We use smartphones for everything: organizing tasks, paying bills, playing podcasts, shopping — the list goes on and on. But did you know that your clients can now use their smartphones to continue the progress they make during your sessions on their own time? Believe it or not, there’s a growing list of occupational therapy apps out there that are specifically designed to help you improve your clients’ skill development and functioning during therapy sessions and at home, no matter what your specialty. To help you out, we scoured the iTunes and Google Play stores to find the best OT apps on the market. Here are our favorite apps.
Available for Download On: Apple App Store | Google Play
Price: Free (In-app purchases available)
Why You’ll Love It: This app is excellent for OTs working with patients with depth and color perception issues. The app requires users to connect matching colors with a pipe or flow, requiring spatial reasoning and planning. This addictive puzzle game involves connecting colors to cover the entire board, fostering visual and auditory feedback, visual motor planning, and spatial reasoning. The free version offers play with ads and includes hundreds of levels, and the difficulty ranges from casual to challenging to cover the entire visual schedule. To remove ads, the cost is just $0.99. The user interface is colorful and smooth, with fun sound effects and clean animated graphics. It is usable as a reward for working on other tasks or as a motor planning and visual motor accuracy tool.
Available for Download On: Apple App Store | Google Play
Price: Free
Why You’ll Love It: RelationShapes has accolades galore, including the Parents’ Choice Gold Award, Children’s Technology Review Editor’s Choice, Teachers with Apps Best Play & Learn Apps, and SIIA CODIE Awards Finalist. This free app offers two interrelated areas for children to play and replay for visual stimulation. Match It lets children manipulate abstract and figurative shape combinations any way they choose, which improves visual attention. Picture It delights children by stretching their imaginations as they personalize their pictures with accessories and backgrounds that add context and humor on their mobile device.
Available for Download On: Apple App Store
Price: Free (In-app purchases available)
Why You’ll Love It: This simple app is highly rated by the Inspired Treehouse for its calming sounds, like white noise, waves, and thunderstorms. The sounds provide a calming auditory experience in the therapy room, classroom, or home. It also has a metronome option to use during sessions for an auditory break.
OTs need powerful solutions to treat those with sensory processing disorders. Those patients need help understanding cause and effect.
Available for Download On: Apple App Store (iPhone and iPad only)
Price: $0.99
Why You’ll Love It: This app is ranked highly among iOS apps and excels at helping kids and toddlers develop their spatial reasoning skills and keeping them engaged. The application developer created it for the specific purpose of entertaining and helping his own toddler. Although it has ads, the app has been positively reviewed among adults, who say it’s relaxing and fun to play for their special-needs young children and themselves. This cool app is particularly well suited for OTs working with children or adults with anxiety or ADHD.
Available for Download On: Apple App Store (iPad only)
Price: $0.99
Why You’ll Love It: Cookie Doodle uses baking to help children hone their motor skills. It helps with sequencing, language skills, creativity, visual tracking, and word and picture association. The app was a Parent’s Choice Foundation award winner and a favorite in Martha Stewart’s magazine. If your younger patients don’t love cookies, there are other baked goods versions, including Cake Doodle, Donut Doodle, and Tie Dye Doodle.
Available for Download On: Apple App Store | Google Play
Price: Free
Why You’ll Love It: Children use an iPad to navigate mazes and develop fine motor skills with this finger isolation activity. It is free with zero ads and outstanding for the development of spatial orientation and planning skills. Children 3.5 years and up will have fun while learning. The app was developed by STEP BY STEP, which specializes in apps for children ages one to five years. They give great attention to detail and simplicity, and their apps avoid unnecessary distractions like pop-ups.
