education can ensure that vital procedures are followed correctly and can enable a patient’s support system to be more effective.

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Here are a few tips and suggestions for ways to demonstrate those hospitality skills and make a hospital stay as comfortable as possible.

Make the Hospital Room Feel More Like Home

One of the simplest ways to make a hospital stay more enjoyable is to encourage patients and their loved ones to bring items from home, such as:

• A stuffed animal for a child.
• A throw pillow or blanket for the end of the bed.
• A small plant to set on the window sill.
• A photograph by the bedside.
• A familiar painting to hang on the wall

Small-yet-significant touches such as these can make a cold, sterile hospital room feel much more inviting.

Limit Visitors

Social support and face-to-face interactions with friends and family can be vital to a healthy recovery. However, simply maintaining a revolving door of guests can be exhausting, especially for someone who is actively recovering from a serious medical procedure.

It’s important to impress on patients the value of limiting and staggering visitors. Not only should the number of visitors be kept to a reasonable number, but the structure of their stay should be considered as well. Here are a few factors to consider:

• Who will you invite? Visits from close family and friends make sense. Extended family and acquaintances may want to wait to pay their respects until you get home, though.
• How long should each visit last? If this isn’t made clear from the get-go, you may find visitors are willing to hang around for hours at a time. Try to set up a 10-15 minute window per visit.
• Can you schedule visitors? Staggering visitors by having them contact you beforehand can help to avoid overcrowded hospital rooms and exhausting back-to-back visits.
• Have you considered hospital protocols? The coronavirus pandemic shook up the hospital visitation routine, serving as a reminder that you should always make sure that you’re aware of what the current visitation rules are before sending out invitations.

As a general rule of thumb, as you help patients develop their visitor policy, remind them to be thoughtful about “who, when, and how” each visit should take place.

Establish Good Relations Between Patients and Caregivers

If a patient is going to spend a significant amount of time cooped up in a hospital room, it’s important that good relations are established with the staff and local patients.

Doctors, specialists, registered nurses, and other caregivers will regularly be checking in, conducting tests and procedures, and generally interacting with the patient. Other patients may share a room as well and may spend significant time in close proximity to the patient.

With this in mind, caregivers and patients alike should make an effort to maintain a congenial, empathetic stance as they interact. Everyone should strive to practice active listening and tap into their emotional intelligence as they go through the often stressful, exhausting process of working and recovering, respectively, side by side.

Prioritize Comfortable Bedding

As a nurse, it’s easy to focus on health concerns, such as providing meals, administering medication, and properly using Fowler’s positions for patient comfort and safety. As a patient, it’s easy to focus on bringing things to do and knowing how to interact with visitors and hospital staff. One easy-to-forget item, though, is the state of the patient’s bedding.

If an individual is going to spend significant time sitting and laying down in a hospital bed, it’s essential that they consider their bedding throughout that time. Apart from basic hospital bedding that is typically provided, patients should consider bringing extra items, such as:

• An extra pillow or two: Pillows can serve as both comfort and nostalgic decor.
• Blankets: A throw for the end of the bed and a cozy fleece are both good ideas.
• A neck pillow: Extended time spent resting in a specific direction can lead to pinched nerves and cramped muscles.

Make sure that whatever is brought into the hospital can be washed in a sanitized laundry load once it returns home.

Have Reading Material On Hand

One of the most important skills of a successful nurse is being detail-oriented. Providing valuable advice to patients, such as limiting visitors and bringing comforting items from home, is already a good start.

If you want to truly shine, though, consider having entertainment options on hand for bed-bound guests as well. If your hospital already has books for patients to read, get familiar with the options available. If they don’t, consider hitting up a book sale and pulling together your own collection to offer to patients.

Try to aim for a smattering of best-sellers, mysteries, classics, fiction, non-fiction, and so on. That way, you can offer bored patients a smorgasbord of different reading options that don’t require endless hours staring at a screen.

Change Up the Lighting, Play Music

An important aspect of the metaparadigm of nursing is being holistic in your caregiving approach, which means considering the whole person as well as their environment, on top of their health and clinical needs. One of the best ways that you can round out your basic hospital care activities — such as providing medications or changing bandages — is by offering ways to change up your patients’ environments, as well.

Hospital lights are often very harsh, and the constant buzz of beeping machines, chatter filled with medical terminology, and the sounds of uncomfortable patients can be exhausting. Consider encouraging individuals to bring their own lamps from home with warmer lighting, and offer them opportunities to select reasonable music to play in their room.

