According to a study published in Harvard Business Review, business leaders reported that knowledge workers spend 41% of their time focused on non-strategic or non-core tasks. Consider that a full-time employee works on average 2,080 hours a year. So, we’re talking about 3 hours a day, 15 hours a week, 60 hours a month and 720 hours a year. It’s hard to imagine all that time focused on administrative or unimportant tasks.

Hold on, it gets worse. Multiply those figures by the number of knowledge workers on your team and across your company. It’s truly staggering, especially when much of this work could be competently handled differently, often through delegation, outsourcing and automation.

Let’s take a closer look at the impact this situation has on the healthcare industry. Hospitals and health systems have transitioned to value-based care and face pressure from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to reduce readmissions. It’s essential that all employees strive to spend 100% of their time focused on delivering quality patient care and ensuring patient safety. It’s imperative that efficient processes and procedures are in place to streamline the execution of core responsibilities.

One example is print management. Consider how many areas and departments in a healthcare facility rely on printed material such as forms, labels and wristbands. Staff should be able to initiate a workflow that makes it easy to access, manage and print critical documentation so their focus can remain on the patient, not the process.

Of course, it’s not just print these days. There’s also the need to send information to patients’ electronic health records. Unfortunately, occasional network issues (scheduled or unscheduled) can interrupt business continuity and result in downtime when forms and labels aren’t accessible. Having an automated workflow — where patient demographic information and bar codes are still accessible — can increase operational efficiency.

“Knowledge workers are said to think for a living, unlike manual laborers who are paid for performing physical tasks. Knowledge workers are differentiated from other workers by their ability to solve complex problems or to develop new products or services in their fields of expertise.” — CFI.com

If you manage knowledge workers or are one yourself, there is hope. Harvard Business Review’s article outlined these steps to help you become more productive and satisfied:

1. Identify low-value tasks
2. Decide whether to drop, delegate or redesign
3. Off-load tasks
4. Allocate free time
5. Commit to your plan

Want to learn more about how you can get back control of your day? Continue reading here.