The Impact of Implementing Electronic Workforce Management System in Hamad Medical Corporation on Nursing Staff Management

Despite of the benefits of implementing an integrated workforce management system in healthcare setting, having a system capable of processing staff data, facilitating patient assignment according to acuity level and the nursing workload, there is no enough evidenced based data on the improvements and gains of the transformation from previous staffing practices to a comprehensive workforce Management system. The purpose of this study is to assess impact of implementing the Work force Management System in enhancing the effectiveness of staffing management and the level of end user satisfaction compared to the previous workflow. A quantitative study design was adopted where a questionnaire survey was conducted with 113 nursing managers and 231 staff nurses who approved to participate in the research. The survey tools were divided to two parts; part1 to survey nursing managers and part 2 to survey the staff nurses. Findings revealed that automating staffing management has positive impact on the nurses manager staffing management practice as 80.5% agreed on the effectiveness of workforce management system and 74.9% of staff nurses are generally satisfied with the system. In conclusion, the Interoperability of workforce management system may result in higher satisfaction rate but it increases the need for continuous training and familiarization in addition to close system monitoring and optimization. Thus, in order to achieve effective scheduling, optimal utilization of staffing, and fair distribution of assignments with consideration of patient acuity level, it is recommended to develop a competency based training framework in order to improve using the system by end users as required in addition developing workforce system performance optimization plan to ensure the system is effectively performing.