Small gestures like these can make a world of a difference to someone stuck in the same space for days and weeks on end.

Take Time For Breaks

Finally, as you spend your time investing in the long-term comfort of others, always remember to take a little time for yourself, as well. Self-care is a critical aspect of long-term, sustainable caregiving. One of the easiest ways to implement this into your caregiving schedule is by taking regularly scheduled breaks. During these, you can try to engage in various self-care activities, such as:

• Eating healthy food.
• Drinking water.
• Taking a quick nap.
• Going for a walk.
• Meditating and praying.
• Reading a book.

Try to check in on your patients’ current needs and comfort levels before taking a break so that you can genuinely unplug and enjoy your brief times of recharging.

In addition, consider encouraging the patients themselves to take some time to indulge in the above activities as well. With prolonged time spent in bed, a “self-care break” can often be just what the doctor ordered — assuming their recovery warrants the activity.

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This has led to the concept of “safe staffing,” which focuses on maintaining an appropriate nurse-to-patient ratio at all times.

The Importance of Safe Staffing

For nurses to fully exhibit their core skills and traits, they need a work environment that doesn’t overburden them with additional responsibilities or excessive hours. The job description of registered nurses is quite extensive and requires them (among other things) to provide emotional support and interpersonal care to patients; this is something they may already struggle to achieve if understaffing prevents them from adequate face time with patients, or even the ability to practice self-care for their own mental health. The situation has led to the development of safe staffing, a concept that has already found traction in some areas of the country.

For example, California’s nurse staffing mandate — which generally averaged at least one less patient per nurse and more in medical and surgical units — has been shown to simultaneously increase the quality of care and significantly reduce mortality rates as well as nurse burnout and job dissatisfaction.

Experiments and trials like these have shown that safe staffing is critically important for several reasons.

Saves Lives

There’s no doubt, at this point, that safe staffing saves lives. In fact, it’s been shown that the odds of a patient dying increase by 7% for every additional patient that a nurse is assigned. In addition, a 1:8 nurse-to-patient ratio leads to five more deaths per thousand when compared to a 1:4 nurse-to-patient ratio.

Reduces Poor Medical Outcomes

When a nurse is expected to watch too many patients at a time, it often leads to a plethora of poor medical results that can easily be avoided. As an obvious example, even an increase in the number of fall accidents in hospitals has been directly connected to nurse staffing levels.

Cost-Effective Way to Improve Quality of Care

While reducing the nurse-to-patient ratio from 1:8 to something like 1:4 seems like it would require a dramatic increase in costs, it actually doesn’t. While it does cost more to hire a larger staff of nurses, the costs have been shown to never exceed $449,000 per life saved.

This may sound high, but it’s actually a reasonably cost-effective option when compared to other life-saving interventions that are commonly accepted.

Things You Can Do to Support Safe Staffing

If you’re a nurse that agrees with safe staffing, you don’t have to simply wait around for upper-management to decide to change their mind on the issue. There are many steps that you can personally take today, even as a single employee in a larger organization.

Educate Yourself

The first thing you can do in the fight for safe staffing is to thoroughly educate yourself on the matter. This can start by researching your own local regulatory board’s stance and laws toward safe staffing.

In addition, you can research and compare your local rules to proposed federal RN-to-patient staffing ratios. This can help you better understand how closely your local region lines up with healthy ratios.

This information isn’t just good to have while you’re on the job, it can also help you formulate safe staffing questions to ask when interviewing for a new position, too. Asking employers about staffing during the hiring process can help you avoid unhealthy situations, and put more pressure on employers to be accountable and prioritize safe staffing ratios.

Anonymously Report Unsafe Staffing

If you find that you’re in a workplace that is failing to observe a safe staffing mindset, you may feel that you want to sit down and discuss the issue with your HR department.

However, if you’re concerned or uncomfortable with an open challenge to your workplace’s staffing code, it’s also possible to report the activity without endangering your position. Simply go to Flo’s Whistle: Pandemic and report your concern once a day in a secure, anonymous format.

Speak Out

Along with anonymously reporting unsafe staffing concerns, it’s also important to know when it’s time to speak out. If you’re aware of improper staffing at an organization, look for ways to challenge the status quo and advocate for change.

This can begin with small encouragements to utilize technology in a more efficient manner or look for ways to apply time management tips to free up staff from unnecessary duties. However, if the issue persists, you may need to take greater action.

