Selected Podcast
Unique Challenges and Diverse Associated Risks of Risk Management in a Health Care Staffing Company
Health care risk management is a very diverse field and when you meet one risk manager, you meet one risk manager. One size does not fit all. This podcast series will look to discuss risks inherent to a variety of areas in health care. The eighth of the series will explore the unique challenges of health care risk management in a health care staff company. Staffing companies are responsible for working with a wide variety of health care professionals. They operate in schools, correctional facilities, long term care, hospitals and any other possible field for skilled and unskilled medical employees and work to coordinate risk management across all fields to make sure issues are isolated and education is sufficient in preventing further risks and incidences.
Featuring:
Bentley Skinner, RN
Bentley Skinner is a RN with a history of care provided in Long term care, Correctional facilities, Detox and Rehabilitation with an emphasis on Mental Health issues. He began his medical management career with a Skilled Nursing Home Health agencies. When the need for risk management in the staffing field was identified, he was selected to build this position out and define the role for this particular environment. Transcription:
Bill Klaproth (Host): Welcome to the ASHRM podcast made possible by the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management to support efforts to advance safe and trusted healthcare through enterprise risk management. You can visit ASHRM and that's A-S-H-R-M.org/membership, ashrm.org/membership, to learn more and to become an ASHRM member. I'm Bill Klaproth.
So as with many companies, the help wanted sign is out. So are you thinking about potentially working with a healthcare staffing company? So, you might be wondering how do they work with their clients? How does their working with many clients potentially benefit me. And how do they ensure safety for travel staff? Well, let's find out with Bentley Skinner. He is an RN Risk Manager for Maxim Healthcare Staffing. Bentley, thank you so much for spending some time with us. This is an interesting topic. So let me ask you this first. What is your role as a risk manager for a staffing company?
Bentley Skinner, RN (Guest): My role is fairly unique in the fact that most risk managers work for a specific hospital, facility or, their chain of facilities. I actually work from the staffing side. So when we have travelers or, employees who work in a multitude of different facilities, I try to mitigate the risks of the staff working in all facets of the healthcare fields.
Host: Okay. Got it. So you mentioned travelers. So how do you work with risk management partners in healthcare facilities to ensure safe travel staff?
Bentley: Well on the front end, we really try to make sure that our travel staff is highly educated and placed according to their experience in the past. We know that at this time, especially there are a lot of travel nurses being used around the country. And they're stepping into unique situations where they may not be familiar with all aspects or policies of a specific environment. So we try to make sure they're highly educated and properly placed in advance. However, as with all healthcare providers, whether they be travel or are permanent staff, we do understand that mistakes happen, issues occur. And that is the point in which I work with the risk management in the set facility.
So that we can really work together on policies and education. Perhaps more specific orientation for travelers who may not be as familiar with the situations they're coming into. So that's a great opportunity for us to work in collaboration with the onsite risk management, to make sure that we have safe and competent nurses working.
Host: Okay then, so do you then do kind of an internal onboarding with the travel nurse or travel staff to really get them up to speed and prepared? That's kind of what it sounds like.
Bentley: In general, what we do when we onboard a travel nurse into Maxim Staffing, we will have a set of competency tests that they'll take. It helps us to judge their level of proficiency and expertise and helps us in placing them, whether it be on a med surg unit or all the way up to ICU units. And then when they go into the facility, they will have orientations that are specific to each facility.
These are the environments that we really would try to work and collaborate with because every facility is different and the policies and the risk management issues that occur in different facilities are always different. So, the flexibility of a travel nurse is great. They're kind of like a Swiss army knife. They can do a little bit of everything. But at the same time, sometimes they're not familiar with every scenario that could occur. So, it's very good to work in collaboration with the facilities to make sure we have well-rounded and safe nurses.
Host: Yeah. Well, that makes sense. So let me ask you this then. So how does your background of a Clinical Manager for Home Care benefit your role as a risk manager for staffing?
Bentley: I think that the role of a Clinical Manager in Home Care was also very unique. Nurses who work in home care are highly specialized and they have a unique set of skills that perhaps facility or hospital nurses don't necessarily get to use on a regular basis. When we have nurses who are working in homes, a lot of times they're working with severely disabled pediatric patients. And a lot of people don't know that home care nurses work with tracheostomies and ventilators often one-on-one. We really try to focus on their training and making sure they're highly competent because they are often alone and they don't necessarily have the backup of other folks working in the facility.