Available for Download On: Apple App Store | Google Play
Price: $6.99 (Apple App Store) & $4.99 (Google Play)
Why You’ll Love It: Dexteria is a handwriting app that offers children and adults various hand exercises to help develop fine motor skills, eye-hand coordination, and handwriting readiness. Using cool animations, graphics, sound effects, and music creates an engaging experience as the user works on honing their handwriting skills. It also helps adults who have suffered some kind of injury to rebuild those skills. Dexteria apps are best used on the larger screen of an iPad or Android tablet.
Available for Download On: Web-based
Price: 1 Adult 1 student $10/month, classroom plan $25/month
Why You’ll Love It: Handwriting Heroes helps kids from preschoolers to second-grade students with playful heroes that teach students how to form their letters and letter recognition. Kids learn from game-based learning through fun animations, catchy tunes, and memorable tales. The app takes a multisensory approach that adapts to each child’s learning style and targeted skill area. It is tops among quality apps used by pediatric occupational therapists for handwriting and is used for just 15 minutes of screen time daily.
Available for Download On: Apple App Store | Google Play
Price: Free (In-app purchases available)
Why You’ll Love It: This play-and-learn handwriting app is perfect for younger learners and is an excellent assistive technology recommended by teachers and occupational therapists. It has won numerous awards, like the National Parenting Product Award from the NAPPA. Through interactive animations, your patient population will learn block and cursive letters, uppercase and lowercase, numbers 1-10, and CVC and CVCC words.
Available for Download On: Apple App Store | Google Play
Price: Monthly subscription, $15 | Annual subscription, $150
Why You’ll Love It: Dragon Anywhere is an innovative dictation software that allows users to speak into a microphone and have their words transcribed into a document. This app is particularly useful for clients who can’t easily type on keyboards or who suffer from repetitive stress injuries like carpal tunnel syndrome. Speech recognition has come a long way with the developments in A.I. Dragon Anywhere, based on “Dragon Naturally Speaking” speech recognition technology from Nuance Communications, which is the same technology used for Apple’s Siri. The only downside is that the app requires an internet connection to use it.
Available for Download On: Apple App Store | Google Play
Price: Free (In-app purchases available)
Why You’ll Love It: Constant Therapy is an award-winning speech therapy app for people coping with various speech, language, and cognitive disorders caused by stroke or traumatic brain injuries. The app allows users to develop and hone different skills, including speech, language, cognition, memory, reading, attention, and comprehension, anytime, anywhere. Users can establish goal-setting prompts and personalized tasks and track their progress on their performance dashboards. Clinicians may create customized homework programs for speech, language, and cognitive therapy to keep therapy happening beyond the office setting.
Available for Download On: Apple App Store | Google Play
Price: Free
Why You’ll Love It: Fabulous — Motivate Me! Encourages users to develop good nutrition, improve sleeping habits, and become more active in their daily activities. It can take between 18 and 254 days to form a new habit, but people tend to stop the process after a few days. This “daily life coach” for routine tasks is a daily planner and tracking app using behavioral science to help build healthy habits. Fabulous has been named Best App Self-Care 2018 on the App Store and a Best App Finalist in the Google Play Awards.
Available for Download On: Apple App Store | Google Play
Price: Free (In-app purchases available)
Why You’ll Love It: Lumosity is a highly rated “brain-training” app developed by a team of scientists and designers who transformed cognitive and neuropsychological tasks into games and puzzles for all age groups. The games challenge users’ core cognitive skills: memory, attention, processing speed, and problem solving. This perfect app is used by more than 100 million people worldwide and includes over 50 activities for users to try. In the beginning, you’ll be prompted to do a free 10-minute Fit Test, which provides baseline scores for different cognitive skills. Luminosity is designed to work with different brains and adapt to unique strengths and weaknesses. If you buy the full version, you can gain access to curated sets of games based on those scores and the types of skills you’d like to work on. The app can track performance across various activities and provide insights into strengths and weaknesses.
