Cold & Flu Season: How to Prepare Your Healthcare Facility

Cold & Flu Season: How to Prepare Your Healthcare Facility

by | Sep 21, 2022 | Blog, Client, Healthcare

Cold and Flu season is approaching and it is coming in HOT! While the 2021 flu season was milder than the previous year, partly thanks to the lingering COVID restrictions that kept us masked and sheltering in place. This year, the CDC recommends that, “adults 65 and older receive a high-dose influenza vaccine for better protection.” With masks off and COVID restrictions now lifted, it’s time to prepare your healthcare facility for an influx of patients, sick staff members, and of course, the stubborn viruses that are sure to visit us this fall. This blog will help you prepare for cold and flu season.

CDC Recommendations for 2022 Cold and Flu Season

The CDC published tips for preventing the spread of flu. Many of these will be familiar to you, but this year, in addition to reminding your patients of some of these best practices, you should also remind your staff:

  • Encourage everyone, including your employees, to take the seasonal flu shot.
  • Host a flu vaccine clinic at local companies. This will promote your facility in addition to protecting your community.
  • Review your sick leave policies to ensure that your staff feels comfortable staying home when they need to. Set up a plan for per diem staff to step in to fill gaps as necessary. AG Globe Services can help in this area.
  • Sick leave policies should support employees who come down with flu symptoms while on the job. Do not encourage them to “tough it out” to avoid spreading contagion. Create a culture where employees are comfortable confessing that they don’t feel well and back it up with plenty of paid sick time. This will help build an internal culture of wellness that will help your employees feel better about their health—and their jobs.
  • Consider using telemedicine to your advantage in these cases. During COVID, quarantined clinicians who were asymptomatic conducted virtual patient visits. This is a great triage tool that keeps patients out of the ER and healthcare waiting rooms. But it also can make use of an exposed or slightly ill healthcare worker who can continue to work but do it safely at home where they’re not spreading germs around your facility.
  • Continue to remind patients and staff of sanitary practices to stop the viral spread. Hand washing is the bare minimum, but also no-touch trash cans, hand sanitizer stations, and mask-wearing during peak flu season, are still important.
  • Provide additional resources for employees and patients who are at risk for serious flu complications. Pregnant women and people with chronic diseases are particularly vulnerable at this time of the year.

Staying prepared for cold and flu season requires an extra effort. What can you do right now to prepare for staff illnesses that will leave you shorthanded this winter?

Mitigating Healthcare Staffing Shortages During Flu Season

Partnering with AG Globe Services now will help you prepare for flu season later on. We are a full-service healthcare outsourcing provider of top clinical and administrative talent. Healthcare organizations partner with our recruiting teams to help maintain appropriate staffing in their facilities during times of peak volume and labor shortages.

 

Are you still searching for a credible staffing partner? Contact our team today to get ready for the 2022 viral load. We can help.

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Is There Job Flexibility as a Registered Nurse?

Is There Job Flexibility as a Registered Nurse?

by | Sep 7, 2022 | Blog, Healthcare, Job Seekers

Some people choose the job of being a nurse because it provides an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of patients and their families. Others do it for job security, great pay, and benefits. But the most surprising perk of working as a registered nurse is actually the flexibility of the role. Other careers just can’t compare. In this blog, we’ll discuss how being an RN can be flexible, what options you have to achieve job flexibility, and also where you can go from here if you decide your current role isn’t the right fit.

What are the Jobs with the Most Flexibility in the Nursing Field?

Finding better work/life balance in the nursing field isn’t as hard as you might imagine. Why? Because, first, you can select from a wide range of nursing environments, including:

  • Hospitals
  • Small group practices
  • Schools
  • Prisons
  • Rehab centers
  • Ambulatory surgery centers
  • Home Health
  • Mental health rehabilitation centers
  • Colleges and universities
  • Nursing homes
  • The military
  • And more

There are even completely virtual nursing jobs. NursingCE talks about them in a recent blog:

  • Virtual healthcare recruiters sometimes use nurses as part of their technical screening processes.
  • Telemedicine nurses work strictly in the virtual space, conducting patient evaluations, triage, diagnosing, and treating patients.
  • Insurance nurses use work-from-home talent to screen, evaluate, and coach surgery patients or those with chronic illnesses.
  • A Health Coach is a nurse entrepreneur of sorts; you can seek out specialized certifications and then build a book of contract business, or work full-time.
  • Freelance nurse writers produce content for medical journals, blogs, and more.

Even if these roles don’t appeal to you, the traditional nursing profession isn’t a 9-to-5 job anymore. Today, you can work as a:

  • Per diem nurses, are contract nurses that fill temporary staffing gaps. You’ll find per diems in almost any facility but particularly in hospitals during inpatient population spikes or just to fill in for someone on vacation. Per diem work is very flexible because you can choose to take or not take the job. Many times, these flexible roles come with benefits through the staffing agency that employs you.
  • PRN nurses are on-call until they’re needed. These floating nurses are a bit like substitute teachers in that they fill in an unexpected gap in staffing.
  • Travel nurses can pick up contract staffing roles around the country. These nurses make excellent money—some of the best rates in the industry—and most pay for lodging and more.
  • Job-sharing nurses can split a full-time position along with benefits. This gives you the flexibility of a part-time job but with full-time perks.

In the past, the idea of nursing didn’t bring the vision of job flexibility and work/life balance. But today, the field has changed. Not only do you have job options and educational choices, but you can also pick the job based on its flexibility to fit your lifestyle.

 

If you’re ready for a more flexible lifestyle and a better work environment, call on AG Globe Services. We work with the leading healthcare companies in the U.S to provide them with the best RNs in the business.

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