Post-acute EHR software solutions | MatrixCare



Speaker 1 (00:01):Hi, and welcome to the Post-Acute Point of View, our discussion hub for healthcare technology in the out-of-hospital space.Speaker 1 (00:09):Here we talk about the latest news and views on trends and innovation that can impact the way post-acute care providers work. And we take a look at how technology can make a difference in today's changing healthcare landscape, in both home-based and facility-based care organizations, and the lives of the people they serve.Speaker 1 (00:29):Today we hear from Kelly Keefe, vice president of community solutions strategy for MatrixCare, and her special guest. Let's dive in.Kelly Keefe (00:39):Hi everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I'm Kelly Keefe, vice president of community solutions strategy at MatrixCare. And today we're going to talk about different ways that we can keep employees engaged.Kelly Keefe (00:51):My guest today is Beth Baerman, director of communications at Attendance On Demand. I'm really excited to have you today, Beth, and I think this topic is going to be really meaningful for our entire audience.Beth Baerman (01:03):Oh thanks, Kelly. I'm glad to be here.Kelly Keefe (01:05):Great. I'm hoping that we can start off, if you would give us a little bit of background about yourself. You've got quite an interesting history, and I think that it would be really nice for our audience to hear that.Beth Baerman (01:15):Oh, sure. Well, I have had a long career. I'm lucky to have had a long career in the tech field. I've always worked for software development companies, and always in business-to-business.Beth Baerman (01:28):My career has always been about helping companies and organizations do better work, from tech writing, training communications, and most recently focusing in on compliance. It's been in this whole sort of teaching, learning, engaging history.Beth Baerman (01:44):In the last 15 years, I've been targeted more to workforce management. So it's not as much about the employers doing better, or not only about that, but also about employers improving their relationship with their employees. Managing, scheduling, and now engagement. Because we now know that leads to all kinds of benefits for everybody involved, employees and employers alike, and that's why we're here today.Kelly Keefe (02:11):That's fantastic. And it really is topical. I think even prior to the pandemic, certainly we were concerned about engaging, not only our residents, but our employees. But particularly since then, we've certainly put our employees through a very trying time recently. And just like I said earlier, I think that this is such a great topic for today.Kelly Keefe (02:30):So I guess I'd like to start off by, first of all, defining what is engagement? I think we all have a little bit of a different interpretation of that.Beth Baerman (02:37):Yeah, I agree with you, Kelly. I think that engagement, it kind of seems like a buzzword a little bit these days. Or it's one of those, "Oh duh, we all know what engagement is." It seems pretty obvious, but in fact, as a topic and as a real factor in a company's success, engagement has been researched since the 1960s, Which is a long time ago.Beth Baerman (03:02):There've been several large, significant research studies over the past 20 years that I draw on a lot in advising customers, and in advising our product development team with our products. In those, we talk about engagement as an employee's emotional investment. It's the investment in their job, and in their organization.Beth Baerman (03:25):The more motivated, the more committed they are, in generally they're more productive, and they stay with organizations longer. So we have proof that this emotional investment, this engagement, makes a real difference to an organization's bottom line.Kelly Keefe (03:41):Wow. I know everybody is certainly very invested in their bottom line. Can you give an example of how a bottom line might be impacted by that?Beth Baerman (03:49):Absolutely. One, I think, really pertinent aspect for your listeners, Kelly, is turnover. We know that turnover is a huge issue, particularly for skilled nursing. And the cost to replace a CNA, for example, ranges, depending on where you are, between about 2,200 and about $3,400. And that's just direct cost for one CNA.Beth Baerman (04:14):With turnover rates sky-high these days, depending on where you are it can be 50 or 60% up to 100%. Those dollars really add up. When we look at how engagement impacts that, we see that only 2% of highly-engaged employees are actively looking for another job. Now that compares to 23% of disengaged employees. That's a huge difference.Beth Baerman (04:41):And when it comes to how many of those folks are actually successful, when it comes to the actual turnover rate, we see that disengaged employees leave organizations at more than double the rate of engaged employees. Again, huge. If you can cut your turnover by half, simply by moving those folks who are disengaged into a more engaged position, that's a huge savings.Beth Baerman (05:06):And absences are lower for engaged employees too. So there's another cost savings on having to deal with absences, and often the extra overtime that involves in getting folks to cover