Healthcare institutions
Shortage of assistants in medical centers: save administrative time with these 3 tips
Published on 06/06/2024
It’s no secret. Despite their central role in medical centers, there’s a shortage of medical staff, particularly assistants and secretaries, in Switzerland. The reasons are varied: Working conditions, stress and a lack of apprenticeships… However, there are simple solutions you can integrate to effectively ease the workload and save time for patients. In this article, discover 3 tips you can implement right now in your medical center.
A general shortage of medical staff in Switzerland
In Switzerland today, there is already a shortage of around 20,000 healthcare professionals in all fields, according to a press release from the FMH. This situation is unlikely to improve in the coming years.
One of the reasons for this shortage of personnel is the stress experienced by healthcare professionals in the course of their work. The growing burden of administrative tasks is a major factor here: With 2.5 hours a day devoted to administrative tasks, healthcare professionals spend 25 minutes more on these tasks than they did ten years ago. This also has an impact on patients, who have to wait longer on average for treatment. However, there are ways in which you can save time by prioritizing tasks in your medical practice, enabling you to dedicate more time to what’s most important: your patients.
1. Offer online appointment booking and save 30 minutes a day!
Integrating online appointment booking into your medical center is one of the first steps you can take to significantly reduce the administrative workload of your assistants and secretaries. This solution helps limit the number of phone calls during the day, relieving medical staff of their workload.
That way, the daily administrative workload can be reduced by 30%. For the Würenlos medical center, for example, 30 minutes of telephone time per day have been saved!
2. Opt for a centralized solution
Another important factor to consider is compatibility between your different systems. The aim here is to simplify the work of your assistants and secretaries by limiting duplication and time-consuming repetitive tasks.
The automatic synchronization between OneDoc and your practice software enables the appointments booked via OneDoc to appear directly in the software. This means you can continue to use your software to manage your business in a centralized manner. This allows your teams to keep their working habits while benefiting from the advantages of online appointment booking.
3. Automate SMS and email to lighten the workload
Finally, to further reduce the administrative burden, another interesting feature for your medical center is automated confirmation emails and SMS reminders. This repetitive task can easily become time-consuming and add an unnecessary mental burden. Emails and SMS are also very popular with patients, and they reduce the number of no-shows by up to 75% in the long term!
Reduce the workload of medical staff over the long term
The work of medical staff has tended to become increasingly complex and time-consuming over the years. Using digital tools can reduce the workload by simplifying processes that can be simplified, thereby reducing this new administrative burden.
The time saved enables medical staff, particularly assistants, to devote themselves fully to care-related tasks. By reducing repetitive secretarial tasks, they once again have more time for tasks such as measuring blood pressure, giving injections, taking blood samples, or assisting the doctor.
Sources:
- La pénurie de personnel qualifié met en péril la qualité élevée des soins – FMH
- Unterbesetzt und überlastet: So geht es den Ärzt:innen in der Schweiz – Swissinfo.ch
- Blog des médecins vaudois – svmed.ch
- Mit Digitalisierung gegen den Fachkräftemangel – beebase.ch
