NURS 6053 Discussion Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues Walden
Walden University DQ: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues– Step-By-Step Guide
This guide will demonstrate how to complete the Walden University DQ: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues assignment based on general principles of academic writing. Here, we will show you the A, B, Cs of completing an academic paper, irrespective of the instructions. After guiding you through what to do, the guide will leave one or two sample essays at the end to highlight the various sections discussed below.
How to Research and Prepare for DQ: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues
Whether one passes or fails an academic assignment such as the Walden University DQ: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues depends on the preparation done beforehand. The first thing to do once you receive an assignment is to quickly skim through the requirements. Once that is done, start going through the instructions one by one to clearly understand what the instructor wants. The most important thing here is to understand the required format—whether it is APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.
After understanding the requirements of the paper, the next phase is to gather relevant materials. The first place to start the research process is the weekly resources. Go through the resources provided in the instructions to determine which ones fit the assignment. After reviewing the provided resources, use the university library to search for additional resources. After gathering sufficient and necessary resources, you are now ready to start drafting your paper.
How to Write the Introduction for DQ: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues
The introduction for the Walden University DQ: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues is where you tell the instructor what your paper will encompass. In three to four statements, highlight the important points that will form the basis of your paper. Here, you can include statistics to show the importance of the topic you will be discussing. At the end of the introduction, write a clear purpose statement outlining what exactly will be contained in the paper. This statement will start with “The purpose of this paper…” and then proceed to outline the various sections of the instructions.
How to Write the Body for DQ: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues
After the introduction, move into the main part of the DQ: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues assignment, which is the body. Given that the paper you will be writing is not experimental, the way you organize the headings and subheadings of your paper is critically important. In some cases, you might have to use more subheadings to properly organize the assignment. The organization will depend on the rubric provided. Carefully examine the rubric, as it will contain all the detailed requirements of the assignment. Sometimes, the rubric will have information that the normal instructions lack.
Another important factor to consider at this point is how to do citations. In-text citations are fundamental as they support the arguments and points you make in the paper. At this point, the resources gathered at the beginning will come in handy. Integrating the ideas of the authors with your own will ensure that you produce a comprehensive paper. Also, follow the given citation format. In most cases, APA 7 is the preferred format for nursing assignments.
How to Write the Conclusion for DQ: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues
After completing the main sections, write the conclusion of your paper. The conclusion is a summary of the main points you made in your paper. However, you need to rewrite the points and not simply copy and paste them. By restating the points from each subheading, you will provide a nuanced overview of the assignment to the reader.
How to Format the References List for DQ: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues
The very last part of your paper involves listing the sources used in your paper. These sources should be listed in alphabetical order and double-spaced. Additionally, use a hanging indent for each source that appears in this list. Lastly, only the sources cited within the body of the paper should appear here.
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Sample Answer for DQ: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues
The healthcare environment is significantly growing and improving the quality of clinical services is essential. Healthcare policies and practices provide regulation in daily operation and ensure uniformity for all employees so that there are no discrepancies (Rosa et al., 2020). For a policy to be developed in nursing, the competing needs must align with the agenda the strategy is advocating for. Competing needs arise when the healthcare workers want to meet the set goals and objectives. For example, the workforce needs may be adequately addressed but the resources required are not sufficient enough to facilitate policy development (Anderson et al., 2020).
The competing needs that may impact the national healthcare issue/stressor under study in this discussion is the multi-morbidity.
Multi-morbidity is steadily increasing across the world and poses a major challenge to healthcare systems around the world (Franklin et al., 2017). According to the healthcare providers, the reasons for the rise in multi-morbidity is lifestyle choices in which most Americans live a sedentary life, leading to obesity, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. In Medicare population, 65% of patients have two or more chronic illnesses, therefore, Multi-morbidity is related to ageing and it is also socially patterned being common and occurring at an early age in areas of high socio-economic deficiency (Sacha et al., 2020).
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To address the competing needs, the healthcare organization has to implement major changes in the workforce issue, managing patients, and distribution of resources (Figueroa et al., 2019). Managing chronic illnesses reduces the cost of healthcare because the rate of chronic diseases is higher especially in the US compared to other nations. The population affected by chronic illnesses requires special attention, therefore, the government should get sufficient nurses to help the people. Through the process of expansion of the affordable treatment programs, discouraging sedentary lifestyle, improving the medication adherence, and providing grants and funds to support healthcare, the health organization in America can play its role in the reduction health care cost (Crowley et al., 2020).
In conclusion, managing chronic illnesses, increasing resources, and advising people to live a healthy lifestyle leads to achieving the set goals in healthcare. Reduction in workforce can be achieved through gathering enough resources. Managing the competing needs have impacted before setting organizations policies and practices.
Healthcare organizations develop policies to guide the daily activities and meet their expected treatment outcomes and standards. The operation of a healthcare institution depends on both internal and external structures. The internal components include the staffing, the working hours, and schedule policies, and collaboration structures (Laureate Education (Producer), 2018). On the other hand, the external factors include the government policies such as the Medicaid and Medicare programs and the 30 days-readmission policy among others. Therefore, healthcare institutions have to work to meet both external and internal needs. Though, in most cases, the competing needs presented by the policies could affect operational efficiency. The current discussion focuses on the rising cost of the medication issue and the need to improve the patients’ experiences.
