Pertinent Healthcare Issue
N6053
The Assignment (2-3 Pages): Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue Develop a 2- to 3-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 Helpance 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.
Pertinent Healthcare Issue
The selected pertinent issue in the healthcare facility is fatigue, burnout, and stress among the healthcare workers. Nurses are subjected to a high workload due to the increasing number of patients seeking healthcare services. Nurses rarely get a day off or a holiday to relax and spend time with their families. The causes of fatigue, burnout, and stress are the high workload, long working shifts, and low pay. For instance, the facility has not reviewed the salaries of the nurses considering the risk involved in taking care of the high number of patients during the pandemic. The number of patients has been rising since last year when the pandemic broke out. The pandemic has complicated the situation in many other hospitals in the state. The pertinent issue has been developing due to the fear among the healthcare workers that they might also contract the virus and die.
The pertinent healthcare issue is affecting the workplace by undermining the morale of the nurses. Nurses feel they are not in the right work environment due to the high pressure to attend to many patients (Rosa et al., 2020). For instance, a recent survey indicates that 70 percent of the nurses are dissatisfied with the high workload, long shifts, and little time to spend with their families. Another indicator is that 20 nurses quit their jobs in the last year indicating stress and burnout as the major contributors to their decision.
One of the articles reviewed is by Shah et al. (2021) find that the pressure placed on the frontline nurses during the pandemic is a greater contributor to burnout. The article recommends that urgent measures are necessary to address the problem in the healthcare sector. The second article by Lasater et al. (2021) find that nurses in diverse healthcare facilities were facing burnout prior to the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. The article recommends the development of policies to enhance the quality of the healthcare environment to address stress.
The healthcare stressor is addressed in other hospitals using friendly policies that motivate healthcare workers. For instance, hospitals provide a friendly schedule to the nursing mothers to ensure they spend quality time with their families. Another example is allowing the nurses to take a day off their job at least once a week (Rosa et al., 2020). Other healthcare facilities provide the nurses with options of paid vacation to ensure they are motivated to complete their tasks. The focus is to provide more reasons why the nurses should report to work enthusiastically (Kok et al., 2021). The purpose of the friendly policies is to ensure nurses achieve an effective work-life balance.
Healthcare organizations have a responsibility to address nurse burnout and stress. One of the strategies is to reduce the number of working hours. The high workload is part of the contributing factors that cause burnout. Reducing the number of working hours involves hiring more nurses (Kok et al., 2021). Healthcare organizations should increase their budget to hire more nurses to attend to the rising number of patients. Another strategy is to make the healthcare environment friendly. For instance, it is vital to avoid bullying and discrimination which can trigger depression and stress among healthcare workers (Kok et al., 2021). The nursing teams should develop mechanisms to collaborate and embrace teamwork to avoid burnout.
The strategies will impact the healthcare environment by boosting the morale of the nurses. Nurses will feel excited when they are reporting to work. Another impact is that motivation among the nurses will improve the quality of patient outcomes (Rosa et al., 2020). Conversely, the negative impact will be the high budget for the salaries due to the increasing number of nursing staff.
References
Kok, N., van Gurp, J., Teerenstra, S., van der Hoeven, H., Fuchs, M., Hoedemaekers, C., & Zegers, M. (2021). Coronavirus disease 2019 immediately increases burnout symptoms in ICU professionals: a longitudinal cohort study. Critical Care Medicine, 49(3), 419.
Lasater, K. B., Aiken, L. H., Sloane, D. M., French, R., Martin, B., Reneau, K., … & McHugh, M. D. (2021). Chronic hospital nurse understaffing meets COVID-19: an observational study. BMJ Quality & Safety, 30(8), 639-647.
Rosa, W. E., Schlak, A. E., & Rushton, C. H. (2020). A blueprint for leadership during COVID-19: Minimizing burnout and moral distress among the nursing workforce. Nursing Management, 51(8), 28.
Shah, M. K., Gandrakota, N., Cimiotti, J. P., Ghose, N., Moore, M., & Ali, M. K. (2021). Prevalence of and factors associated with nurse burnout in the US. JAMA Network Open, 4(2), e2036469-e2036469.
