Analysis of a pertinent healthcare issue

Analysis of a pertinent healthcare issue
Assignment: Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue
The Quadruple Aim provides broad categories of goals to pursue to maintain and improve healthcare. Within each goal are many issues that, if addressed successfully, may have a positive impact on outcomes. For example, healthcare leaders are being tasked to shift from an emphasis on disease management often provided in an acute care setting to health promotion and disease prevention delivered in primary care settings.
Efforts in this area can have significant positive impacts by reducing the need for primary healthcare and by reducing the stress on the healthcare system.
Changes in the industry only serve to stress what has always been true; namely, that the healthcare field has always faced significant challenges, and that goals to improve healthcare will always involve multiple stakeholders. This should not seem surprising given the circumstances.
Indeed, when a growing population needs care, there are factors involved such as the demands of providing that care and the rising costs associated with healthcare. Generally, it is not surprising that the field of healthcare is an industry facing multifaceted issues that evolve over time.
In this module’s Discussion, you reviewed some healthcare issues/stressors and selected one for further review. For this Assignment, you will consider in more detail the healthcare issue/stressor you selected. You will also review research that addresses the issue/stressor and write a white paper to your organization’s leadership that addresses the issue/stressor you selected.
To Prepare:
Review the national healthcare issues/stressors presented in the Resources and reflect on the national healthcare issue/stressor you selected for study.
Reflect on the feedback you received from your colleagues on your Discussion post for the national healthcare issue/stressor you selected.
Identify and review two additional scholarly resources (not included in the Resources for this module) that focus on change strategies implemented by healthcare organizations to address your selected national healthcare issue/stressor.
The Assignment (3-4 Pages):
Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue
Develop a 3- to 4-page paper, written to your organization’s leadership team, addressing your selected national healthcare issue/stressor and how it is impacting your work setting. Be sure to address the following:
Describe the national healthcare issue/stressor you selected and its impact on your organization. Use organizational data to quantify the impact (if necessary, seek assistance from leadership or appropriate stakeholders in your organization).
Provide a brief summary of the two articles you reviewed from outside resources on the national healthcare issue/stressor. Explain how the healthcare issue/stressor is being addressed in other organizations.
Summarize the strategies used to address the organizational impact of national healthcare issues/stressors presented in the scholarly resources you selected. Explain how they may impact your organization both positively and negatively. Be specific and provide examples.
Looking Ahead
The paper you develop in Module 1 will be revisited and revised in Module 2. Review the Assignment instructions for Module 2 to prepare for your revised paper.
By Day 7 of Week 2
The healthcare issue I selected was the current nursing shortage.
Excellent
Develop a 3- to 4-page paper, written to your organization’s leadership team, addressing the selected national healthcare issue/stressor and how it is impacting your work setting. Be sure to address the following:
· Describe the national healthcare issue/stressor you selected and its impact on your organization. Use organizational data to quantify the impact (if necessary, seek assistance from leadership or appropriate stakeholders in your organization).
23 (23%) – 25 (25%)
The response accurately and thoroughly describes in detail the national healthcare issue/stressor selected and its impact on an organization.
The response includes accurate, clear, and detailed data to quantify the impact of the national healthcare issue/stressor selected.
· Provide a brief summary of the two articles you reviewed from outside resources, on the national healthcare issue/stressor and explain how the healthcare issue/stressor is being addressed in other organizations. 27 (27%) – 30 (30%)
A complete, detailed, and specific synthesis of two outside resources reviewed on the national healthcare issue/stressor selected is provided. The response fully integrates at least 2 outside resources and 2 or 3 course-specific resources that fully support the summary provided.
The response accurately and thoroughly explains in detail how the healthcare issue/stressor is being addressed in other organizations.
· Summarize the strategies used to address the organizational impact of national healthcare issues/stressors presented in the scholarly resources you selected and explain how they may impact your organization both positively and negatively. Be specific and provide examples. 27 (27%) – 30 (30%)
A complete, detailed, and accurate summary of the strategies used to address the organizational impact of the national healthcare issue/stressor is provided.
The response accurately and thoroughly explains in detail how the strategies may impact an organization both positively and negatively, with specific and accurate examples.
Written Expression and Formatting – Paragraph Development and Organization:
Paragraphs make clear points that support well-developed ideas, flow logically, and demonstrate continuity of ideas. Sentences are carefully focused—neither long and rambling nor short and lacking substance. A clear and comprehensive purpose statement and introduction is provided which delineates all required criteria.
5 (5%) – 5 (5%)
Paragraphs and sentences follow writing standards for flow, continuity, and clarity.
A clear and comprehensive purpose statement, introduction, and conclusion is provided which delineates all required criteria.
Written Expression and Formatting – English writing standards:
Correct grammar, mechanics, and proper punctuation
5 (5%) – 5 (5%)
Uses correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation with no errors.
Written Expression and Formatting – The paper follows correct APA format for title page, headings, font, spacing, margins, indentations, page numbers, parenthetical/in-text citations, and reference list. 5 (5%) – 5 (5%)
Uses correct APA format with no errors.
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Solution
Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue: Current Nursing Shortage
The scarcity of nurses in healthcare facilities across the United States is without a doubt one of the most pressing current national healthcare concerns. Almost every healthcare organization in the country, including mine, is affected by this issue. When there aren’t enough nurses, there’s bound to be burnout among the few remaining employees (Jacobs et al., 2018).
This is a truth that is harmful to the organization, because a nurse who is burned out as a result of an excessive workload is useless and dangerous. Because of physical and psychological exhaustion, this nurse is prone to making major errors of judgment. As an organization, this is a risk that may be avoided but is difficult to manage due to a shortage of skilled nurses.
