NURS 6053 Wk3 Discussion: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues Essay
Discussion: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues
Quite often, nurse leaders are faced with ethical dilemmas, such as those associated with choices between competing needs and limited resources. Resources are finite, and competition for those resources occurs daily in all organizations.
For example, the use of 12-hour shifts has been a strategy to retain nurses. However, evidence suggests that as nurses work more hours in a shift, they commit more errors. How do effective leaders find a balance between the needs of the organization and the needs of ensuring quality, effective, and safe patient care? NURS 6053 Wk3 Discussion: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues Essay
In this Discussion, you will reflect on a national healthcare issue and examine how competing needs may impact the development of polices to address that issue.
To Prepare:
- Review the Resources and think about the national healthcare issue/stressor you previously selected for study in Module 1.
- Reflect on the competing needs in healthcare delivery as they pertain to the national healthcare issue/stressor you previously examined.
Post an explanation of how competing needs, such as the needs of the workforce, resources, and patients, may impact the development of policy. Then, describe any specific competing needs that may impact the national healthcare issue/stressor you selected. What are the impacts, and how might policy address these competing needs? Be specific and provide examples. NURS 6053 Wk3 Discussion: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues Essay
Discussion: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues
Competing needs such as the needs of resources workforce and patients may impact the development of the policy by requiring the nurse leader to strike a balance between these competing needs. Workforce consumes the greater part of the financial resources of the organization; thus it is the responsibility of the nurse to make sure that the organization remains financially healthy while ensuring that nurses provide quality and safe patient care. As Hunt (2018) indicates, it is always vital to have sufficient nurses with the appropriate expertise to offer quality care cost-effectively. NURS 6053 Wk3 Discussion: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues Essay. For example, when developing a policy, the nurse leader must try to find the appropriate balance between staff satisfaction, quality and safety of patient care and fiscal sustainability of a staffing policy is to be effective.
The competing needs that may impact nursing shortage include the requirement for nurses to attend to the increasing patient health needs which makes nurses face burnout and negative outcomes on the health of the nurses. This influences the quality of care that nurses give to patients. When nurses work under stressful work environments often typified by heavy workloads and subsequent burnout, they are dissatisfied with their jobs, making them leave the organization or change to another career (Heidari et al; 2017) NURS 6053 Wk3 Discussion: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues Essay.
A policy can address the needs of nurses to work in less stressful and supportive environments and the need for patients to receive quality nursing care. An organization can increase the retention of nurses by creating a supportive work environment to lessen the vulnerability of workplace fatigue, and eventually reduce turnover intentions. A minimum nurse to patient ratio policy can empower nurses to create staffing plans that will be specific to every unit. This strategy will allow healthcare organizations to determine flexible staffing levels. According to Griffiths et al (2020), the capability to establish the appropriate number of nurses to deploy on a given shift can improve the work conditions for nurses as well as the efficiency and quality of care.
References
Griffiths, P., Saville, C., Bal, J et al. (2010). Nursing workload, nursing staff methodologies and tools: A systematic scoping review and discussion. International Journal of Nursing Studies. 103:103487. doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2019.103487
Heidari, M., Seifi, B., & Gharebagh, Z. (2017). Nursing staff retention: Effective factors. Annals of Tropical Medicine and Public Health, 10(6), 1467-1473. DOI: 10.4103/ATMPH.ATMPH_353_17
Hunt P. (2018). Developing a staffing plan to meet inpatient unit needs. Nursing Management 49(5) 24-31. doi: 10.1097/01.NUMA.0000532326.62369.9b. NURS 6053 Wk3 Discussion: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues Essay