those important shifts.Kelly Keefe (05:19):Absolutely. Wow, I really didn't realize that there was so much of a difference between those engaged employees and the disengaged employees. And that really... I mean, you don't have to even run the numbers to realize what a big difference that would make in your bottom line.Kelly Keefe (05:33):I think we all can agree that bringing on new folks is not only costly, but it just also takes valuable time away from our residents. Getting care to the residents.Beth Baerman (05:43):That's a really good point, and that's part of that. What I was mentioning was the direct costs, but there's all the indirect costs as well. And that's the time that the other staff has to take in onboarding, the time away from your residents. And in this field, that's really significant, and that's really important, and that's why people are doing what they're doing here.Kelly Keefe (06:03):Yeah, exactly. So Beth, I'm wondering, what types of things contribute to employee engagement?Beth Baerman (06:10):Well, I think we all have a common sense kind of gut-feel for this, right? And in some ways the research that I was referring to confirms this, and fine-tunes our understanding.First, to step back just a second, when we talk about engagement, there's two types, and they're related. There's engagement the job, Do I really love the job I'm doing? Am I really engaged in the job? But also with the organization. How attached am I to the company that I'm working for? These are related, but they're distinct, they're different. And ideally you really want both. But of the two, organizational engagement leads to better outcomes.Beth Baerman (06:49):Specifically in skilled nursing, from facility to facility, organization to organization, a lot of times the jobs are very similar. So it's really that engagement to the organization that's so key for retention, and for getting folks to stay and love the organization.Beth Baerman (07:07):When we look at the studies that are out there, there's two that I rely on heavily that have been done in recent years. And one of them had a take that was a little more on the organization as a whole. It identified four key factors. So characteristics of the job. Now, there's not a lot of leeway, especially when it comes to those direct-care positions, that an organization has to change the characteristics of the job. But it has definitely an impact.Then there's perceived organizational support. And we use that word, perceived, because it's, How does the employee feel that they're being supported by the organization? There's perceived supervisor support. So how does the employee feel that the supervisor is supporting them. Something that they label procedural and distributive justice. So how fair is the organization? How fair are they in their procedures that affect me? And can I see across the board that different groups of people are being treated in the same fair way?Beth Baerman (08:09):Then the second study looked more at individuals. So things that really impacted, not from an organizational standpoint, as much as from the individual. That was employee communication, employee development and co-employee support. And in many cases, just to clarify, a lot of times we think of employee development belonging in that organizational support category, how an organization supports its employees.But when we look at those two studies that I just briefly summarized, we want to focus in on three factors. Because of all those things I just listed, that handful of things I listed, three of them impact both the organizational engagement and the job engagement. So this is really the brass ring here. The first is perceived organizational support. How well does organization support me as a person, as a professional? Does the organization authentically care about their employees?Beth Baerman (09:04):The second is communication. And that goes two ways. It's important that employees feel they have a voice and that they've been heard. And then the third is co-employee support. So are the employees there for each other? Does the organization value employees who support each other? And is it safe within the culture for employees to ask for help?Kelly Keefe (09:26):Wow. It really makes a lot of sense. What strikes me is, I've always been very relationship driven. And when I think about everything that you just said, it really boils right back down to relationships. So relationships with other team members in the organization, relationship with leaders in the organization, and relationships with the organization as a whole.Beth Baerman (09:46):I agree. I think you're absolutely right. That's really perceptive. Because at the end of the day, we all spend so much of our lives in our jobs and with our coworkers. And how important is it for us to feel supported by our employer and by our coworker, and comfortable and safe in that environment.Beth Baerman (10:06):That's kind of what engagement is all about. It's figuring out what is it, and what can we tweak that really will amp up those feelings?Kelly Keefe (10:14):Absolutely. So let's talk about, what can facilities do to improve on these factors? So let's start, if you don't mind, with perceived organizational support.Beth Baerman (10:24):Sure. There's a lot of