Available for Download On: Apple App Store | Google Play
Price: Free (In-app purchases available)
Why You’ll Love It: Meditation is a proven stress reliever that helps people gain restful sleep and improve their mental health. As a daily habit, practicing mindfulness can foster learning and development with increased focus. Guided meditations, mindfulness exercises, and courses set Headspace apart from other meditation apps. The app offers recommendations from hundreds of exercises based on what the user is feeling. Three-minute meditation sessions are excellent for a quick reset, making it tops among mobile apps.
Available for Download On: Google Play
Price: Free
Why You’ll Love It: Designed for patients in rehabilitation for a cerebrovascular accident (CVA), Rehab Coach is specifically designed to treat expressive aphasia. The app uses math exercises, color recognition, facial exercises, alphabet and vowel learning, and memory exercises to help stroke victims recover. It ranks very high among Android apps.
Available for Download On: Apple App Store
Price: $9.99 for all modules
Why You’ll Love It: iDo Hygiene teaches personal hygiene for everyone, from young children to older kids. It has 12 self-care tasks specifically designed for individuals with cognitive impairment and autism. Skills include face washing, showering, applying deodorant, using public bathrooms, and toothbrushing. It offers a step-by-step visual guide with videos, task sequences in images, and educational games.
Available for Download On: Apple App Store | Google Play
Price: Free (Yearly subscription also available)
Why You’ll Love It: MedBridge provides OTs, PTs, athletic trainers, and speech-language pathologists with continuing education to expand their knowledge and improve patient outcomes. The curriculum of this educational app is evidence-based and lets you earn CEUs by watching course videos. To facilitate patient engagement, you can view patient demonstrations. Content is customized and downloadable with full knowledge tracks often assigned by medical organizations.
Available for Download On: Apple App Store | Google Play
Price: Free (In-app purchases available)
Why You’ll Love It: Pocket Prep is an award-winning mobile learning and exam preparation tool specifically geared toward helping you study for the Occupational Therapist Registered (OTR) exam. OT Pocket Prep is an outstanding exam simulator that lets users design customized practice tests. The answers have detailed explanations, so the test taker understands the reasoning behind the question.
Available for Download On: Apple App Store
Price: $39.99/month for sole practitioners, $29.99/month per therapist at small clinics, and $14.99/month per therapist at large clinics, NGOs, and governments
Why You’ll Love It: Multidisciplinary teams expand their collaboration, working together to prescribe, track, and monitor home therapy programs customized for the patient. It takes just a few clicks to create and prescribe custom home programs that participants can easily follow and practice. Individual therapists or entire teams can remotely track the participant’s progress. Theratrak is highly recommended for helping kids with disabilities achieve independence.
Updated by Margarita David, DNP, RN, PCCN, CSN
Image courtesy of iStock.com/monkeybusinessimages
You have ambitious goals for your career, and you’re not afraid to take major steps to ensure you meet these objectives. Staying on track can be difficult when you’re caught up with the day-to-day concerns of your job and personal life.
That’s where an outside perspective comes in handy. This can take numerous forms, but two approaches are especially common among driven professionals: career mentors and career accountability partners. While these terms are sometimes used interchangeably, they reference different roles and relationships.
Ready to take your job performance to the next level? You don’t need to go it alone. Below, we explain how resources like mentors and accountability partners can boost your career and why you’ll benefit from both relationships.
At its most basic level, a mentorship involves a mutually beneficial, career-oriented partnership. Typically, one of the professionals involved in the mentorship has more experience or has achieved a higher rung on the career ladder. Still, both parties have much to gain; the mentee receives insight from years of hard work, while the mentor enjoys a fresh perspective.
In his Network Mastery Podcast, Matt Hall explains that the best mentor relationships focus on the long-term, with the goal of promoting success within a shared industry. This relationship tends to take on an informal approach, with compensation rarely entering the picture.
Hall adds that mentors serve a crucial role in professional development.
“[Mentors are] there to be a soundboard, help you brainstorm ideas… somebody you can check in with every week to learn something new,” he says.