Identify Local Representatives

If you find that safe staffing is a concern in your area, you may want to support changing it on a regulatory level. Safe staffing regulations tend to be set on a local level at the present, so begin the process by identifying your local representatives.

Start by using your zip code to find your state representative and then look up your pair of state senators as well. Make sure to find the best ways to get hold of them, too.

Reach Out to Local Representatives

Once you have your representatives’ information, reach out to them in order to bring your concern to their attention. You can send an email, write a letter, or give them a phone call.

However, if you truly want to stir the pot and ensure that safe staffing comes to their attention, it’s best to try to set up an in-person meeting to talk with them. This isn’t always possible, but it’s certainly worth a try, as it’s been shown to be one of the best ways to streamline change at a government level.

Educate Others

While communicating with representatives is a powerful way to advocate for safe staffing, it should never overshadow the most important activity of all: educating others. If nurses and healthcare professionals, as a group, are not aware of the dangers of overburdening healthcare staff, it will make permanent change nearly impossible.

Start with your coworkers and ensure that everyone is well aware of the issue. This doesn’t just mean making sure they know that they’re overworked. Actually use the statistics and information from this article to help show them how safe staffing is a viable solution to the ongoing problem. Show them the effects of the California laws and the fact that safe staffing isn’t an overly-expensive answer.

Once your coworkers are informed, look for ways to spread the word farther. Educate new employees, get in touch with recent graduates from nursing school, and even take the time to explain to patients, friends, and family about the importance of safe staffing. Each person that you inform has the potential to become another advocate as you collectively bring attention to the increasingly-important need for safe staffing regulations across both the country and the world.

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Here are six specific improvements that healthcare professionals should keep in mind as they look for ways to develop and upgrade the quality of their products and services.

1. Create a Balanced Team

It’s tempting to quickly jump to flashy improvements, such as new technology or cutting-edge methods and procedures — and those are certainly important. However, you cannot succeed in maintaining a continuous learning and growth mindset within your organization if you don’t have a good foundation in place first.

In the healthcare industry, the most essential piece of a good foundation is employing the right people to work for you. In order to create a well-balanced team of individuals that can work together and continually improve, you want to emphasize:

• Experience: You want your team to have proven, hands-on experience in crucial areas, such as patient care, bedside manner, and the various operational procedures that they provide.
• Skills: Team members should possess both hard and soft skills, such as managing healthcare tech tools, leadership qualities, and interpersonal skills.
• Education: Support the ongoing education and advancement of your team. Providing incentives for staff to attend an accredited nursing school and attain higher levels of education can be a great way to invest in the people that deliver care.
• Safe Staffing: Along with hiring the right candidates, you want to ensure that you have enough people to provide proper care without overextending your team.

While all of the other advice on this list is important, it’s all moot if you don’t go about creating change with a solid, dependable, balanced team already in place.

2. Implement Technology

Technology has quickly become a powerful way to improve the quality of healthcare for many different reasons. For instance, technology can solve many healthcare issues through things like EHR (electronic health record) systems, remote patient monitoring, and cloud-based infrastructure.

Technology doesn’t just free up humans to tend to other tasks, it also often streamlines existing tasks. For instance, telehealth doesn’t just enable healthcare professionals to provide consultations, counseling, and nursing remotely. It also does so quickly, provides better access to treatment, and reduces both exposure and costs for patients.

3. Organize Data and Analyze Patient Outcomes

Once upon a time, ancient physicians like Hippocrates came up with outlandish theories, such as the four humors, to try to bring a sense of normalcy to the medical conditions that they witnessed. In the modern era of medicine, though, such estimations and guesses are largely unnecessary, as they’ve been replaced by greater knowledge, better tech, and the ability to properly gather and process information.

That last one is a critical aspect of improving the quality of your care. Without information, it’s difficult to provide an accurate diagnosis of anything. However, raw data is worthless unless you have the ability to organize and analyze it.

If you truly want to increase the quality of your patient care, it’s important that you establish systems to collect, organize, and analyze medical information across your organization. This shouldn’t simply be focused on patient information and billing. Ensure that you’re tracking your patient’s medical information properly as well, in order to provide timely and effective treatment on a regular basis.

4. Improve Access to Care

While everything on this list is important, the ability to provide access to care is arguably the most essential item of them all. It doesn’t matter what technology you’re using, how good your team is, or how organized your data may be; if your patients can’t access your services, the quality of their healthcare is going to suffer.