As a result, the company faces the possibility of being sued for carelessness and malpractice. These could result in a vicarious liability finding and massive financial damages as a result of settled lawsuits. Organizational risk management is thus a reality that many healthcare organizations must deal with in light of nursing workforce shortages (Pittman & Scully-Russ, 2016; Ricketts & Fraher, 2013).
The goal of this paper is to look at the impact of nursing shortage in a hospital context and possible solutions.
How the Shortage of Nurses Impacts the Organization
The current nursing shortage has a huge influence on our organization. The hospital’s one nurse informaticist and three primary health care nurse practitioners have all quit in the last three months. Despite the human resource department’s best efforts, finding the suitable nursing personnel with the right training, experience, and skill mix to replace these four has proven impossible.
As a result, the remaining nurses and nurse practitioners are under a great deal of stress and are becoming demoralized as a result of the increased workload. It has been noted that replacing expert nurses who leave for a variety of reasons is a difficult assignment. Some of the reasons for this quick turnover have been noted, including the loss of professional development budgetary allocations by organizational policy makers, a lack of financial assistance for student nurses, and poor or insufficient remuneration (Palumbo et al., 2017; Wise, 2018)
As a result, healthcare organizations like ours should be very concerned if they lack the essential skill mix or number of nurses to provide high-quality, safe treatment. As an incentive, policymakers should keep in mind that overworked nurses may feel more powerful and motivated if they are compensated fairly and recognized for their efforts (Day-Calder, 2017).
Concise Presentation of Two Articles on the Healthcare Issue of Nurse Shortage
According to Combes et al. (2018), a scarcity of nursing staff may be due to the concerned organization’s uncompetitive compensation (Palumbo et al., 2017). Between 2003 and 2005, they looked into the position of assistant nurses (ANs) and registered nurses (RNs) working in hospitals in England.
They discovered that increasing the pay competitiveness of registered nurses by 10% reduced the shortage of both RNs and ANs by 0.6 percent for RNs and 0.4 percent for ANs.
According to Wise (2018), the treatment of cancer patients at the King George Hospital Cedar Centre in the United Kingdom had to be halted when four oncology nurses departed the hospital and two others went on maternity leave. They were forced to do so because the cancer center’s oncology nurses were in short supply due to the absence of these six. Of course, such a decision will have disastrous consequences.
Not only will the cancer patients treated at the hospital suffer as a result of the shutdown, but the clinic itself will receive unfavorable press and may lose public trust. Regaining that reputation and trust may take a long time after that.
However, this hospital, like ours, should investigate why a group of four oncology nurses had to quit at the same time, hampering its operations. As previously stated, the potential reasons could be salary, current staffing practices, or a lack of transformational leadership on the part of the organization’s nursing managers.
Because nurses constitute the backbone of the healthcare industry, these issues would be prioritized and addressed with urgency in most businesses.
Some of the Effective Strategies to Curb Organizational Nurse Shortage
Giving nurses equitable compensation, engaging in staff development programs, fostering a suitable working atmosphere through transformational nursing leadership, and taking a bottom-up approach to nursing management have all been mentioned as solutions that work to address this healthcare issue (Wise, 2018; Combes et al., 2018; Day-Calder, 2017).
Legislation, on the other hand, is a very successful technique for dealing with this threat. The National Nursing Shortage Reform and Patient Advocacy Act was introduced in 2015 by Democratic senators Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Barbara Boxer (California), and Democratic House Representative Jan Schakowsky (Rubin, 2015). This bill aimed to establish minimum nurse-to-patient ratios in all hospitals, safeguard nurses’ advocacy roles, and enshrine mandated investment in nurse training and retraining in law.
As a result, the bill’s purpose was to improve patient safety and facilitate the delivery of high-quality healthcare. Support was given by amongst others the California Nurses Association (Rubin, 2015).
These techniques may have a good impact on my organization by increasing nurse numbers, as well as the quality of nursing care and the enjoyment of working as a nurse.
They will only have a negative influence on my firm if they consume monies that could have been used to purchase new equipment and other permanent assets. However, because the number of professional nurses is decreasing and demand is outstripping supply, the investment is well worth the effort (Triggle, 2015).
References
Combes, J-B., Elliott, R.F. & Skåtun, D. (2018): Hospital staff shortage: The role of the competitiveness of pay of different groups of nursing staff on staff shortage. Applied Economics. https://doi.org/10.1080/00036846.2018.1490000
Day-Calder, M. (2017). How to cope with staff shortages. Nursing Standard, 31(19). http://dx.doi.org/10.7748/ns.31.19.37.s40
Jacobs, B., McGovern, J., Heinmiller, J., & Drenkard, K. (2018). Engaging employees in well-being moving from the Triple Aim to the Quadruple Aim. Nursing Administration Quarterly, 42(3), 231-245. https://doi.org/10.1097/NAQ.0000000000000303
Palumbo, M.V., Rambur, B., & Hart, V. (2017). Is health care payment reform impacting nurses’ work settings, roles, and education preparation? Journal of Professional Nursing, 33, 400-404. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.profnurs.2016.11.005
Pittman, P., & Scully-Russ, E. (2016). Workforce planning and development in times of delivery system transformation. Human Resources for Health, 14(56), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-016-0154-3
Ricketts, T.C., & Fraher, E.P. (2013). Reconfiguring health workforce policy so that education, training, and actual delivery of care are closely connected. Health Affairs, 32(11), 1874-1880. https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2013.0531
Rubin, R. (2015). Bill takes aim at nationwide shortage of nurses. JAMA, 313(18), 1787. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2015.3747
Triggle, N. (2015). Staff shortages threaten move into community care services. Nursing Management, 22(3). https://doi.org/10.7748/nm.22.3.8.s10
Wise, J. (2018). Hospital suspends chemotherapy because of nurse shortage. BMJ. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k4687