Mentorship expert Martina Castro expands on the sometimes casual, yet nearly always transformational nature of this relationship in an intriguing episode from NPR’s Life Kit. According to Castro, mentorship often involves little moments in which a mentor provides a compelling perspective. This can take the form of advice but could also involve a few simple words or a properly phrased question.
Mentors are all around you, and yet the prospect of developing this important relationship can feel intimidating. According to Hall, however, you may already have a mentor and not know it.
In all likelihood, you entered your profession of choice with a mentor already established. Perhaps this individual piqued your interest in a particular field or position. Otherwise, you likely know at least a few people who have provided some element of guidance and are ready to take that next step toward becoming a true mentor.
The Center for Mentoring Excellence’s Lisa Fain echoes this sentiment, highlighting the value of existing relationships as a starting point in your hunt. If this doesn’t immediately lead to a mentor, Fain suggests “letting people know what your learning goal is and asking them who… they know who can help you with that learning goal.”
Once you’ve identified a potential mentor, it’s important to develop a relationship before making any official requests. Fain describes this process as the mentorship equivalent of a first date. This is your opportunity to discover how your mentor will fit into your life. The right pairing is essential, as your goal should be to develop a long-term relationship that will ultimately benefit both professionals.
Finding and developing rapport with a professional mentor is just the beginning. Because this person can play such an important role in your career journey, it is imperative that you nurture this relationship over time. This means checking in regularly and engaging in meaningful discussions that benefit both the mentor and mentee.
However, more important than the amount of time you spend together is the quality of that time. Don’t seek a mentor simply because you want validation.
This is your chance to be challenged as a professional so that you can grow and learn. To that end, it’s important to limit venting and instead focus on what you can realistically change or accomplish. NPR’s Anjuli Sastry points out:
“Mentoring relationships are not therapy,” says NPR’s Anjuli Sastry. “Balance is essential, of course, as it may sometimes be necessary to discuss difficult circumstances so that the mentor understands the full picture.”
Most professionals are familiar with the concept of the career mentor, but the idea of an accountability partner remains misunderstood. Some of this confusion stems from the crossover between these roles, because mentors and accountability partners often hold similar functions.
Securing an accountability partner may require more effort than developing a professional relationship with a mentor. With mentors, the difficulty lies not in finding somebody to take on this role, but rather in actually approaching this person and striking up a natural and useful relationship.
When seeking an accountability partner, you’ll need to do more upfront research, but the process of approaching and asking somebody to serve this role may actually prove easier. This derives, in part, from the accountability partner’s more defined — and often short-term — role in your professional development.
When you need to level up your fitness regimen, you hire a personal trainer. This may cost more than simply maintaining a gym membership, but it will also deliver the motivation and knowledge needed to deliver impressive, long-lasting results.
The same concept can apply to your career. If you hire an accountability partner (often, in this context, referred to as an accountability coach), you can take confidence in knowing that this person is invested in your professional journey and committed to keeping you on track.
What’s more, the exchange of payment brings an extra level of motivation that might not exist without a purposeful transaction.
Accountability coach Katrina Widener explains, “When money exchanges hands, there’s something on the line. You don’t want to waste your hard-earned cash, so you get it done.”
If you’re currently unable or unwilling to invest in a paid accountability partner, you may be able to find similar benefits from a free alternative. This may look, to an extent, like a professional mentorship — but with more structure, and, in all likelihood, a level playing field.
With a free accountability partner, you might set specific goals and timelines, with the intention of helping one another remain on track as you take on specific challenges. As with mentors, you can check in from time to time. Once you’ve achieved your stated goals, you may go your separate ways, or, if you find the relationship valuable, set new objectives and continue to hold each other accountable.
Another key difference between mentors and no-cost accountability partners? With mentorships, one person typically holds more experience and an elevated status. Accountability partners, however, tend to be at or near the same level in terms of education and professional background.
