Strategically Ditching, Delegating, and Deferring in the Face of Growing Responsibilities.

This article encourages healthcare professionals to evaluate their tasks critically, considering what can be ditched, delegated, or deferred to optimize effectiveness and preserve sanity.

In the ever-evolving landscape of healthcare, you likely feel like your plate is continually filling up with new responsibilities and expectations (from others and of ourselves). As healthcare professionals strive to meet the demands of expanding roles, it is essential to recognize that there is a limit to the amount of work you can handle effectively.  

To maintain productivity and well-being in ourselves and our workforces, it is crucial to embrace strategic choices and strategic risk management when it comes to workload.  Adding new tasks to our daily routines is inevitable with changing policy, scope, public demand, and regulatory requirements. I regularly challenge clients to consider what can be ditched, delegated, or deferred on their never-ending “to-do lists”.  This strategic approach is about not only balancing our time and energy but also about preserving sanity and effectiveness. 

Look, your cup can only hold so much. It is easy to fall into a trap of thinking that we can continuously pile on new responsibilities without unburdening ourselves of previous ones. Time and resources are finite and mental and physical limits do exist.  

While a perfect world would see rapid growth in scope of practice at the same time as shifting our previous scope of practice more heavily to support staff, the reality is this is not a perfect world. And until our provinces wake up and help formally move more of our “old” scope to our highly skilled team members, we can focus on several other spaces in our days that can be ditched, deferred, and delegated to others. 

Start small and keep it simple. Take a moment to consider your daily and weekly routines.  Are there tasks that can be deferred or shifted, for example, to a biweekly schedule instead of weekly schedule without a drastic impact on the outcomes? 

Are there tasks that you can ditch entirely because they add no real value to the outcomes you are aiming for? In the words of one of my best friends (who happens to be a psychotherapist), “Who told you that you have to do that?”. If the task doesn’t add value (and the college didn’t tell you that you must do it), ditch it. 

Are there responsibilities that can be delegated to other capable team members that you still do yourself “because that is how it has always been done”? When I spend time with practice owners and really dig into their practices, I consistently find tasks that an ownert is doing that a technician could be doing, tasks a technician is doing that assistants could do, and tasks assistants are doing that a high school student could do for 3 hours a week on a Saturday.  

The pressure to meet the expectations of being financially sustainable, endlessly available, fostering a great workplace, serving the public, and conforming, at times, to organizational standards can be daunting. In a challenging landscape like this, it is imperative to ask what we can strategically remove from our plates when we add new tasks.  The structures and statements that define our work should not be accepted as immutable truths. We do have the power to question and innovate, to ditch, delegate, and defer to clear space for innovation and growth.  Striking a balance between what you add to and what you remove from your plate allows you to pave a brighter and more sustainable future in an increasingly demanding profession. It will allow you to practice at the top of your skill set consistently, leading to a more productive and fulfilling work experience. 

Adapted for general health practices from publications written for Pharmacy Practice + Business magazine:

https://www.canadianhealthcarenetwork.ca/how-ditch-delegate-and-defer-strategically