Common barriers to quality healthcare include prohibitive cost, a lack of insurance, and unavailability of services and competent care.

With that in mind, it’s also important to recognize that there is a massive, ongoing healthcare staff shortage, so the solution can’t simply be demanding more time and effort from your already overburdened staff. Instead, look for ways to implement technology specifically with better access to care in mind, such as:

• Setting up time-saving, cost-reducing telehealth options.
• Avoiding larger issues by offering preventative care through tests and screenings.
• Establishing effective remote patient monitoring to track patient conditions and symptoms even when they’re off-site.

While technology can increase the quality of healthcare in many ways, streamlining and improving patient access to care is the number one greatest benefit that it provides.

5. Set Goals and Constantly Re-Evaluate Goals

Setting goals is an effective time-management method. It gives your organization focus, momentum, and direction. Whether it’s organizing your data, improving your employee training, setting up better access to care, or anything else, it’s important that you identify your organization’s inefficiencies and then set goals to remedy them.

Ensure that these goals are understood by everyone that they affect on every level of your organization. This will encourage communication and collaboration as you work towards accomplishing them.

Once you’ve set goals, it’s also critical that you regularly revisit them. When you do so you should begin by considering if you met the goal. If you have met a particular goal, you can look for what new goals can be set. If you haven’t met a goal, you can either readjust your approach or adjust the goal itself in order to remain on track and moving forward.

6. Collaborate With Other Healthcare Organizations

It’s an unfortunate fact that healthcare is often driven by bottom-line considerations. However, if you truly want to improve the quality of your patient-facing care, it’s essential that you set aside the profits from time to time and look for ways that you can collaborate with other healthcare organizations in the name of the greater good of all of your patients.

For instance, you can spend time researching other organizations in order to learn from their successes and failures. You can even meet up with another healthcare leader to see if there is a way that your two organizations can share information or otherwise work together in order to better help your patients. This can be mutually beneficial and can go a long way in illuminating and instructing each of your organization’s improvement efforts.

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Like other forms of telehealth, this convenient technology has gained popularity through the COVID-19 pandemic. Patients who are at high-risk for health complications if they contract the virus may be able to sidestep the risk of contraction by skipping in-person doctor’s appointments.

Instead, they connect with their medical professionals virtually and get the treatment, prescriptions, and advice they need without potentially exposing themselves to COVID-19. Learn more about the benefits and drawbacks of RPM, as well as the potential for future advancements.

Benefits of Remote Patient Monitoring

Both patients and healthcare professionals benefit from this technology because it saves them time.

Nurses can communicate with more patients in one day when they cut down on their commuting time. Patients also don’t need to find time in their schedules to drive to an office and wait to be seen by a doctor. These patients may be more open to communicating virtually since they’re sitting comfortably in their homes while having conversations with their doctors.

If healthcare professionals are open to working extended hours, they can also make evening or weekend appointments with patients that are more convenient for them. RPM also offers better access to higher quality care.

Better Access To Care

Patients who have to coordinate transportation or pay for public transportation may neglect medical treatment, even if they need it, due to the costs and hassle of getting to and from the office. Those with demanding jobs may also find it hard to take time off from work to make it to the doctor’s office for an appointment.

With RPM, these patients simply need to carve a few minutes out of their day to speak with a medical professional. When patients can call, video chat, or use other at-home technology to receive the healthcare they need, they’re more likely to keep up with their medical treatments and seek help when they need it.

Higher Quality Care

Registered nurses must be skilled at caring for people and educating, treating, and assisting patients in need. Nurses and healthcare professionals that use advanced technologies, such as RPM, find themselves able to provide a higher quality of care to patients.

In addition to communicating with patients virtually, RPM allows these medical professionals to reference patient data quickly through an online database. Doctors and nurses can pull up patient records in a few clicks and review past visits, bloodwork results, and prescription information.

Quick access to this data allows medical professionals to create more harmonious and effective treatment plans and make more accurate decisions about patient health. RPM also ensures these healthcare professionals communicate quickly and effectively with patients about the status of their medical conditions and what to expect.

Drawbacks of Remote Patient Monitoring

While RPM has made it more convenient to treat patients, there are drawbacks to this technology in the healthcare industry. Both patients and healthcare professionals may find it efficient to communicate virtually but they may also feel out of touch with each other if they only interact through virtual technology. Low patient motivation and less face-to-face time are also cons to RPM.

Patient Motivation

Younger patients who grew up using online technologies may find RPM easy to integrate into their daily lives. However, older patients or those with disabilities may find it hard to follow the steps necessary to access RPM systems and communicate with healthcare professionals.

Since these professionals can’t be face-to-face with patients to walk them through using this technology, they may become frustrated and give up. Without the motivation to learn how to use RPM, patients could decide to skip treatments altogether, putting their health at risk.

Less Face-to-Face Time

Remote connectivity limits the ability of RNs to fulfill the metaparadigm of nursing, which considers the patient environment as well as the clinical plan and individual health. When medical professionals can’t see their patients face-to-face, they may miss certain symptoms patients haven’t disclosed verbally. Without a complete picture of a patient’s health and current experiences, there may be a late diagnosis or an ineffective prescription or treatment plan may be advised.

The Future of Remote Patient Monitoring

Many technology fields are constantly advancing and RPM is no different. In addition to virtual patient appointments, RPM technologies may include advancement in the use of robotics in healthcare. Companion robots may be able to visit patients who are chronically ill, helping them feel less lonely and more hopeful about their health and future.

Robots can record and organize patient data, saving medical professionals time. Some robots are also trained to perform surgeries or analyze a patient’s health records. Eventually, these robots may be trained to take patients’ vital signs or educate patients on their diagnosis.

Cloud computing and big data have also become ubiquitous within the healthcare industry and may play an even bigger role in record maintenance in the future. With cloud computing, healthcare professionals store patient data on a database or network.

This allows them quick and easy access to these records so they can analyze health changes in a matter of minutes. RPM systems may also be able to instantly analyze this data and provide statistics and probabilities that medical professionals can utilize when creating effective treatment plans for individual patients.

RPM Is Here to Stay

Nurses should prepare to answer questions in job interviews related to RPM and other new types of technologies as they become ubiquitous and integral to modern medicine. Likewise, it may be valuable for nurses to highlight their experiences working with telemedicine and RPM in cover letters to emphasize their comfort using these alternative methods of connecting with patients.

RPM allows many patients to connect with their healthcare professionals. With the COVID-19 pandemic, this technology has gained popularity as a way for high-risk individuals to maintain treatment and healthcare assistance without exposure. While this technology is beneficial to the healthcare industry and showing promising technological advancements, it doesn’t come without some drawbacks.

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Many of these travel-related job opportunities also allow you to help people and make a difference in the world. Review these travel jobs that are focused on philanthropy so you can explore a career that includes both jet-setting and making a difference in the world.

Teaching English as a Second Language

If English is your first language and you’re proficient at it, you can teach it as a second language to students in other countries.

To become an English teacher who travels abroad, you may be required to have a bachelor’s degree and some teaching experience. You may also be required to pass an English teaching test or obtain certification, such as a Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) certificate.

ESL teachers abroad earn an average salary of $44,464, depending on where you’re stationed. You may be asked to travel to any number of foreign countries that don’t teach English as their first language, such as China, Costa Rica, or Saudia Arabia.

The job will expose you to different cultures and you’ll contribute to foreign children’s’ education. However, you’ll need to use your teaching skills and patience to teach English, and your lodging and amenities may not be as comfortable as you’re used to in the U.S.

Travel Nursing

As a travel nurse, you’ll travel to foreign countries and use your skills to help patients. To qualify, you must already be a registered nurse. You may also be required to have experience in one or more nursing fields, depending on the traveling nurse job you’re looking to obtain.

Traveling nurses are asked to report to locations that are experiencing nurse shortages. Depending on the nursing skills you possess and the type of work you signed up for, you may travel domestically or internationally. You could assist with a range of medical procedures, preventative health care, diagnostics, and treatments.

You may be stationed in a new location for a few months at a time, giving you a chance to explore and learn more about the area. However, in some foreign countries, you may not have access to the tools and medically advanced technology you had in the U.S.

Travel nurses earn an average salary of $1,715 per week. However, in addition to the many benefits of working as a nurse, you may also qualify for other travel perks, such as free lodging and access to healthcare.

To obtain a job as a traveling nurse, you’ll need to present an organized resume and cover letter that highlights your nursing experience. You may also need to prepare for common interview questions to obtain a nursing job. You’ll need to prove you have the skills, personality, and experience necessary to become an efficient traveling nurse.

Translator

A translator is vital to certain processes, such as medical procedures, because they ensure everyone involved in the situation can communicate. If you’re proficient in two different languages and want to travel and help people, a job as a translator may be right for you.

There are many industries that need translators, such as travel agencies, hospitals, and counselors. If you have knowledge and education in the healthcare field, you could apply for a job with a medical facility to help translate communications between medical professionals and patients.

The average hourly rate for a translator is $20.26, which may be lower than many other traveling professions. If you don’t obtain a job with an agency and remain a freelance translator, you may also find that you don’t have steady work all the time. However, if you’re a translator in the medical industry, you’ll use your skills to help make healthcare procedures run more smoothly while traveling the world and learning about other cultures.

International Aid Worker

International aid workers travel to foreign countries when disaster strikes, such as war, famine, or earthquake. While training and education may not be required for this position, if you have experience in healthcare, international relations, or social services, it may be helpful when distributing aid to foreign citizens.

There are many organizations that hire international aid workers, including the RedCross and United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

International aid workers have the satisfaction of helping foreign citizens when they need it most but their jobs also have some drawbacks. These workers are expected to bravely travel to foreign countries that may be in the middle of a war or experiencing disease.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median salary for a humanitarian worker is $46,090. Your lodging, food, and other amenities may also be covered when you’re on assignment.

Foreign Service

Foreign service workers travel to other countries and assist in solving international issues, such as immigration, natural disasters, and economic problems. With the United States’ interests in mind, these workers navigate current policies and politics in foreign countries to create solutions that benefit all citizens.

There are many organizations that hire foreign service professionals. Most include intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), such as Doctors Without Borders, or U.S.-based agencies, including the PeaceCorps. To become a foreign service worker, you must have education and experience within the field you’re entering, as well as strong communication and negotiation skills.

Foreign service workers can earn from $36,232 to $170,800, depending on their class, experience, and duties. The position includes exciting travel and international relations opportunities. However, workers mainly travel to countries that may not be receptive to U.S. policies and they may be required to deal with unsafe or uncomfortable accommodations.

It’s possible to pursue a meaningful career that focuses on making a difference and traveling abroad. With one of these inspiring careers, you can fulfill your desire to help people while exploring the world.

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Although educational expenses are intimidating, there are several options to fund your education. Review these opportunities that may help you pay for nursing school. When you know about the array of funding choices, you may find it easier to decide if you can afford to meet the educational requirements to become a registered nurse without breaking the bank.

Complete the FAFSA Form

Before looking into other funding options, your first step should be to complete the free application for federal student aid (FAFSA). You may assume this form is only used to apply for student loans through the federal government. However, when you submit a FAFSA, you’ll also receive information on alternative federal student aid you may qualify for, such as work-study programs, school-based aid, or federal grants.

Submit the FAFSA online through the government’s federal student aid website. It must be submitted from January 1 through June 30 in the year when you plan to begin school. However, you should attempt to submit the form as soon as possible since financial aid is awarded to qualified students on a first-come, first-serve basis. Once funding expires for the year, even if you qualify, you won’t receive it.

To complete the form, create an online account and provide the following information:

• Your Social Security number.
• Your contact information.
• School codes.
• Your income and other financial information.

If you’re under 23 at the time of your application, you’ll also need to provide your parents’ income and tax information. Once your form is successfully submitted and reviewed, you’ll receive information on the loans, grants, and other aid you qualify for, as well as the terms associated with the funding.

Apply for Nursing Scholarships

A scholarship is a sum of money awarded to a student for certain achievements or goals. You aren’t required to pay back scholarship money so it’s an attractive funding source if you qualify. There are many schools, businesses, or other types of organizations that offer scholarships specifically to nursing students. Outside of these nursing-specific programs, other scholarships may be available to students based on certain characteristics, such as their background, past grades they earned, or their gender. Begin searching for scholarships a few months before you begin school. You can search for scholarships:

• Online through the U.S. Department of Labor’s website.
• Through your school’s financial aid office.
• With local hospitals or other healthcare facilities.

Some organizations may provide scholarships that only offer small amounts toward tuition or books. While it’s tempting to skip over these scholarships, if you think you may qualify, take the time to apply. These small scholarships add up and with a combination of funding, you may be able to cover your entire higher education without going into debt.

Choose a College or University

Before attempting to figure out how you’ll pay for your education, choose the college or university you want to attend. When you have a target school in mind, you’ll have a better idea of the tuition costs and other investments into your education you’ll need to make.