This lends such a relationship unique advantages that might not be present in a typical mentorship. For example, accountability partners may relate to one another and find it easier to commiserate about shared workplace challenges. As with mentorship, it’s best not to focus on venting. But in the right context, blowing off steam can be helpful.
How you take advantage of your accountability partnership will depend, to a large extent, on whether you opt for a paid approach. If you choose to hire an accountability partner or coach, you’ll want to research thoroughly to ensure that this person is capable of helping you meet your most ambitious goals. Prior to committing, determine whether your top candidates have experience working with professionals in your field or at your level on the career ladder.
It’s also critical that you understand your paid accountability partner’s philosophy and general approach. Do you need a brutally honest, tell-it-like-it-is style to keep you motivated? Or would positive, rah-rah interactions serve you better?
Identify key traits you want in your accountability coach and make your final choice accordingly. Don’t be afraid to communicate your priorities and preferences during your initial meeting. Remember, rapport is just as important with a paid service as it is in an organic mentorship journey.
There’s no need to choose between mentors and accountability partners. Because these individuals take such different forms and serve such distinctive purposes, it’s easy and advisable to simultaneously weave them into your professional life.
To ensure both relationships are productive, get specific with what you want from each type of interaction. While some overlap may exist, your meetings with your mentor should look at least somewhat different from your work with an accountability partner. Often, you’ll select short-term endeavors to tackle alongside your accountability partner, while your mentorship journey will focus on the big picture.
To help illustrate the varying roles that mentors and accountability partners can play in a blossoming career, we’ve provided a few inspiring examples:
No matter your field or status as a professional, you deserve a supportive team of advocates prepared to help you achieve both your short and long-term objectives. Your efforts to develop relationships with mentors and accountability partners will pay off with professional growth and greater career satisfaction. Don’t waste this opportunity to take your career to the next level.
Image courtesy of iStock.com/artisteer
You’re determined to meet your career goals while also maintaining a fulfilling personal life. This is a difficult balance to strike, even for highly proactive and confident employees. Still, your most ambitious objectives might be within reach if you simply speak up. But how do you say you need money or more time off or less grunt work—and actually be heard?
Stating what you need seems so straightforward, and yet it’s a huge source of struggle for today’s employees. Results from a PayScale survey reveal that just 37% of workers have sought a raise from their current employer. But even those who are willing to seek more compensation could still be afraid to ask for vacation time or flexible work arrangements.
The first step? Speaking up. As the cliché goes, the squeaky wheel gets the most grease. Don’t let the fear of rejection stand in your way. Phrase your questions correctly, and you can demonstrate that you’re an invaluable asset to your employer.
Below, we highlight a few of the most common situations that might require you to ask more of your employer. We’ll also discuss ways to frame your request so that you receive the support, balance, and compensation you deserve.
You’ve demonstrated your skill and commitment every day on the job, and all that effort has led to exciting new responsibilities and an elevated status. It’s reasonable to ask for a higher salary that better reflects the unique qualities you bring to the workplace. Think of this as an opportunity for your employer to show you that your hard work is appreciated.
Before you ask for a raise, you need to understand why you deserve one. More importantly, you should be able to articulate these reasons quickly and effectively. This is best accomplished after you’ve developed your value proposition, which, as Ashlee Klevens Hayes, of career development company RXAshlee, explains, helps you articulate your expertise and accomplishments with confidence.
For example, if you work in project management, your value proposition might reflect your ability to complete projects on time and under budget. It could go something like: “My MBA and decade of experience in accounting, budgeting, and program development have equipped me to handle complicated workflows, coordinate large teams, and deliver optimal results for clients.”
Once you’ve identified and explained your value proposition, it’s time to dive in with salary negotiations. These should be based not only on your personal qualifications, but also on details you’ve uncovered about “typical” salary and benefits for your position, your level of experience, and your geographic region.
