Introducing workloads management system to inpatient and ambulatory social work teams at Monash Health.

Abstract

Background: With increased complexities in caseload and demands on social workers, we see a need to standardise workload processes across sites and disciplines to improve visibility of clinical resources and workload demand to enable efficient and equitable allocation of resources. Workloads Management System (WorMS) has been implemented by allied health disciplines at Monash Health in the last 2 years to support daily workflow and prioritisation. The Tool is a shared worksheet where teams input their clinical priorities and records additional non-clinical tasks to provide an overview of site/department workload activity and identify need. Aims: WorMS can help us objectively measure clinical demand, create consistent expectations in the workforce and improve collaboration and teamwork. WorMS will help increase transparency within our workflow and enable consistency of clinical prioritisation. Methods: Using a mixed methods study inclusive of focus groups, comparison data and observations, we looked at the average time for each occasion of service across 12 months for all sites. We reviewed and updated our clinical priority tool and non-patient facing tasks. We piloted in 2 hospitals; one acute and one subacute for 8 weeks before capturing their feedback to help refine the process before rolling out to all sites. Results:The pilot showed that WorMS enables team’s understanding of their capacity for the day, supports team leaders’ discussion of workload allocation, and managers ability to quantify unmet need and extract objective workload data to advocate for additional EFT. Discussion: WorMs helps to objectively measure clinical demand, enables teams to use the “same language” in discussing priorities and demands with other disciplines, or within the team. It creates space for more dialogue regarding predetermined clinical vs non-clinical ratio for different classification of staff, further review of demands on the team of non-patient facing tasks and helps highlight their capacity for continued professional development which enhances clinical practice.