If you’re worried about schooling expenses, you can also research local nursing schools or specific degrees that offer generous financial aid options or lower tuition. Attending a school in your state typically provides some automatic savings through in-state tuition; additional scholarships may be available exclusively to state residents, local high school graduates, etc. Contacting local schools and speaking with their respective financial aid offices can help you get a better idea of what resident programs and support are available.

Apply for Nursing Grants

If you qualify for a grant, you’re not required to pay it back once you complete your education. When you submit your FAFSA, you’ll learn about the grants you may qualify for and their terms. Most grant qualifications are based on financial need or other student characteristics. For example, there may be grants available for:

• Single mothers;
• Ethnic groups;
• Students with low incomes;
• State residents may also have access to local government grants and aid programs for nurses or healthcare workers.

Some grants only offer a small amount of money. However, since you don’t need to pay these grants back, you should take advantage of all funding opportunities you qualify for since they can help with tuition, housing, or school supplies.

Apply for Work-Study

When you’re still in school, it may be beneficial to join a work-study program, which is designed to help you pay off student debt. Work-study program jobs are usually on campus, such as assisting teachers or helping the community.

When you sign up for a work-study program, the salary you earn goes toward paying back your student loans. The job you obtain may give you real-world experience in your field while helping reduce your student loan debt.

Apply for Federal Student Loans

If you can’t fund your education entirely through scholarships and grants, you may qualify for a federal student loan. When you submit your FAFSA, you’ll learn about federal student loans you qualify for.

If you meet the government’s low-income requirements, you may qualify for a subsidized loan. You don’t pay interest on this type of loan while you’re in school. If you don’t meet these income qualifications, you may still be able to obtain an unsubsidized loan. You’ll be responsible for paying interest you accrued on the loan while attending school.

Most federal loans offer lower interest rates than private loans and you don’t need to start paying them back until after graduation. If you have trouble staying on your repayment plan, the federal government may work with you to defer or lower loan payments.

Apply for Private Student Loans

Private loans usually include high interest rates and aggressive repayment plans, so you should only consider them if you don’t qualify for other funding options. To obtain a private loan, you must provide your financial information and your loan terms are determined based on your credit score and other factors.

Financial institutions offer private student loans and it’s important to shop around and choose the best option for you. Consider the loan amount, interest rate, and repayment plan when considering a private student loan.

If you dream of becoming a registered nurse, don’t let the costs of education get in your way. There are many ways to fund your education if you take the time to explore your options and take advantage of opportunities you may qualify for.

Research Employers for Tuition Reimbursement

One of the benefits of being a nurse is that many employers offer tuition reimbursement. Due to the nursing shortage, many employers — especially hospitals and clinics in rural or remote areas — have to provide additional benefits or incentives to try to attract adequate staff. Other employers recognize the burden that student loans or the cost of education can pose. As a result, it isn’t unusual for employers to offer some form of reimbursement or assistance with repaying student loans to qualifying nurses.

Sometimes this is made available to new applicants, while other employers may offer it as a perk to current staff only (as a way to reward advanced training and ongoing education). Either way, researching employment options before going to school can not only open up additional ways to pay for tuition, but may help you determine where you want to work upon commencement.

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However, advances in technology are focused on mitigating these challenges to allow the healthcare industry to be more efficient at achieving its goal of helping people remain healthy. The same basic skills required for success as a caregiver also can enable clinical professionals to take advantage of new technology and improve the delivery of all manner of medical services. Review the common problems healthcare is facing and how advanced technologies may solve them.

Problems In Healthcare

The healthcare industry focuses on helping people remain healthy. However, it faces several issues that can affect its ability to achieve this goal.

Healthcare Accessibility

Not all patients have easy access to healthcare and medical treatments when they need it. Some patients face barriers to treatment, such as transportation or a demanding work schedule. Patients without access to transportation or without free time may find themselves neglecting their health because they can’t take time off from work or don’t have a way to get to a health provider’s office.

Healthcare staff shortages are also negatively impacting the industry and making it hard for patients to find adequate treatment and scheduling flexibility. Hardworking healthcare professionals maintain demanding schedules and workloads, which can make it tough for patients to seek treatment when needed. When patients live in remote locations, they may not have available medical professionals closeby, making it a challenge to obtain healthcare.

Medicare and Medicaid

Medicare and Medicaid are government healthcare programs that assist qualified patients in paying for covered medical care. However, these programs have confusing, complex, and differing healthcare expenses reimbursement systems. As a result, health systems and physicians may decide not to even accept patients who rely on these federal programs for healthcare coverage.

