At Laudio, we serve hospitals and health systems throughout the US and the UK. As head of our customer success team, I have the privilege of hearing directly from our executive colleagues about how they are responding to the Covid-19 crisis. It’s become the greatest litmus test of the value that we deliver. Over the past few months, I’ve received numerous calls from our customers amidst all of the chaos saying, “We had a meeting yesterday about how to solve a new challenge we’re facing and we thought of Laudio.”
One of the most recent examples came from a community health system on the east coast. The HR leader wrote to me and asked, “Is there any way to set up temporary teams for managers in Laudio? I know managers have access to their direct reports in the Laudio platform, but is there a way we could set up a temporary team for them during this crisis?
We are changing staffing models to assist with dedicated Covid patient care and will have different team members reporting temporarily into new managers. These updates will not be made in our core HRIS system. So, we’re looking for a way to help them connect with their new team members, as well as, stay in touch with their normal teams.”
At this particular hospital, one building was dedicated entirely to patients with Covid-19 while the other was dedicated to normal operations. The Covid-19 building, which included mostly ICU and step down units, had to be staffed with teams that consisted of 1-2 ICU nurses, an intermediate care nurse, and a med/surg nurse. The temporary teams are pulled from all over the hospital and for this period of time, have new managers.
Her question provides great insight into the ways that health systems around the world are responding to this crisis. In my memory, I can’t recall any time when such a large scale reshuffling of clinical teams and roles occurred at the frontlines. After a brief discussion, we came to the conclusion that Laudio offered the flexibility needed and could provide the management workflows, tracking, and reporting needed to support the frontline managers.
We spent a couple of days testing how we would implement the new workflows to support the highly dynamic environment. By the end of the week, we had a solution in place. Administrators and frontline managers now have the ability to track temporary teams, maintain contact with their original teams, and communicate easily across the entire health system.
Working collaboratively with our customer enabled us to create a way for the managers of these new temporary teams to see their new team members, to document recognition and employee development notes, celebrate shifts and individuals for their efforts in real-time, and share all of these insights back with the team members’ primary manager. A critical component for building engagement, especially when things return to normal.
We were able to help and I’m thankful. We had the opportunity to play a part in supporting the frontline caregivers in our communities that are doing so much for us. I personally believe that a big part of our role at Laudio is to work collaboratively to problem-solve as a trusted partner and be as innovative and responsive as we can in deploying support.