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.
Nurses Workload and Shortages
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliations
Nurses Workload and Shortages
Leaders of healthcare organizations must ensure appropriate staffing within their settings to be able to achieve their objectives. Their focus should be to achieve the Quadruple Aim that emphasizes the need to lower costs, improve patient experience, improve clinician experience, and achieve better outcomes (Arnetz et al., 2020). Stressors in healthcare systems are preventing many healthcare organizations today from fulfilling their mission, vision, and goals. Identifying these stressors early enough can help leaders of healthcare organizations to identify and implement corrective measures early enough before negative consequences occur. The purpose of this white paper is to help the leadership team to understand how nurses’ workload and shortages are affecting the work setting and evidence-based proposals to consider to address the issue.
A Description of the Healthcare Issue or Stressor
Nurses’ workload and shortages are among the issues that the organization’s leadership should address to meet the rising healthcare demands, especially during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Massive retirement among older nurses, excessive stress, increasing workload, and high nurse turnover rates caused by the pandemic have resulted in nurse shortage and increasing nursing workload across healthcare organizations nationally. A study conducted in a practice setting in Taiwan by Zhang et al. (2021) revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic influenced nurses to quit their nursing jobs. About 71.9% of the nurses felt that they were exposed to the virus at their place of work, approximately 49.9% reported increased workload, and about 7.6% considered resigning from their job. The pandemic also affected the nurses’ psychological well-being forcing them to leave their organizations (Shan et al., 2021). The available patient care needs at the time of the pandemic have become overwhelming for the few remaining nurses and this impacts negatively on patient outcomes, clinician experiences, healthcare costs, and patient satisfaction.
Impacts of the Issue or Stressor on the Organization
The facility has been recording poor performance since the pandemic ensued due to nurses’ workload and shortages. The stressors have compromised patient safety and healthcare quality at the facility. For example, as opposed to the rates before the COVID-19 pandemic, the organization is now recording between 5 and 10 cases of healthcare-associated infections every month. Findings from a study conducted by Shang et al. (2019) indicated that patients in units that are understaffed in both day and night shifts are likely to develop healthcare-associated infections 2 days after admission. Healthcare-associated infections contribute to prolonged length of hospital stay which increases the economic burden for both patients and the organization. For example, ward expenditures have risen by more than 5% in the past 1 year since the pandemic struck. Besides, increasing workloads prevent nurses at the facility from performing their roles effectively, a factor that leads to excessive stress, burnout, and negative psychological well-being. The facility will continue to record poor quality and safety scores when it does not address the problems of nurses’ workload and shortages.
Summary of the Two Articles
Evidence presented in the literature supports the effectiveness of numerous strategies that healthcare organizations can implement to address nurses’ workload and shortages. For instance, Griffiths et al. (2021) conducted a study to examine the effectiveness of flexible staffing options in addressing burnout and staff shortages in healthcare settings. The researchers discovered that the use of temporary nurse staffing option allows organizations to deploy nurses based on need, a factor that helps to improve patient outcomes. However, the two main advantages of using flexible staffing options include the high costs involved and the likelihood of not getting nurses to deploy on short notice. In another study, Sangal et al. (2021) examined the effects of leadership communication on workload, burnout, and stress among frontline healthcare workers in the emergency department during the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings from the study showed that effective leadership communication encouraged sharing of ideas on how to address workload and caused high perception of support among nurses thereby reducing stress and burnout.
How the Issue is Being Addressed By Other Health Organizations
Healthcare organizations implement varied strategies to address nurses’ workload and shortages during the COVID-19 pandemic. For instance, the Mayo Clinic Health System responded to nurses’ concerns during the pandemic by offering financial incentives and premiums, deploying agency nurses, and moving staff from outpatient units to inpatient units to minimize workload and improve staffing (Rinehart, 2022). Besides, radiology departments across various health settings in the United States re-organized their operations and personnel to manage the workloads and staff shortages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic (Xu et al., 2021). Other healthcare organizations can consider these strategies to ensure constant healthcare access for patients during the pandemic.
Strategies to Address the Organizational Impact Caused By the Issue and How they Might Impact the Organization
To conclude, the facility can implement the strategies outlined in the reviewed articles to address nurses’ workload and shortages. The interventions proposed in the articles include the use of temporary nurses to be deployed at the time of need (Griffiths et al., 2021) and the use of leadership communication to allow sharing of ideas and to reduce psychological stress (Sangal et al., 2021). These interventions might impact the organization positively by encouraging nurses’ retention, improving patient outcomes, promoting clinician experience, enhancing patient satisfaction, and minimizing costs (Griffiths et al., 2021). However, the use of temporary nurse staffing options may increase the likelihood of not getting nurses to deploy on short notice.
References
Arnetz, B. B., Goetz, C. M., Arnetz, J. E., Sudan, S., vanSchagen, J., Piersma, K., & Reyelts, F. (2020). Enhancing healthcare efficiency to achieve the Quadruple Aim: an exploratory study. BMC Research Notes, 13(1), 362. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13104-020-05199-8
Griffiths, P., Saville, C., Ball, J. E., Jones, J., Monks, T., & Safer Nursing Care Tool study team. (2021). Beyond ratios – flexible and resilient nurse staffing options to deliver cost-effective hospital care and address staff shortages: A simulation and economic modelling study. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 117, 103901. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2021.103901
Rinehart, J. (2022). Nurses demand Mayo Clinic Health System address staff shortages, sacrifices. https://www.keyc.com/2022/01/19/nurses-demand-mayo-clinic-health-system-take-action-address-staff-shortages-sacrifices/
Sangal, R. B., Bray, A., Reid, E., Ulrich, A., Liebhardt, B., Venkatesh, A. K., & King, M. (2021). Leadership communication, stress, and burnout among frontline emergency department staff amid the COVID-19 pandemic: A mixed methods approach. Healthcare (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 9(4), 100577. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hjdsi.2021.100577
Shan, Y., Shang, J., Yan, Y., Lu, G., Hu, D., & Ye, X. (2021). Mental workload of frontline nurses aiding in the COVID-19 pandemic: A latent profile analysis. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 77(5), 2374–2385. https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.14769.
Xu, Y., Mandal, I., Lam, S., Troumpoukis, N., Uberoi, R., Sabharwal, T., & Makris, G. C. (2021). Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on interventional radiology services across the world. Clinical Radiology, 76(8), 621–625. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crad.2021.05.001
Zhang, M., Zhang, P., Liu, Y., Wang, H., Hu, K., & Du, M. (2021). Influence of perceived stress and workload on work engagement in front-line nurses during COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 30(11-12), 1584–1595. https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.15707.