Discussion: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues
While no job can truly be without stress, nursing is particularly stressful as nurses have to make decisions that affect the lives of others. In fact, nurses must take extra care to avoid burnout even within the stressful work environment. In this case, nurse burnout refers to a situation in which nurses experience emotional, physical and mental burnout cause by sustained stress at work to include the strain of dealing with patients who have poor outcomes, pressure of making quick decisions, and working for long hours. They face low control, long shifts, low staffing levels and high workload (Finkelman, 2019)Discussion: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues.
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The occurrence of nurse burnout creates a substantial concern within the health care industry because it increases the mortality rate among patients, lowers the quality of care, increase nurse turnover, and has a negative impact on the health of nurses. It causes higher intention to leave, patient falls, infections, medication errors, negative patient experience, adverse events, poor patient safety, poor quality of care, and reduced job performance (Koutoukidis & Stainton, 2020)Discussion: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues.
While there are measures to address nurse burnout (preventing and therapeutic measures), there are competing needs that work against these measures. Nurses are continually confronted with stressful work environments caused by heavy patient assignments, lack of time that cuts breaks short or cuts charting short, high acuity patients, and high patient to nurse ratios. Nurses have a heavy workload. Still, it is important to note that nurses shortage cause heavy workload that results in a stressful work environment causing nurses to experience nurse burnout that in turn results in nurses leaving the workforce causing shortage. This cycle between nurse burnout and nurse shortage can be interrupted if the competing needs are addressed with a focus on reducing nurse burnout. Addressing nurse burnout requires that the issue be addressed through therapeutic and preventive policies. The policies require that nurses change practice focus or specialties, learn coping methods, seek out support, take breaks, and improve schedules (DeNisco & Beauvais, 2020).
The identified interventions can be addressed through policy approaches. This would entail engaging in stakeholder mapping that determines the levels of power, influence and interest of different stakeholders, before developing policies that sufficiently address their needs. This approach ensures that the competing needs are prioritized appropriately even as the issue of nurse burnout is addressed. For instance, increasing the number of nurse personnel can help in reducing the workload, but this would increase workforce expenses. Balancing the needs ensures that workforce expenses are kept within manageable levels while the available nurses are assigned where they can derive the most value (Milstead & Short, 2019). Overall, nurse burnout creates a concern that can be addressed through targeted policy interventions Discussion: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues.
References
DeNisco, S. M. & Beauvais, A. M. (2020). Advanced Practice Nursing: Essential Knowledge for the Profession (4th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC.
Finkelman, A. (2019). Professional Nursing Concepts: Competencies for Quality Leadership (4th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC.
Koutoukidis, G., & Stainton, K. (2020). Tabbner’s Nursing Care: Theory and Practice. Elsevier.
Milstead, J. & Short, N. (2019). Health Policy and Politics: A Nurse’s Guide (6th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning Discussion: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues.
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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. 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? Review the Resources and think about the national healthcare issue/stressor you previously selected ( Nurse Burnout) 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. Resources: http://ojin.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/ANAMarketplace/ANAPeriodicals/OJIN/TableofContents/Vol-23-2018/No1-Jan-2018/Ethical-Nursing-Cost-Containment.html http://ojin.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/ANAMarketplace/ANAPeriodicals/OJIN/TableofContents/Vol-23-2018/No1-Jan-2018/Ethical-Awareness.html Discussion: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues