NURS 6512 Week 1 Essay Assignment
Nursing Management System Approach
Health care organization are social systems and is classified into interrelated subsystems such as inputs, throughput’s, outputs, systems as cycles of events, and negative feedback (Meyer & O’Brien-Pallas, 2010). Gillies stated that “a systems Theory refers to a theory of science that concentrates on the wholeness of the situation”. System theory has been unitized in nursing research. It has been beneficial in differentiating the input and output process for most organization. Over the years nursing theorist have unitized the system theory in nursing organizational patters and nursing research, (Gillies, 2010). Hospital settings sometimes are divided into various units which provide many different levels of care to patients, which include emergency department (ED), medical-surgical, intermediate care, and intensive care units, etc. Each of these units has specific inputs, throughput, outputs, cycles of events and negative feedback. This paper is to identifying a problem in a department and addresses it using a system theory approach. Inputs, throughput’s, outputs, a cycle of events and the negative feedback related to the problem being discussed in this paper. NURS 6512 Week 1 Essay Assignment
Subsystems of the ED inputs include the staffing, supplies and financial resources needed to operate the ED, (Katz& Kahn, 1978). This would be the standard materials and concepts used by the organization. The input component from the model refers to the demand for emergency services, and it is influenced by timely access to primary and community services, and by the prevalence of conditions such as acute illnesses, chronic diseases, trauma, and mental illnesses. The proportion of people that are vulnerable based on socioeconomic factors also influences the input component. In the emergency room, the input is as follows: 6 beds per two registered nurses, a charge nurse, and an LVN. It is managed together with another floor by a Director and Manager. There are a hospitality staff and nurse practitioner as well as resident doctors for the teaching group who admit their patients here, which make up the medical support team. Additional team members my also include the following; respiratory therapist, social worker, and case manager. The duty of the nurse is to provide quick, efficient care while managing admission and discharge process for the patients. This unit is to decrease the throughput for the emergency room and facilitate its accommodation as the turnover ratio of patients. Throughput’s are created when the unit utilizes all of their inputs to generate a product (Katz & Kahn, 1978). In the example of the ED, the throughput would include all of the nursing services that the staff can provide to patients that seek their services.
Throughput
It consists of several factors and deals with the effectiveness of nursing care to patients in coordination with other healthcare professionals in the input unit. Nursing work entails providing the best possible care to patients that get into the emergency unit. The task the nurse is assigned to the patient and how he or she takes care of the patient is the throughput process, and this includes physical assessments and giving the patients medications prescribed by the physician.NURS 6512 Week 1 Essay Assignment
Output
The result at the end of effective throughput is the output as it depends on the quality of nursing care given to the patients by the nurses and healthcare professionals. Improved patient health and satisfaction with the level of care accorded in the unit will be examples of output. The cycle of events, another part of systems theory, revolves around the repeated sequence of events that takes place when the system is in progress. Upon arrival at the emergency unit, the patient’s vital signs are taken with admission history before the doctor puts for planned care. An individual treatment plan is drawn up according to the condition of the patient and the necessary blood work performed. In every setting, adjustments need to be made to improve the outcome based on results achieved; this is referred to as negative feedback. A hospital survey is sent out to patients to rate different aspects of the unit with regards to their previous stay. This provides valuable feedback that the staff and management can use to improve the quality of care and treatment, equipment inclusive, in anticipation of the next patient visit.
Identifying the problem
With the rush of patients in and out of the emergency unit, the number of patients frequently outnumbers the staff. With adequate staffing being a problem, the desired outcome cannot be acquired by the unit. When there is a shortage or inadequate staffing in a working, this most time lead to poor quality of care to patient, hence putting the patient health are risk and poor patient outcome.
. Other factors influencing nurse staffing requirements include time needed for patient documentation, patient/family education, and care coordination; supervision and delegation activities based on effectiveness and efficiency of support personnel; and ethical decision-making. During busy days there is a possibility of patients not getting adequate care and no chance to get floating nurses to the unit. This problem starts at the level of the input and affects all through to throughput and output. With the variety of work responsibilities for a nurse, staff shortage creates a burden of extra work that leads to less than ideal care for patients in the unit. Nurses may be placed in situations with unsafe nurse-to-patient ratios, patients could experience reduced quality of care, and the organization could suffer due to poor service outputs (Wise, Fry, Duffield, Roche, & Buchanan, 2015). NURS 6512 Week 1 Essay Assignment
Addressing the problem
Emergency nurses are vital for the delivery of quality emergency care. A giant step in addressing the staffing issue will be the improvement of patient safety and satisfaction. A problem like this can be resolved using equifinal which means using more than one way to accomplish the same result. The desired outcome, in this case, would be to be able to provide proper and adequate health care to patients and also do it efficiently and beneficially to the patient. Calculating the number of beds to nurses will help know the number of care needed. A precise calculation will suggest two registered nurses and an LVN work on the vital signs and other ancillary duties. Another means will be to hire more nurses and give them the adequate training to prepare them for emergency response. This might seem slow and expensive at the beginning, but it is cost effective and better for the management in the future. Also recruiting new staff will avoid excessive overtime for the other nurses and reduce work. Hiring a unit secretary is also a more explainable solution as the secretary will do the other ancillary duties giving the nurses more time to focus on patients. It is almost impossible to control the number of patients admitted to the emergency room, but a triage system can be put into place where patients with the most severe cases are put priority. Applying some of these interventions will help the staff to stay with their current job and not leave the unit in search of other employment opportunities because the stress level will be decreased. Appreciation will contribute in retaining employees.
Conclusion
Finally, it is necessary for the unit and facility to make add-ons to the policies and procedures that support the overall goal of the organization. These interventions will result in better quality care for the patients, improved patient safety and satisfaction, provide a sense of appreciation to the staff and promote exceptional care to patients making them feel important to the organization. Employees will stay long term, and the economy of the organization will be boosted up.NURS 6512 Week 1 Essay Assignment