So when you transfer that over to travel nursing, that just leads to the ability to make sure that they are also going into new facilities. They do have all of the amenities and backups and teams that a facility has, but they're also very new. Sometimes every three months they move, so they have to be very adaptable and they have to have some level of independence when they go moving around.
Host: So then Bentley, what are the particular challenges in staffing many different job families, different health care levels, and the risks associated with each?
Bentley: I think one of the unique challenges that we get to work with and find unique solutions to is the fact that we don't have direct daily supervision of all of our nurses or behavioral techs or CNAs, whichever environment they may be going into. And we have a very wide variety of facilities and job families that we work with. We work with schools, we work in correctional facilities. We work in long-term care. We work in hospitals, in all departments, all the way up to ICU. And the unique challenge involved in that is that I'm not there as a risk manager to see or oversee all of the nurses or caregivers that we have employed.
So that's why it's so important that we have really strong relationships with our risk management partners in all of the healthcare facilities and fields, because our ultimate goal is always patient safety and the best outcome for all of the patients. We do understand that issues occur. We're all human.
And of course it's always stressed that in risk or in an investigation or when an issue has occurred, we're never investigating with the purpose of placing blame. Our goal is always to make sure that we have the best outcome for the facility, the patients and the nurses going forward. That's why we developed this role in a staffing agency, which we feel is fairly unique because it gives us an opportunity to actually make sure that nurses who are traveling don't make errors due to maybe a education or learning of a new facility. And then they leave that case and they go to the next facility and the next facility and the next facility, and just spread that error everywhere they go, when they could just be reeducated. And, it really mitigates the risks going forward for all of the patients in all of the facilities.
Host: Um, and that's kind of where you come in on the backend too, to assess, what happened and you know, what changes are necessary moving forward. That's part of your job too, correct?
Bentley: Exactly. I think that's one of the most important things is that I can work directly with the facility risk managers and we can really identify the issue that perhaps all of the travel nurses are having, and work to correct those issues. Maybe it'd be in a specific field of orientation that it may be it's an oversight in the facility, that they just didn't know, oh, we need to have a little bit more attention in this area. Or maybe when they reach out to us, we can talk about it and they can say, hey, if you could prepare your nurses in this area a little bit better prior to coming out, we can mitigate the risk of incidences.
So, we really just value the partnership with the facility risk management teams so that we can all have a good safe environment for the patients, especially, but also the travel nurses and the staff nurses that they work with because everybody has to be on the same page. And we all have to make sure that we keep these patients safe.
Host: Absolutely. And I think another benefit of working at a healthcare staffing company is you have feedback from travel nurses and many different organizations, and you might be able to spot a global trend that you can apply necessary knowledge or information across all of your travel nurses or travel people as well. Is that right?
Bentley: Absolutely. I'm glad you mentioned that. One of the most important aspects of the role that I play is that I can identify trends across the board in a very large group of healthcare workers. And we can see if there are trends in risks or incidences that are sometimes nationwide. And when we work with the facilities who may have had one or two incidences, they may not be identifying a trend. However, when you get further removed and have a wider view angle on the situation, you can identify trends a lot more effectively, and that's a great aspect of collaboration with the facilities that I can offer. And I'm happy to participate in.
Host: And it's great that you can offer that. I'm sure your clients do appreciate that global view, if you will, that looking at it from a different angle, as you say, because you're seeing things before they may see things, so that information could become very important to them. Well Bentley, this has really been interesting. Is there anything else you'd like to add when it comes to the unique challenges and diverse associated risk of risk management in a healthcare staffing company?
Bentley: Yeah. I just like to say again, that we're really excited. This is a new position in our staffing agency and we're not sure if it's even a universal position in most staffing agencies. So, we're just really excited to get to establish great relationships with our healthcare partners who have had amazing risk management programs for a very long time and just work in collaboration to make sure that all health care fields are safer and efficient and that the travel nurses can be at the highest level possible.