actions. There's a lot of ways that organizations can support their employees. First, we can just put that out there, that organizations can get creative, and they can do a lot of different things. When I think about trying to approach it methodically, I like to think about starting with things that you're already doing, that you're planning to begin doing, or that you just have to do anyway. Better to start by adjusting what you do today than to have to begin a whole new program, which can sometimes take a long time to roll out, and can take a big investment.Beth Baerman (10:59):One of the key things in a skilled nursing, especially when we're talking about the direct-care staff, is scheduling. So how can an organization, if we talk about scheduling, support their employees more? Well, one way is simply to ask them when do they prefer to work? And then try to schedule them accordingly. And if you can't, talk to them about it. "Okay, I know that you prefer to work this other schedule. I really need coverage here this week. I appreciate what you do." And this hits the communication aspect as well.The other point here that I think is important, is that many of these factors that lead to engagement are really intertwined. Because if you do one well, you're pulling in aspects of the others too. Now of course, collecting work preferences and communication around scheduling can be a lot of extra work. And I know you focus a lot on technology in the podcasts here, so just to bring that aspect in as well, having an automated system, a workforce management system, like Time Tracker 3, can relieve a lot of the burden of the manual tracking.Beth Baerman (12:04):It can be done manually, and there are groups out there that definitely do it. I've seen a three-ring binder where people are putting their preferences in, or a calendar up on the wall where people are putting their preferred time in, and their preferred time off and, and things like that. But having it in a workforce management system can really relieve a lot of the burden of the schedulers having to sort all of that out and the system can do it. So that's a way where you can leverage technology to increase engagement without putting a lot of extra burden on the supervisors and the schedulers.Kelly Keefe (12:38):That would be really nice. I didn't mention this at the beginning, but I'm also a registered nurse. My career goes back more than 25 years, so I'm going to date myself a little bit here. But when you were talking about that, I was thinking back to being a manager in an acute-care hospital, and trying to staff people. Again, 24/7, 365, holidays, weekends, everything.Kelly Keefe (13:01):Back then, we were using paper and rulers and grids. Making grids and trying to align preferences and things like that. It was really difficult. And back then, there just really wasn't any kind of technology like this that could have helped me.Kelly Keefe (13:15):So I agree that it certainly is possible to do it that way, but having tools at your disposal, like Time Tracker, being able to facilitate tracking that type of information, people's preferences, and being able to schedule... It would have been a complete game-changer to my former self. I'm a little jealous, I have to admit.Beth Baerman (13:36):Well, and I think, this is almost one of those situations where sometimes these things can be a double-edged sword. Because if you don't do it right, you can increase engagement in one group and increase disengagement in another. So if you're helping most of your direct-care staff, but your schedulers now are completely overwhelmed and overburdened, that's not really the best way to go about it. I think the key is, like we were talking with Time Tracker, is to find a way to leverage tools you might already be using, and just not using to their fullest extent, in order to take advantage of automation to enable this so that it's actually easier for everybody.Kelly Keefe (14:13):Yeah. That makes sense. I'm wondering about other aspects of workforce management that will assist with employee preferences?Beth Baerman (14:20):Well, we can, as an example, talk about the employee app that's available with Time Tracker. What's nice about that, these days everybody has a smartphone. And we have ways to help and deal with those small group that doesn't.Beth Baerman (14:35):But what's nice about having it on the phone, is people are always using their phones anyway, and having an app where you can just bring up a calendar and quickly look at preferences in a few different ways. "I prefer this particular shift. I absolutely can't work these three days, because I'm on vacation, or I have an elective surgery scheduled," or something like that.Beth Baerman (14:57):So that the nuance of, what do I prefer? And what absolutely can I not do? Or what do I really want to do? There's sort of a gradation there of preference that we can accommodate with technology that's much more difficult to accommodate when you're trying to do it all on paper.Beth Baerman (15:17):And then when the scheduler is looking at it, it's very easy to avoid scheduling somebody when they prefer not to work. Or to be aware that, "Oh, this is preferred shift for this person who's trying to fill in, or who's helping out," when I'm setting up a monthly