Websites like Glassdoor, Indeed, and PayScale can help, as can direct conversations with recruiters or even colleagues. Don’t let these statistics convince you to ask for less than you’re worth; use them to gain insight into compensation trends so you aren’t taken advantage of by your employer.
When negotiating a raise, resist the urge to quote a specific number. Instead, encourage your employer to quote an acceptable range first. Keep your bottom line in mind as you seek slightly higher than what you actually want, with the assumption that you’ll be viewed as reasonable when that number is eventually whittled down.
Work-life balance is a huge area of concern in today’s constantly connected society. Employees across all sectors work long hours with minimal time off, only to be plagued by emails when they’re off the clock.
Seeking a better work-life balance goes beyond taking a few more days of vacation. It’s about securing respect for your time—both at work and in your personal life. In your request, be sure to explain what a better work-life balance would help you achieve, like increased productivity and creativity.
Keith “Nurse Keith” Carlson, a career coach for nurses and other healthcare professionals, recommends doing a root-cause analysis so you know exactly why your work-life balance is suffering. This will influence how you handle your request. While he says he believes that poor personal habits sometimes influence a lack of balance, he says he feels that the issue is usually “bigger and deeper than that.” Systemic issues such as excessive expectations may be to blame for your current struggles. If that’s the case, it’s worth your while to seek relief.
When you’re ready to meet with your employer, start with a brief explanation of the value of work-life balance, specifically as it relates to your job.
This is another excellent opportunity to highlight your value proposition—but this time frame it as your employer’s need to help you stay afloat so you can continue to put your best foot forward.
An example a healthcare worker employed in the ER could say might be: “I go above and beyond during my 12-hour shifts, performing lifesaving procedures that are physically, mentally, and emotionally taxing. When I’m off the clock, I need the full time to recharge so I can recover from grueling shifts and be ready to start fresh when the next work day arrives.”
Vague requests for work-life balance are unlikely to hold sway with your employer. Instead, articulate specific ways in which your employer can help you juggle a demanding work schedule with your personal life.
How this is achieved will vary significantly from one professional to the next. A nurse or PA with young children at home, for example, may prefer to avoid the night shift. Others may struggle to find true rest or rejuvenation because they’re constantly plagued by work communication or administrative duties. In this situation, the best option may involve working with a supervisor to more clearly define the scope of the job. This will ensure that “time off” actually provides a break from work.
You bring considerable knowledge and skill to your work, but you still don’t have a seat at the table. Greater authority is only possible if you take on more responsibility. If you frame your question the wrong way, though, you could appear as if you’re underplaying the importance of your day-to-day work—or that your current role is unimportant.
Avoid thinking of yourself as “just” anything as you seek new responsibilities. Your self-perception as a skilled professional can determine whether your employer is willing to grant your request. Again, lead with your value proposition, making note of how your unique skills and qualities have equipped you to take on a greater degree of responsibility.
Highlight areas in which you can take on more responsibility, but be willing to negotiate. Just like asking for a raise, it can help to propose something just beyond your preferred level of responsibility and come down to a slightly less ambitious task or project. Never propose anything you suspect might be out of reach, as an inability to deliver could compromise any requests you make in the future.
Consider a specific project or task that you’re interested in. If, for example, your current work as an HR specialist is largely administrative, say: “I’d love to take a greater role in the upcoming recruitment campaign. I have specific ideas that can help us better attract candidates who fit our company’s culture.”
You’re not only ready for a bump in your salary, but you feel ready to take on an entirely new position. This can be a nerve-wracking process, but even when refused, your desire for a promotion signals your commitment to moving ahead in your career.
Demonstrate the skills, knowledge, and credentials you bring to the table. This can be particularly effective if you’ve recently earned a new degree or certification. For example, you could say: “I recently earned my MBA. Given the management skills I gained through my graduate coursework, I believe that I would be an excellent candidate for a senior position in the accounting department.”