Host: And that's what it's all about. Well, Bentley, thank you so much for your time. This has really been interesting. Thanks again.
Bentley: Thank you very much for having me on today.
Host: And once again, that's Bentley Skinner and the ASHRM podcast was made possible by the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management to support efforts to advance safe and trusted healthcare through enterprise risk management, you can visit ASHRM. That's A-S-H-R-M.org/membership to learn more and to become an ASHRM member. And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels.
And check out the full podcast library for topics of interest to you. I'm Bill Klaproth. Thanks for listening.
Bill Klaproth (Host): Welcome to the ASHRM podcast made possible by the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management to support efforts to advance safe and trusted healthcare through enterprise risk management. You can visit ASHRM and that's A-S-H-R-M.org/membership, ashrm.org/membership, to learn more and to become an ASHRM member. I'm Bill Klaproth.
So as with many companies, the help wanted sign is out. So are you thinking about potentially working with a healthcare staffing company? So, you might be wondering how do they work with their clients? How does their working with many clients potentially benefit me. And how do they ensure safety for travel staff? Well, let's find out with Bentley Skinner. He is an RN Risk Manager for Maxim Healthcare Staffing. Bentley, thank you so much for spending some time with us. This is an interesting topic. So let me ask you this first. What is your role as a risk manager for a staffing company?
Bentley Skinner, RN (Guest): My role is fairly unique in the fact that most risk managers work for a specific hospital, facility or, their chain of facilities. I actually work from the staffing side. So when we have travelers or, employees who work in a multitude of different facilities, I try to mitigate the risks of the staff working in all facets of the healthcare fields.
Host: Okay. Got it. So you mentioned travelers. So how do you work with risk management partners in healthcare facilities to ensure safe travel staff?
Bentley: Well on the front end, we really try to make sure that our travel staff is highly educated and placed according to their experience in the past. We know that at this time, especially there are a lot of travel nurses being used around the country. And they're stepping into unique situations where they may not be familiar with all aspects or policies of a specific environment. So we try to make sure they're highly educated and properly placed in advance. However, as with all healthcare providers, whether they be travel or are permanent staff, we do understand that mistakes happen, issues occur. And that is the point in which I work with the risk management in the set facility.
So that we can really work together on policies and education. Perhaps more specific orientation for travelers who may not be as familiar with the situations they're coming into. So that's a great opportunity for us to work in collaboration with the onsite risk management, to make sure that we have safe and competent nurses working.
Host: Okay then, so do you then do kind of an internal onboarding with the travel nurse or travel staff to really get them up to speed and prepared? That's kind of what it sounds like.
Bentley: In general, what we do when we onboard a travel nurse into Maxim Staffing, we will have a set of competency tests that they'll take. It helps us to judge their level of proficiency and expertise and helps us in placing them, whether it be on a med surg unit or all the way up to ICU units. And then when they go into the facility, they will have orientations that are specific to each facility.
These are the environments that we really would try to work and collaborate with because every facility is different and the policies and the risk management issues that occur in different facilities are always different. So, the flexibility of a travel nurse is great. They're kind of like a Swiss army knife. They can do a little bit of everything. But at the same time, sometimes they're not familiar with every scenario that could occur. So, it's very good to work in collaboration with the facilities to make sure we have well-rounded and safe nurses.
Host: Yeah. Well, that makes sense. So let me ask you this then. So how does your background of a Clinical Manager for Home Care benefit your role as a risk manager for staffing?
Bentley: I think that the role of a Clinical Manager in Home Care was also very unique. Nurses who work in home care are highly specialized and they have a unique set of skills that perhaps facility or hospital nurses don't necessarily get to use on a regular basis. When we have nurses who are working in homes, a lot of times they're working with severely disabled pediatric patients. And a lot of people don't know that home care nurses work with tracheostomies and ventilators often one-on-one. We really try to focus on their training and making sure they're highly competent because they are often alone and they don't necessarily have the backup of other folks working in the facility.
So when you transfer that over to travel nursing, that just leads to the ability to make sure that they are also going into new facilities. They do have all of the amenities and backups and teams that a facility has, but they're also very new. Sometimes every three months they move, so they have to be very adaptable and they have to have some level of independence when they go moving around.