schedule. So it does make a real difference.Kelly Keefe (15:35):Oh, I can imagine. Again, kind of hearkening back to my memories of my nursing management days, and thinking about how often the schedule would come out, and as much as I had tried to accommodate everybody, it just was inevitable that somebody wasn't accommodated. In part, because I just didn't know everything that people were looking for.Kelly Keefe (15:56):That created a situation where people had to go out and try to trade with each other, and sometimes that created animosity amongst the staff. Because, "Somebody isn't willing to trade with me, and they're never willing to trade with me."Kelly Keefe (16:08):It goes back to that relationship component that we were talking about earlier, where anything that you can do to help staff work together... You would want to avoid any type of animosity, certainly. So even something as seemingly small as this, I can see would make a tremendous difference.Beth Baerman (16:26):Yeah, I think it really does. And I think that this is one of those areas where I think we're able to do so much more now because of technology than we could have in the past. But there's other areas too, if we talk about that organizational support, that are related. One is, some shifts are just unpopular. Nobody likes to work Thanksgiving night. Nobody likes to work Christmas Eve.So there are some shifts there's going to be more unpopular than others. And the idea of spreading those around, and distributing them as evenly as possible. Somebody isn't always feeling aggrieved that they're the one who always has to take those unpopular shifts. Even to the point of management working them as well can make a real difference. This is an area where our scheduling is now related to that justice and fairness that I mentioned earlier. That's also a real contributor.Beth Baerman (17:20):Then something I want to throw in and bring up, that's maybe not related to scheduling or the technology Time Tracker at all. But employee development, as I mentioned, gets often closely related into that organizational support. A lot of times your mind goes to tuition support, and let me develop. From an education perspective, maybe a CNA, provide them a path to LPN. Or an LPN, provide a path to an RN. And those kinds of programs can be quite expensive and costly to administer. But remember that this kind of organizational support goes beyond the work life to support home life too.Some things that I've seen groups do, and in fact my company does this, is that we sometimes have lunchtime speakers, which is a really inexpensive way to do things. Particularly these days when everything is done over Zoom and Meeting. So you can even have employees sitting in your lunchroom, but bring in a remote speaker to talk to them about things like mindfulness or healthy cooking or nutrition or wellness topics. Things that can help people's lives outside of work, and that can really help that development. You're helping them develop as people, as well as professionals. And it shows that the organization cares about its employees, both inside and outside of work.Kelly Keefe (18:44):You know, as you were talking about that, that was what struck me. It was that, it's great to get training about your job. A lot of times that just feels like more work, right? [inaudible 00:18:54] more things about your job.Kelly Keefe (18:55):And even though certainly that's necessary, and as an employee you always want to make sure that you're getting additional training, but I really love that idea of expanding that education out into their life beyond the job. And again, that ties back to that relationship thing, and showing that the organization cares. I just love that. What a great idea.Beth Baerman (19:14):And I think that right now, with COVID, there's just so much more stress for the residents in the facility, for the direct-care staff, for all the employees in the facility, that there's an opportunity to even do some of this as a group together. Wouldn't it be great to have a mindful seminar that some of your residents can participate, along with their caregivers?Kelly Keefe (19:39):Oh, perfect. Yes, really. What a great idea. So let's talk about, you mentioned earlier too, we talked about communication. What can you tell us about communication?Beth Baerman (19:51):Well, the most important thing is to expand the way you think about communication. Most organizations think about communication as sort of a one-way, top-down. And that's really important. And is often lacking, so I don't want to dismiss that. It's really important to share with employees what's going on, to create transparency around the organization's performance. Whether it's staff meetings, or communications on the bulletin board, or a newsletter, or something like that. That's really great.But what sometimes gets forgotten, is that it's really important for communication to come the other way, and for the employees to have a voice. That can be as simple as asking for their input on problems, whether it's staffing or scheduling or care plans or other organizational problems. The employees are the ones who are living in every day, and they often have really great ideas. And just being asked makes a huge difference. And often those responses that you