Don’t base your request exclusively on tenure. These days, employers are more likely to grant promotions based on merit rather than seniority.
Don’t be discouraged if you don’t get a promotion right away. Few employers are willing to grant these on the spot, but simply nurturing the idea could get you on the path to success. Experts at the Harvard Business Review recommend asking on a quarterly basis, or, better yet, after you reach a major achievement at work.
Everybody needs time off to rest and recharge. Unfortunately, vacation time tends to be minimal in the U.S., even among mid- and upper-level employees who have been on the job for years.
Requests for extra time off can feel intimidating in an always-on society. But as with work-life balance requests, they can be successful when framed as a benefit to your employer.
Familiarize yourself with your employer’s vacation policy, determining when additional days are typically granted, how days rollover, and how much flexibility can be expected. Some tips to keep in mind: Consider asking for extra time after your performance review, particularly if you receive positive feedback. Rachel-Jean Firchau who runs a travel blog for career-conscious women suggests this approach: Requests made right after completing a busy period or a major project may also be more successful.
Firchau suggests having data points at the ready. Have a list of everything you’ve contributed to the team and organization, including any personal goals you’ve accomplished. You might want to include how long you’ve been there, how many days you currently have and how your productivity or innovation might improve under a more generous vacation policy. You might also add stats from sources like USTravel.org that found that workers who use the majority of their vacation days are significantly happier than those who don’t. The State of American Vacation 2018 reports: “Those who travel with all or most of their time are 28% happier with their companies and 24% happier with their jobs than those that travel with little to none of their vacation days. These frequent travelers are also 18% more likely to report receiving a promotion in the last two years.
Timing of your request could be crucial to your request. If the company is crushing its goals, your manager might be in high spirits and be more willing to go to bat for you. Either way, having management know how important vacation is to you will be helpful in the long-run. And, Firchau adds that if you get the approval — get it in writing!
From family obligations to grad school, a number of things could cause you to require more time away from work. Unfortunately, requests for reduced hours are often accompanied by a scaling back of responsibilities. Once lost, these responsibilities can be difficult to regain. With the right approach, you can secure the extra time you need without compromising your standing at work.
Provide a brief explanation of your circumstances. Be sure to highlight whether the time you take off will ultimately benefit your employer. Grad school attendance, for example, will equip you with new skills that prove valuable in the workplace, as well as give you exposure to cutting-edge research and practices. Explain how you can continue to fulfill your responsibilities despite being on the job fewer hours.
If possible, propose a trial period. During this time, you can demonstrate the ability to cover all essential tasks and abide by deadlines, even as you work fewer hours. Other negotiation tactics could include:
At some point, a fellow employee left their job, and instead of filling this vacancy, your employer shifted responsibilities so that you and your coworkers would absorb this role. While you were initially able to handle the increased workload, you’re beginning to fall behind. You need more support to ensure that tasks are completed correctly and on time. This could mean hiring someone else to fill the open position or shifting responsibilities in other creative ways to lighten the load.
Prior to meeting with your supervisor, consider whether any alternative solutions may be available for getting the job done with fewer employees. Sometimes, solutions like paring back unimportant tasks can work. In other cases, automation or outsourcing can fill the gap.
If you’re unable to come up with a viable solution, it’s time to ask for backup. Don’t fall in the trap of feeling like a martyr. You need and deserve help. Remind your employer how previous staffing levels consistently produced better results. Explain how the failure to fill open positions has negatively impacted you and your colleagues.
Propose specific solutions to help you handle work responsibilities without compromising your work-life balance. Your employer will appreciate the thought you’ve put into this request and may even offer alternative options you haven’t considered.
If you suspect your employer lacks the budget for an additional employee, you might suggest an outsourced solution. As an employee in a radiology department, for example, you could say: “I understand that budgetary constraints keep us from maintaining staff to handle diagnostic interpretations after hours. Could an outsourced solution for nights and weekends be a cost-effective way to keep our department running smoothly?”