Host: So then Bentley, what are the particular challenges in staffing many different job families, different health care levels, and the risks associated with each?
Bentley: I think one of the unique challenges that we get to work with and find unique solutions to is the fact that we don't have direct daily supervision of all of our nurses or behavioral techs or CNAs, whichever environment they may be going into. And we have a very wide variety of facilities and job families that we work with. We work with schools, we work in correctional facilities. We work in long-term care. We work in hospitals, in all departments, all the way up to ICU. And the unique challenge involved in that is that I'm not there as a risk manager to see or oversee all of the nurses or caregivers that we have employed.
So that's why it's so important that we have really strong relationships with our risk management partners in all of the healthcare facilities and fields, because our ultimate goal is always patient safety and the best outcome for all of the patients. We do understand that issues occur. We're all human.
And of course it's always stressed that in risk or in an investigation or when an issue has occurred, we're never investigating with the purpose of placing blame. Our goal is always to make sure that we have the best outcome for the facility, the patients and the nurses going forward. That's why we developed this role in a staffing agency, which we feel is fairly unique because it gives us an opportunity to actually make sure that nurses who are traveling don't make errors due to maybe a education or learning of a new facility. And then they leave that case and they go to the next facility and the next facility and the next facility, and just spread that error everywhere they go, when they could just be reeducated. And, it really mitigates the risks going forward for all of the patients in all of the facilities.
Host: Um, and that's kind of where you come in on the backend too, to assess, what happened and you know, what changes are necessary moving forward. That's part of your job too, correct?
Bentley: Exactly. I think that's one of the most important things is that I can work directly with the facility risk managers and we can really identify the issue that perhaps all of the travel nurses are having, and work to correct those issues. Maybe it'd be in a specific field of orientation that it may be it's an oversight in the facility, that they just didn't know, oh, we need to have a little bit more attention in this area. Or maybe when they reach out to us, we can talk about it and they can say, hey, if you could prepare your nurses in this area a little bit better prior to coming out, we can mitigate the risk of incidences.
So, we really just value the partnership with the facility risk management teams so that we can all have a good safe environment for the patients, especially, but also the travel nurses and the staff nurses that they work with because everybody has to be on the same page. And we all have to make sure that we keep these patients safe.
Host: Absolutely. And I think another benefit of working at a healthcare staffing company is you have feedback from travel nurses and many different organizations, and you might be able to spot a global trend that you can apply necessary knowledge or information across all of your travel nurses or travel people as well. Is that right?
Bentley: Absolutely. I'm glad you mentioned that. One of the most important aspects of the role that I play is that I can identify trends across the board in a very large group of healthcare workers. And we can see if there are trends in risks or incidences that are sometimes nationwide. And when we work with the facilities who may have had one or two incidences, they may not be identifying a trend. However, when you get further removed and have a wider view angle on the situation, you can identify trends a lot more effectively, and that's a great aspect of collaboration with the facilities that I can offer. And I'm happy to participate in.
Host: And it's great that you can offer that. I'm sure your clients do appreciate that global view, if you will, that looking at it from a different angle, as you say, because you're seeing things before they may see things, so that information could become very important to them. Well Bentley, this has really been interesting. Is there anything else you'd like to add when it comes to the unique challenges and diverse associated risk of risk management in a healthcare staffing company?
Bentley: Yeah. I just like to say again, that we're really excited. This is a new position in our staffing agency and we're not sure if it's even a universal position in most staffing agencies. So, we're just really excited to get to establish great relationships with our healthcare partners who have had amazing risk management programs for a very long time and just work in collaboration to make sure that all health care fields are safer and efficient and that the travel nurses can be at the highest level possible.
Host: And that's what it's all about. Well, Bentley, thank you so much for your time. This has really been interesting. Thanks again.
Bentley: Thank you very much for having me on today.
Host: And once again, that's Bentley Skinner and the ASHRM podcast was made possible by the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management to support efforts to advance safe and trusted healthcare through enterprise risk management, you can visit ASHRM. That's A-S-H-R-M.org/membership to learn more and to become an ASHRM member. And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels.
And check out the full podcast library for topics of interest to you. I'm Bill Klaproth. Thanks for listening.