get are really insightful. They in generally they come from a place of really caring, or from a place of really being hurt or inconvenienced by the way things are today. So acknowledging input, even if it can't be accommodated, is really important.Beth Baerman (21:09):This kind of thing applies at work with employees, with management, really across the board, and outside of work too. If I can kind of digress a little bit away from just the professional here, as I was thinking about our conversation today, something that really struck me was a conversation I had with my son just a few days ago.He was remembering an incident that happened in his high school class a few years ago, where his English teacher, they were talking about the theme of a book, asked a question. My son's buddy, Robbie, put his hand up and answered the question. And the teacher, it was like, "No, no, no." Kind of blew him off and went on to somebody who answered it, and answered it correctly, and the conversation went on.Beth Baerman (21:50):Well, the next day the teacher came back at the start of class and said, "Before we get going today, I owe Robbie an apology. He had an idea and I just dismissed it. And I really think it deserves a little bit of discussion." So they spent a couple of minutes talking about Robbie's idea, and really kind of dissecting why it wasn't the right answer.Beth Baerman (22:11):So it wasn't that they were saying he was right, but it was that acknowledgement. He had an idea he participated. And even though it wasn't right, the value there was acknowledged. And here we are, years later. My son didn't remember what the question was. He didn't remember what Robbie's initial answer was, but he remembered that this happened.Beth Baerman (22:32):And were the students more engaged after this? Yeah. Were they more willing to participate after this? Yeah. And is it remembered years later? And is this teacher one of the most respected and favorite teachers because of this incident? Yes.Beth Baerman (22:49):This is exactly the kind of thing that we're talking about with communication. It's both ways it's not just the teacher, or, in this case, the management of the facility spreading information out, which is really important. But it's also about receiving information and acknowledging it, and giving it consideration, even if it's not something that can be enacted.Kelly Keefe (23:12):Oh, I absolutely love that. Everybody just wants to be heard, right? And nobody wants to be talked to, they really would like to be talked with.Beth Baerman (23:21):Yes.Kelly Keefe (23:22):I just think, that's such a wonderful story and it really does resonate. It's not just about education. Like you said, it's also about how we can treat each other in the workplace as well.Kelly Keefe (23:31):And it's one of those things that, it doesn't actually take a lot of time to stop and talk and ask people for their opinions. But it's one of those things that I think, in our days as we get busy, it's one of those things that we can just kind of push off to the wayside, then think, "I'll connect with folks later."Beth Baerman (23:48):Yes.Kelly Keefe (23:48):But in this example, you know, I'm sure that teacher had plenty of things that she needed to get to the next day, but taking that time was so impactful. And I think that, leaders in senior living, and certainly skilled nursing organizations, taking that time out to just talk with their folks and really listen to what they're saying. That's fantastic. I love it.Beth Baerman (24:08):Yeah. It's easy to do, but it's hard to do routinely. And I think that's part of the key too, is making it routine. It's not a one and done.Kelly Keefe (24:19):Now, one other thing that you mentioned was co-employee support. Can you talk a little bit more about that too?Beth Baerman (24:25):Sure. I think this is where the role of the senior living or the skilled nursing management or the organization is more around fostering an environment. You want an environment where employees will pitch in for each other and establishing those relationships.Beth Baerman (24:43):It can simply start with supervisors recognizing those moments when you have one employee that helps out another employee, or goes out of their way, or covers for 15 minutes because somebody was late, they had a flat tire. Whatever it might be, just that recognition.Beth Baerman (25:00):And sometimes that recognition can be a quiet, "Thank you." But I think another thing that's really effective is if there's a vehicle in the organization to acknowledge things like that. Whether it's a little column in a newsletter, or if it's a sign that goes up in the lunchroom. Whatever it might be, that public acknowledgement is really key too.Beth Baerman (25:20):It doesn't cost money. It's about that acknowledgement. It's about just the environment that you have. So acknowledging those things, encouraging those things, recognition in a staff meeting when that kind of thing happens. When that's seen to be appreciated and acknowledged, then people are more likely to go out of their way to do it, is one thing.Beth Baerman (25:44):And then another way to do it is to make it easy. So when it comes to... We were talking about scheduling earlier. One of the most difficult things with direct care, is