You didn't get into senior care to live in a spreadsheet. But for a lot of administrators, directors of nursing and schedulers, that's where the day goes: building schedules, chasing coverage, reworking the board every time a shift opens up. The work matters. It just isn't the work you signed up for, and every hour spent on it is an hour not spent with residents or with the team delivering their care.
That tradeoff is the quiet drag on a lot of senior care operations. And it's more measurable than it feels.
The desk is winning
Much of a clinician's day already happens away from the bedside. In one nursing home study, registered nurses spent 59% of their observed time on indirect work such as documentation, coordination, supervision and other responsibilities done away from the resident, compared with 31% on hands-on direct care. A separate time-motion analysis found nurses spend roughly 10% of their time on non-nursing tasks that could be handed off entirely.
For the people running the facilities, scheduling stacks on top of that as well. Manual schedules live in spreadsheets and group texts. Last-minute cancellations can turn into hours of phone calls. Multiply that across a month and the administrative load starts to set the pace of day-to-day operations instead of resident care.
Why this is a care problem
Time is the link between operations and outcomes. When leaders and caregivers spend less time on administrative work, more of the day goes to residents, and consistent, present care is what drives continuity of care [link to quality of care graphic or blog]. The reverse is also true: the more time is spent at the desk, the thinner direct care gets, and the harder it is to keep the team from burning out.
That's a takeaway worth holding onto. Reducing administrative burden isn't a back-office “nice to have.” It's one of the most direct levers a leader has on the quality of care that residents actually receive.
Giving the time back
Two moves can help close the gap. The first is cutting the administrative work itself. Modern workforce management tools take scheduling, reporting and coverage out of spreadsheets and enable group texts so leaders spend less time on a computer and more time on the floor. The second is making coverage easier to find, so a last-minute cancellation doesn't take over an afternoon.
That's where flexible workforce models come in. A facility can cut down on administrative work while supporting its internal team with options like mobile schedule apps so employees always have the latest schedule on hand; automatic shift request approvals for employees who aren’t at risk of going into overtime; and having a marketplace of independent professionals who step into open shifts without the lead times and back-and-forth of staffing agencies.
Get the administrative load down and make the coverage process simpler, then the math starts to work in your favor with less time at the desk, more time with residents and a team that has room to do the work they came to do.
Workforce management solutions from OnShift and ShiftKey help senior care leaders simplify scheduling and shift support while reducing administrative work, so more of every day can go to care. Learn more about OnShift’s scheduling and employee engagement solutions, purpose-built for senior care, here. Learn more about ShiftKey’s marketplace that allows facilities to connect directly with experienced independent professionals here.
Sources
"Observing How RNs Use Clinical Time in a Nursing Home: A Pilot Study," (Geriatric Nursing, 2012).
"Nurses' Time Allocation and Multitasking of Nursing Activities: A Time Motion Study," (AMIA Annual Symposium Proceedings, 2018).
