During times of national crisis, a popular Mr. Rogers quotation regularly circulates on social media. It says:
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”
Today, during the COVID-19 outbreak, we need not look far for the “helpers.” They stand at the bedside of patients in emergency departments and ICUs. They answer telephone calls from people anxious about whether their symptoms add up to coronavirus. They serve behind the scenes, in roles that wrangle the technology and data resources that make telehealth and rapid triage possible.
Those “helpers” are nurses.
And let’s keep in mind all of the other healthcare professionals on the frontlines of this pandemic: physicians, clinical assistants, administrative staff, housekeepers, transporters, and everyone else facing increased demands and stress.
Right now – in this moment – these dedicated folks deserve our support more than ever. So, who will step up to help the helpers?
CNOs can Help the Helpers in Times of Crisis
Perhaps nobody in an institution cares more about nurses than the CNO. You admirably juggle priorities to balance the business needs of your healthcare system with the professional needs of your nurses.
Frontline nurses may be stretched to the breaking point already, and they deserve additional mental health support to manage their stress. We all know acute stress can compromise the immune system, and nurses need to stay healthy to continue to serve. We trust that CNOs across the country are channeling resources into initiatives designed to help nurses cope with the heightened demands of their jobs during the pandemic.
Will Your Vendors Step Up?
During these challenging times, you deserve to rely on your vendors for additional support, too. “Tech problems” can be crazy-making under the best of circumstances, let alone during this period of heightened stress. These next few weeks and months will separate the software providers who actually deliver on their promises from those who fade away after the sale.
At ShiftWizard, we uniquely understand the pressure cooker environment nurses – and all healthcare professionals – are operating in right now. That’s because our company is helmed by nurses who also are spouses of nurses. Every day we hear reports from the front lines of how intense the situation is at the moment.
We know that scheduling and communications can be very challenging during natural disasters, mass casualty events – and pandemics. And it’s true our software addresses these issues in the best possible way: by bundling one-click communications with stress-free self-scheduling through a native smartphone app.
But we’re not here to sell you something today.
We’re just here to tell you we stand ready to help the helpers. We’re prepared to step up and support you in any way we can, whether that means delivering fast, real-person tech support when you need it or providing resources to help you quickly implement strategies to care for your nurses.
If you want to discover how our scheduling and communications tools can help your organization in this moment of crisis, we’ll find a way to get them to you, pronto. And if you need to wait for a better moment (to be better prepared the next time something like this happens), we support you in that decision, too.
In the meantime, please know we offer both our gratitude and our heartfelt support to nurses in all roles, from the bedside to informatics to the CNO. Without you, none of us could survive this pandemic. And we know it.
