With the announcement of new tariffs, there is much concern and uncertainty about what that entails for the medical community. Many raw materials are used to produce medicine and other pharmaceutical compounds, and medical equipment is often imported from overseas.

While there is no way to predict the full ramifications completely, it is often best to prepare for any possible outcome and maximize the efficiency of factors within our control.

Ensuring that your organization can operate at peak efficiency even with supply chain uncertainty and that your workforce can manage both a normal workload and any unexpected workload will go a long way toward making every dollar count.

With that in mind, there are some key considerations to make when planning and preparing your staff for potential material shortages.

Labor Costs

To maximize your resources and ensure there is limited or no organizational waste, it is important to ensure staffing levels are appropriate to the coverage needed. Costs can balloon without careful monitoring, so if you aren’t already using scheduling software or any clinical workforce management tool, it may be time to consider using one now.

The Toll on Staff

Staff burnout can be high in the medical field, and it can be higher still when your staff are obligated to do more with fewer available resources and work longer hours. Fatigued staff can be less efficient and can even endanger patient health. Having a system in place to monitor sequential hours worked and ensure that staff are getting proper breaks and time to recuperate is crucial for your organizational health and the mental and physical well-being of your staff.

Ensuring Regulatory Compliance

It’s also important to remember the effect and importance of maintaining regulatory compliance when resource access can be inhibited. The last thing any organization wants when facing a crisis is a potential lab shutdown because it is out of compliance. Automating your competency tests can be critical for your organization’s day-to-day operations and can remove some of the burden that manually tracking them can have on your staff.

If you’d like to learn more about how StaffReady can help equip your staff with clinical workforce management tools, you can book a meeting with one of our experts here and accelerate your organization’s progress.