New webinar preview: How Forms Processes Can Improve ASC Patient Care

Where would ASCs be without nurses?

Unfortunately, that’s not an academic question. Every health system experienced severe staff shortages when COVID hit in 2020, and ASCs have been struggling to keep good people ever since. What’s more, recent studies have found that nursing shortages had negative impacts on patient care.

Retaining nurses—and attracting new ones to the profession—is a multi-dimensional challenge that healthcare leaders will be focusing on for years to come. There is one dimension to the story, however, that ASC leaders can explore today: forms processes.

Digital forms solutions can reduce the burden on nursing staff, making them more likely to stay on the job and better able to focus on improved patient care.

That’s the topic of my new webinar on May 12: How Forms Processes Can Improve ASC Patient Care.

The patient care impacts of nursing shortages

We all know how essential nurses are to excellent patient care, so it’s hardly a surprise that a nursing shortage would negatively impact patient outcomes. Still, recent research on the topic is sobering.

• • Years’ worth of improvements in patient safety in hospitals and skilled nursing facilities were wiped away at the start of the pandemic, according to an analysis published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
  • Nursing shortages lead to a reliance on traveling nurses. A study published in the American Journal of Infection Control found a correlation at two Illinois hospitals between the use of traveling nurses and increased infection rates.
  • Patients are aware of what’s going on, too. According to the healthcare safety organization Emergency Care Research Institute, the top two patient safety concerns for 2022 are staffing shortages and healthcare workers’ mental health.

I’m not trying to paint a negative picture—just pointing out the urgency of keeping as many nurses on the job as we can, and making their jobs as easy and stress-free as possible. While most of these stats are about hospitals and large health systems, I think the challenges ring true for ASCs as well—and I’m going to talk about how in the webinar

Better forms processes can help. And they can help right away.

How improved forms processes can improve patient care

Forms processes are a major factor for every ASC. Whether they’re paper-based, digitally based or a combination of both, they take up a significant proportion of a nurse’s time and attention.

Yet nurses’ time and attention are finite. The more they devote to forms processes, the less they can devote to patient care. And when they devote less time and attention to patients—or leave the profession entirely—patient care suffers.

That’s why improved forms processes that save time and reduce busywork are so critical to your ability to deliver excellent patient care. In my live May 12 webinar, I’ll explore how digital forms solutions can reduce the burden on your staff so they can focus on what they do best.

We’ll talk about:

• • • How automated printing reduces time finding the right forms for registration
    • The value of a forms committee and a digital forms library
    • How Interlace Health’s digital Forms on Demand solution can save your staff time and wasted energy

Reducing paperwork-related stress—and making your nurses’ jobs easier—can be an essential factor in delivering excellent patient care. Let’s start making it happen!

Please join me for How Forms Processes Can Improve ASC Patient Care on May 12.