Case Managers at UC Davis Fight to Keep Patients Safe from the Impacts of Short-Staffing and Burnout
On Wednesday, May 24, case managers from UC Davis braved the heat in an effort to reach out to patients and community members about their growing concerns for patient safety amidst the hospital's case manager staffing crisis. UC Davis case managers signed up for lunch shifts to distribute flyers and speak with patients and family members outside the hospital to educate them about the potential dangers of not having enough case managers.
When hospitals don't have enough case managers, patients can experience delayed or inadequate coordination of their services, potentially resulting in longer stays, medical errors, compromised patient safety, infections, and increased hospital readmissions, ultimately undermining the overall quality of care.
"We could have one complex patient that takes the whole day to coordinate discharge needs and still have twenty, thirty, or even forty patients on our daily list. On the weekend it could be up to a hundred patients. So it is really impossible for us to do our job and do it well without getting burned out. Our coworkers have had to go out on leave for stress or call in extra sick days," said Mary Kate, an RN case manager at UCD Health. "We've been trying to work with management to get this remedied but we haven't been successful as of yet."
Each patient needs a detailed care plan tailored to their needs, and that requires coordinating care from doctors, specialists, floor nurses, pharmacists, and more—not to mention answering questions from family members and helping navigate insurance. "Everyone has questions, and it's hard to balance that and taking your breaks to go to lunch. If you leave your desk for 15 minutes, you've got six or seven messages waiting for you. So it's just a lot of balancing and coordinating, a lot of stress throughout the day," said Chanel, an RN case manager at UCD Health.
Case managers asked the community to take action by calling Christine Williams, Interim Chief Nursing and Patient Officer, and urging her to prioritize the recruitment and retention of case managers to care for our patients. Workers are also pointing out a glaring inequity in the department—case managers at UCD are paid below those at other regional hospitals, but social workers on the case management team are paid even less despite having the same responsibilities as RN case managers.
"I do the exact same job as my RN colleagues. And so, what we are asking as a very small but mighty subset within the Department of Clinical Case Management is equal pay for equal work. We are doing the best that we can for our patients. We are considered one of the best hospitals—if not the best hospital—in Sacramento, and it is because of the Department of Clinical Case Management and the hard work that we do. So please, as we advocate for you, we ask that you advocate for us," said Leticia, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Certified Case Manager.