Making requests of your employer can feel overwhelming, but it’s worth facing your fears and seeking the support or compensation you need. A little due diligence can make a world of difference. With preparation and the proper phrasing, you’ll be surprised what you can get.
Image courtesy of iStock.com/fizkes
An allegation of negligence could be every healthcare professional’s worst nightmare. And for nurses who work hard providing patient care, the threat of negligence can haunt their day-to-day work. But what exactly is negligence in nursing? And how can you avoid being accused of it?
We’ll give you a deeper look at what exactly constitutes nursing negligence, share some real-life examples, and provide you with tips for how you can protect yourself while on the job.
Negligence in healthcare is defined individually in each state. There is a common theme, however. In general, negligence in healthcare means practicing below the standard of care for a certain specialty, says Linda M. Stimmel, attorney with Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker LLP, and co-chair of the firm’s national Medical Malpractice & Health Care practice.
“Negligence is an umbrella term, and professional malpractice is a specific form of negligence,” says registered nurse and attorney Edie Brous.
That is, negligence is a general standard applied to all people, while malpractice is a professional standard. Brous maintains that in healthcare, most cases are not general negligence but are, in fact, specific allegations of professional malpractice.
For nurses specifically, negligence, as defined by the American Journal of Nursing, most often shows up in one of six ways:
Brous explains that there are five essential elements that must be proven in a lawsuit to establish negligence:
It’s important to note that patient injury doesn’t automatically mean that there was substandard care. There are many other factors that could lead to a patient’s illness or injury, such as adverse events (e.g., a storm causes a hospital to lose power, which results in a complete shutdown of the EHR system). Additionally, the International Journal of Medicine explains that the majority of patient injuries actually occur as a result of the inherent risk of medical practice or system errors and not provider negligence.
Stimmel explains that in most cases, negligence and malpractice are considered to mean the same thing. That being said, in healthcare, one can be accused of negligence for specific procedures as opposed to an overall malpractice suit. For instance, a doctor could be found negligent for failing to follow up on a patient after surgery, but not be found guilty of malpractice for the actual surgical case.
To illustrate what can constitute negligence in nursing, consider the following two real-life cases.
The family of a deceased nursing home patient sued for negligence when the patient had demonstrated ulcers as a result of not being repositioned per policy, as well as a urinary infection as a direct result of not having his catheter properly cared for.
A patient with a bronchial infection and numerous ongoing health concerns, including sleep apnea, had non-emergency eye surgery and died that night. The patient’s daughter filed a lawsuit against her mother’s three anesthesiologists, the attending surgeon, the ophthalmology fellow, the nurse anesthetist, and the nurse caring for her the evening after the surgery. The suit alleged both negligence and malpractice. The suit claimed that performing a non-emergency surgery while the patient had a respiratory infection was negligent. And failing to note the patient’s sleep apnea, which was not in her paperwork from the surgical team when she was transferred out of surgery, was malpractice.
In order to best protect yourself from becoming involved in allegations of negligence, Brous suggests nurses take the following steps.
This can be accomplished through strategies like taking continuing education courses, having active memberships in professional organizations, and subscribing to professional journals that keep you on top of your industry.
Know the policies and procedures of every facility in which you work, and don’t deviate from them. Avoid shortcuts.
Good communication with patients and their families goes a long way and can often clear up certain assumptions and misunderstandings on both sides.
Documentation can be one of the easiest ways to reduce the likelihood of mistakes or misunderstandings, and Stimmel advises that every nurse should chart their actions, assessments, nursing diagnoses, and interventions “thoughtfully and accurately.” Chart in a manner that allows you to reconstruct an accurate sequence of events and can improve your patient assessments/interventions in the future. “Take a minute or two to think about what you intend to chart before entering the information,” she says. “There will be significantly fewer omissions and mistakes.”
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