getting it covered, and trying to help the employees manage what's going on in their personal lives with the work shifts that they have to complete.Beth Baerman (26:00):So make it easy for employees to trade shifts. That's one of the best ways they can do favors for each other. It can be, again, easy with scheduling. This is, again, one of those areas where it can be done manually. It can happen with the schedules out there, and the pencils, and sending the note to the supervisor for approval, or whatever it might be.Beth Baerman (26:23):But it's so much easier when you have a scheduling software, like with Time Tracker 3, with apps where employees can, again, foster communication. Trading shifts is another way of communication. So messaging with managers, with employees inside of an app, having that technology where you have that secure work-related conversation, is a way that's important.Beth Baerman (26:47):Having features within apps for employees to trade with each other, and having the software do the work of making sure that everyone's got the right qualifications, if certifications are required. If it might be something where this is a job, because I'm assisting with bathing or something else that I need a female or a male to fill particular shifts to help with bathing, for example.Beth Baerman (27:10):The software can enforce those kinds of requirements. They can enable trades that are going to meet the needs of the facility, and of the patients and residents that you're taking care of. So that can happen automatically.Beth Baerman (27:25):It can also, from an employer's perspective, and of course, we have to be looking at the cost of all of this. We can prevent folks from trading shifts if it's going to cause somebody to go into overtime, or excessive amount of overtime, for example. So this is an area where technology can really amp it up.Beth Baerman (27:46):It also helps with the communication we were just talking about before. Sometimes it's making it easy to acknowledge, making it easy to communicate back and forth. If something occurs to you and the employee is not right there, being able to send them a quick secure message inside of the work's app, as opposed to texting it in a way that's not quite as secure, is something that can be really helpful.Beth Baerman (28:09):It's all wrapped up into the scheduling software, the apps that employees have. And the ability to make it easy for them to be there for each other and to communicate with each other.Kelly Keefe (28:20):It's interesting, I had a couple of takeaways from that. One, you circled really back around again to the bottom line. When you were talking, for example, about being able to monitor and be more efficient with overtime.Kelly Keefe (28:32):I think that really, boy, being able to save on the overtime. It's inevitable, we're going to have it, but being able to manage that most efficiently, that really will help the bottom line.Kelly Keefe (28:42):But then, again, the time savings that you're describing, I think really, earlier when we were talking about taking that time out to listen to your employees, and, of course, listening to your residents as well, where do you find that time? And one of the ways I'm hearing that we can find that time is by turning over some of these manual, intensive tasks to technology, whether it's this type of technology or other technology out there as well, is really one way that I think we can make our work even more meaningful.Kelly Keefe (29:13):The less time that we're having to spend doing these manual processes to figure out schedules and things like that, the more time that we have to actually be face-to-face with both our employees and our resident. And I just really love that.Beth Baerman (29:26):Yeah, you're right.Kelly Keefe (29:27):So as we wrap up here, Beth, this has just been really wonderful. I'm wondering if you've got just a couple notes on things that people can do to get started on any of this? I guess some key things that they can take away from this today.Beth Baerman (29:40):Yeah, well, I think first of all, maybe take stock of where you are. If you focus in on just those few key things that we talked about, fostering an environment where employees can support each other, improving communication, particularly in listening and acknowledging your employees, and in supporting from an organizational perspective, providing support.Beth Baerman (30:02):Maybe take stock of where you are today, think about areas to improve them that are easier. And of course, being from a softer background, I tend to go toward the software. I think this is where technology can really help. So looking at Time Tracker 3, looking at the technology you have in place today to leverage that, would be a good place to start.Kelly Keefe (30:24):That's fantastic. I obviously am a tech geek myself, and so that's really where my mind goes as well. And again, that jealousy that I have, wishing that I had tools like this back in the day.Kelly Keefe (30:35):I think this is really fantastic, and really going to help some organizations. Not just with their own time management, but, again, circling back around to that engagement. These tools will help the employees feel heard- ................
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