Medical professionals who must submit claims for payment to these programs spend their time attempting to learn and follow the ever-changing rules and procedures. Doctors are required to follow extra steps, including filling out specific forms, before they’re reimbursed for the treatment they provided to covered patients, which can be frustrating and time-consuming.

Supply Management

The mismanagement of the healthcare industry’s supply chain underlies a host of issues, from a lack of access to essential supplies to missing documentation and lost resources. Supply chain issues can also lead to lost or damaged inventory and wasted drugs or equipment, which can be costly for medical providers and suppliers — and ultimately, to patients and other stakeholders in the system.

Healthcare facilities experience extreme financial losses when drugs, medical supplies, and equipment are lost or misplaced. These profit losses can negatively affect all aspects of the healthcare industry, including out-of-pocket expenses for patients.

Managing Data

When healthcare professionals store patient health history and data, it’s useful in the future for accurate diagnosis and to develop effective treatment plans. However, this data must be stored securely and efficiently so it remains safe and useful.

Many healthcare professionals don’t have the proper documentation systems and protocols in place to handle the large amounts of data associated with their patients. This can lead to dangerous data breaches or expensive investments in additional staffing or software to help manage the data and retrieve it efficiently.

Quality of Care

Many healthcare facilities are understaffed, lacking nurses and support staff as well as specialists to keep up with the needs of patient populations. Understaffing can cause existing caregivers to be overworked, increasing the risk of human error, and straining the system to provide adequate levels of care.

Efficient delivery of care isn’t possible in a system struggling to stay afloat, and the risk of burnout or compassion fatigue can become critical. With staff lacking the necessary resources, support, and flexibility to manage self-care, patient care can suffer.

Technology Solutions

Many of these healthcare problems can be solved with technological advancements currently entering the field. There are several technology solutions that address the issues many healthcare providers, patients, and medical staff face today.

Telehealth

Using telehealth, patients can connect with healthcare professionals in the comfort of their own home. Telehealth has had a positive impact on patients who can’t afford to travel, can’t take time off from work to visit a doctor, or who have mobility issues.

Through phone conversations or video chats, healthcare professionals can better understand what patients are experiencing. They can virtually provide them with accurate treatment plans, prescriptions for medication, or general healthcare advice.

With remote patient monitoring (RPM), doctors use technology to virtually meet with patients. This allows them to check on symptoms and monitor patients with chronic medical conditions without the need to schedule an in-office appointment. With this advanced technology, healthcare providers maximize their working time and patients save their resources while still obtaining the treatment they need.

Electronic Health Record Systems

Healthcare professionals who keep manual health record systems waste staff’s time and experience disorganization that can make it hard to access data when they need it. With electronic health record (EHR) systems, patient data is organized and secure. These EHR systems save time and money while allowing medical professionals to review patient history and record health changes in a few clicks.

Electronic patient data organization and secure storage have both become vital parts of the healthcare industry. Nurses can specialize in nursing informatics and learn how to advance the healthcare field and improve treatments through big data.

Inventory Management System

Both healthcare administrative professionals and providers benefit from a comprehensive inventory management system. With an effective system in place, healthcare professionals have access to accurate supply, equipment, and prescription drug inventory numbers.

With data visualizations and past usage numbers, administrative professionals can more accurately predict when to reorder stock, decreasing waste, and making it easier to prepare for expenses.

Cloud-Based Infrastructure

Patient paperwork, medical history, and other data must be properly handled and organized, which hinders the healthcare staff’s ability to complete other tasks. With cloud-based infrastructure, medical professionals have easier and faster access to this data, which is more organized and easier to read.

This advanced technology allows medical staff to securely store patient information quickly and systematically, saving time and ensuring data is handled safely.

Artificial Intelligence

Robots, machine learning, and image recognition aren’t just technologies being incorporated into household and personal devices; these technologies are also expanding to improve the healthcare industry.

Artificial intelligence (AI) streamlines data collection processes, which allows busy healthcare professionals to see more patients. Robots assist with more accurate surgeries and may be able to take patient vital signs and information. AI analyzes big data sets to develop statistics and conclusions that help medical professionals pinpoint accurate diagnosis and treatment options.

While the healthcare industry experiences challenges and issues, technology promises to help remedy these problems. With advancements in the technology used in the healthcare industry, healthcare professionals save time, money, and resources, leading to improvements in the field and in patients’ lives.

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