Top Takeaways from AONL 2024
Current State of Nursing Trends and What’s On the Horizon
By Rett Manley, MBA, BSN, RN, Clinical Consultant, Point of Care, Omnicell
LinkedIn: Rett Manley, MBA BSN RN
LinkedIn: Omnicell
As a nurse, every day presents new challenges and opportunities. With nearly 20 years of experience as an ER nurse and nursing director, I personally encountered several administrative and technical obstacles that regularly disrupted clinical care. That’s a big reason why I transitioned to the healthcare technology space. I wanted to do more to help the nursing profession navigate those obstacles, streamline workflows, and focus more on patients. In my current role leading clinical design at Omnicell, I recently attended AONL 2024 where I interfaced with more than 200 nursing leaders to gain insight into how challenges have evolved since my time as a hospital nurse and how technology may be able to ease the burden. Several common themes emerged from these discussions and the following are my top three takeaways.
1. Putting Nurses at the Center of Workflows
The question of whether there is an actual nursing shortage in the U.S. or just a dearth of licensed nurses that want to work under current clinical conditions is still the subject of some debate. Regardless, the impact on nursing departments is the same – an overburdened workforce that needs to do more with less.
It was clear at AONL that increased patient volumes and workloads are leading to burnout and disengagement. While bolstering the nursing workforce will remain a long-term recruitment effort, hospitals and health systems can optimize existing clinical resources by putting nurses at the center of workflows and embracing more flexible workforce solutions.
I see opportunities to equip nurses with more control over their day by leveraging technology to streamline manual tasks, allowing them to spend more time directly interfacing with patients. Nursing workflow technology that reduces time spent at medication and supply dispensing cabinets is one tool that not only makes nurses’ jobs easier but can improve patient outcomes and decrease errors. Medication management platforms that track inventory, automate dispensing, and provide embedded safety controls enable nurses to deliver the right meds to the right patients at the right time. By automating this process, nurses can also dedicate more time to patient care.
While nursing leaders recognize the value of automated dispensing cabinets, many health systems are not taking full advantage of this technology. In my consultative role, I’m helping to identify opportunities to maximize the value of this technology to drive clinical and operational outcomes.
With more time focused on direct patient interactions, nurses are better equipped to practice proactive intervention and address emerging health concerns before they escalate into more serious conditions. This critical need for more nurse time spent at the point of care leads to the second theme that was recurrent throughout my conversations with fellow AONL attendees.
2. Addressing Nursing Shortages at the Bedside
The nursing field is evolving and many professionals, including myself, have transitioned away from the beside into the fields of informatics, virtual care, product development, and research, just to name a few. Due to increasing demands for bedside care, nurses that remain in practice reflect a transformed workforce comprised of float, travel, and temporary nurses accounting for about 30% of the U.S. nursing workforce. The impact of the shifting composition of the nursing workforce is tangible. For example, according to NSI Nursing Solutions, Inc., the average national turnover rate for hospital RNs is 18.4% and with every nurse that leaves the bedside, hospitals incur an average cost of $56,300 resulting in annual losses between $3.9-$5.8 million.
Outside of the financial impact, nursing turnover also creates challenges when it comes to staff training. The more processes that can be standardized and automated the better. Investing in third-party services focused on optimizing nursing workflows and performance at the point of care is another way to shorten training cycles and keep nurses focused on patients.
Based on the insights delivered at AONL, hospitals and other healthcare organizations can gain a competitive edge on recruiting staff nurses by investing in best-in-class, user-friendly technology that enables staff to work at the forefront of innovation. Prospective talent wants access to technology that will relieve them of manual mundane administrative tasks and allow them to work at the top of their professional licenses. This demand for leading technology encapsulates the third and final top trend key to conversations at AONL.
3. The Rise of the Tech-Savvy Nurse
As a society, our expectations for fast communication and access to real-time information have reached new heights as digitally enabled technology and IoT devices allow us to be connected to the internet and other users at all times. Despite critical staffing challenges, the nursing field remains an attractive career prospect for younger talent, including Gen Z, who have always had the internet at their fingertips and value being tapped into the world around them. These up-and-coming nurses seek versatile technology models in their work environments, including mobile applications for flexible communication and collaboration.
The integration of younger generations in the nursing workforce combined with increased technological innovation, has contributed to the rise of the tech-savvy nurse. These nurses look to technology to solve some of the field’s greatest challenges including managing time, reducing inefficiencies, and increasing productivity.
The advent of AI-driven tech is one resource that is accelerating our ability to augment human insights with predictive capabilities and is delivering versatile use cases in healthcare. In nurse training and education, AI is already being used to simulate patient interactions, so integrating AI into nursing practice is a natural progression. With latest reports estimating that AI can automate up to 30% of nurses’ administrative tasks, incorporating innovative technology solutions into workflows will be a key driver in not only attracting tech-oriented talent, but will help better retain nurses by reducing copious paperwork and documentation loads.
The rise of the tech-savvy nurse presents an opportunity to leverage AI and other emerging technologies to enhance patient care, training, and workforce development – with the understanding that new tech integration must be done responsibly and with patient safety top-of-mind.
Looking Ahead
It’s a common belief that if you want the truth you must go to the source, and this adage certainly reflected my experience at AONL 2024. Nursing is in my DNA, and as a third-generation nurse, I’m very fortunate to have the perspectives of those that came before me, but it is equally important to have an ear to the ground for new developments and ideas on the horizon.
In my work helping health systems build technology-driven medication management solutions, these on-the-ground insights are key as we find novel ways to leverage continuous innovation to enhance dispensing, improve medication safety, and streamline workflows, all while meeting and adapting to the evolving needs of the nursing field.
