Nurse
Staffing
Nursing Workforce Innovation Design Sprint
The Tennessee Hospital Association hosted a design sprint to create new solutions to address nurse staffing shortages in Tennessee.
The Objective
A nationwide nursing shortage has left departments all over the country understaffed and under-prepared to meet the needs of their patients. Do Tank, in partnership with the Tennessee Hospital Association, facilitated a design sprint aimed at bringing hospitals across the state together to design, prototype and test new innovative models for nurse staffing.
“A Tennessee Hospital Association workforce study published in October found that Tennessee in 2021 had a shortage of 15,700 nurses.”
The Process
In a short period of time, the Tennessee Hospital Association was able to convene more than 55 hospital participants and assist them in designing innovative approaches to solve for the current staffing crisis.
The Sprint Hub
A digital hub was created to power the sprint. This hub housed tools and resources focused on staffing, pictures of the work each team created during the sprint, and a mechanism to validate their prototypes with peers further.
Tools
We used visual canvases to power the work. Through canvas-based activities, we explored the needs of nurse colleagues, current market challenges, various potential new solutions, key assumptions in need testing, how to create value for each organization, and business model dynamics.
Outcome
In a short period of time, we were able to convene more than 55 hospital participants and capture what innovative approaches they designed during the sprint to solve for the current staffing crisis. At the end of the sprint, teams were able to walk away with a validated, refined, and focused strategic course of action.
Heath Systems
What do People think?
Lisa Smithgall,
Senior Vice President/Chief Nursing Executive, Ballad Health
“The THA Nursing Workforce design sprint allowed our nurse executives the opportunity to focus on our idea of an internal travel nurse pool and consider all the facets and parameters to planning the program.”
Marilyn Dubree,
Executive Chief Nursing Officer, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
“The design sprint process was great to get structure and discipline to an idea we had been formulating and making the process steps visible. The feedback from other teams also gave us ideas and insights we wouldn’t have considered otherwise.”
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