It’s no secret that nurses juggle a lot of daily responsibilities—hourly rounding, administering medications, fulfilling patients’ requests, chasing alarms from room to room, charting and monitoring patients’ conditions, managing intravenous lines, communicating with doctors, and much more. Those tasks, in addition to the stress of long shifts, lean staffing and coping with sickness and death, can often lead nurses to feel overwhelmed and stressed.

That’s why it’s no surprise that nurses often report feeling burned out or dissatisfied with their jobs. In 2017, a study by Kronos Incorporated revealed that 63 percent of nurses reported their work has led to burnout. Another 85 percent noted that their jobs made them feel fatigued, and 44 percent said they worry their exhaustion will cause patient care to suffer.

When nurses are equipped with tools that supplement their abilities and make their jobs easier and more efficient, they will feel more empowered and satisfied in those roles. That’s why investing in helpful health IT tools like next-generation nurse call is so important. Advanced nurse call communications systems can help increase efficiency, streamline workflows, and beat burnout. Here are three ways upgrading to a next-generation nurse call communications system can help improve nurse satisfaction at your hospital:

1 | A next-generation nurse call communications system reduces alarm fatigue. Depending on the hospital unit, the number of clinical alarms per patient per day can result in thousands of signals throughout the unit and tens of thousands of alarms throughout the hospital. The result? Alarm fatigue, or sensory overload. Next-generation nurse call communications systems can help filter out unnecessary alarms, decreasing the risk of alarm fatigue or desensitization, as well as reduce noise by messaging the caregiver when attention is needed.

2 | A next-generation nurse call communications system provides valuable data. Data is the key to improving clinical performance, helping nursing leadership identify clinical workflow issues or staffing issues. A next-generation nurse call communications system should give hospital leaders the ability to drill down on patient room activity by room number, caregiver, and unit. With robust data, nursing leaders have the information they need to balance workflows, maximize coaching opportunities, and recognize top performers.

3 | A next-generation nurse call communications system redistributes tasks. There’s no reason for a registered nurse to shoulder the burden of responsibilities that can be handled by a licensed practical nurse (LPN) or certified nursing assistant (CNA). Rather than direct all patient requests to the nurse, a next-generation nurse call communications system should direct basic needs such as water or toilet requests to CNAs or LPNs. This can help nurse managers ensure that tasks are being assigned and completed by the appropriate caregiver, preventing nurses from becoming overwhelmed.

At Amplion, we understand the day-to-day challenges that nurses face, and we’re committed to making their workflows easier and alleviating nurse fatigue and burnout. Amplion’s Care Assurance platform helps hospitals do just that. Amplion’s advanced messaging capabilities help improve communication among nurses, allowing caregivers to more easily communicate about their availability to respond to a patient’s need, meaning nurses can feel less overwhelmed with their never-ending tasks. Alarm input devices are installed in every patient room to help assess the urgency of specific requests and prioritize responses. But the icing on the cake is Amplion’s robust reporting package, Care Insight, which makes it easy to monitor patient room activity, assess staffing workflows, and measure rounding compliance.

Thinking about upgrading your nurse call communications system? Give us a call to schedule a demo.