The patient’s experience depends on various factors including their interactions with the healthcare providers and the quality of medications they receive. Healthcare institutions may be required to recruit enough healthcare staff to meet the desired healthcare provider patients ratio. Also, the institution may have to stock high-quality drugs to achieve the best therapeutic outcomes in the patients as per the bioethical requirements (Milliken, 2018). The fact is that improved patient experiences result in a lower cost of medication because the patients will have few cases of complications and the number of days they spent in hospitals (Kelly & Porr, 2018). However, the healthcare personnel may be required to engage intensive care approach including taking more time to understand the patients’ needs and developing the right diagnosis. Furthermore, they will have to explore other socio-cultural issues that could be affecting the treatment outcomes for the patients. In such as case, the healthcare institution will have to invest heavily in the resources needed for proper diagnosis and ensure that healthcare staff adequately meet the patients’ needs.
The illustration indicates that the healthcare institutions will struggle between meeting the patients’ needs and keeping the medication costs low (Hardin et al., 2017). Investing in the resources needed to offer the best care will mean that the costs for the healthcare services will increase. Healthcare institutions operate to make a profit and so must balance between their expenses and income. It will be unrealistic to have high-standard healthcare services at a low cost (Paterick et al., 2017).
Policies such as mandatory patient education and promoting self-care practices can help address the issue. Educating the patients means that they will have the required knowledge to promote healthy behavioural practices. Adopting the policy will reduce the risk of poor treatment outcomes and complications likely to emerge due to the patient’s non-adherence and unhealthy behaviours (Toukhsati et al., 2019). In addition, the patients will understand what they have to do to better their quality of life and so reduce their level of dependence on the healthcare providers (Figueroa et al., 2019). The number of patients seeking healthcare services continues to rise; therefore, adopting the policy will ensure that the healthcare institution serves a large population without straining the resources and this will reduce the cost of treatment.
Finally, competing needs are common in healthcare systems. However, healthcare providers must always develop new measures and policies for addressing health issues. Adopting the policy on patient education on self-care skills will reduce the burden presented on the healthcare institutions by the increasing number of patients and the rising cost of medication. Furthermore, the healthcare institution will be able to manage their staff without exposing them to any health harm and so achieve the quadruple aim.
References
Figueroa, C. A., Harrison, R., Chauhan, A., & Meyer, L. (2019). Priorities and challenges for health leadership and workforce management globally: A rapid review. BMC Health Services Research, 19(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-019-4080-7
Hardin, L., Kilian, A., & Spykerman, K. (2017). Competing health care systems and complex patients: An inter-professional collaboration to improve outcomes and reduce health care costs. Journal of Interprofessional Education & Practice, 7, 5-10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xjep.2017.01.002
Kelly, P., & Porr, C. (2018). Ethical nursing care versus cost containment: Considerations to enhance RN practice. OJIN: Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 23(1), Manuscript 6. doi:10.3912/OJIN.Vol23No01Man06.
Laureate Education (Producer). (2018). Moral Leadership [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.
Milliken, A. (2018). Ethical Awareness: What it is and why it matters. OJIN: Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 23(1), Manuscript 1. doi:10.3912/OJIN.Vol23No01Man01.
Paterick, T. E., Patel, N., Tajik, A. J., & Chandrasekaran, K. (2017). Improving health outcomes through patient education and partnerships with patients. Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings, 30(1), 112-113. https://doi.org/10.1080/08998280.2017.11929552
Toukhsati, S., Jaarsma, T., Babu, A., Driscoll, A., & Hare, D. (2019). Self-care interventions that reduce hospital readmissions in patients with heart failure; Towards the identification of change agents. Clinical Medicine Insights: Cardiology, 13, 117954681985685. https://doi.org/10.1177/1179546819856855
Sample Answer 2 for DQ: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues
Competing needs arise within any organization as healthcare workers seek to meet their targets and leaders seek to meet hospital goals. Either targets or goals require establishing priorities and allocating resources. For example, a policy addressing adequate nurse staffing is essential to meet the patient and workforce needs while minimizing hospital cost. However, utilizing in more nursing staff might result in economic inefficiencies along with misallocated resources.
The shortage of staff is connected with negative impacts; including lower quality and quantity of care because there are few resources to offer. Work overload to the existing nurses lead to burnout, and eventually compromising patient safety. Nursing shortage policies are constantly supported by current literature and they vary from country to country. However, there is continuous effort to modify certain aspect such as pay agreements, emergency hiring plans and RN residency programs to improve working environment for nurses (Park & Yu, 2019). Nurses should also voice their opinion on ways to resolve competing needs; the culture of silence creates a culture of acceptance and continues to suppress nursing professional knowledge (Kelly & Porr, 2018).
Competing needs that may impact nursing shortage is aging population in which baby boomer entering the age of increased need for health services. Which would require more students to enroll into the nursing program today and hire more educators to provide students with proper training. Another contributing factor is nurse burnout, statistics shows a national turnover rates is 8.8% to 37% (Lisa et al., 2020). Nurses are experiencing burnout daily and leaving the profession for better opportunities or advancing in their career. Ensure an optimal nurse to patient ratios to improve nurse staffing and improve quality of care delivered. Lastly, workload and work environment has forced hospitals to reduce staffing and implement mandatory overtime polices to ensure nurses would be available to work when the number of patients admitted increased unexpectedly. Furthermore, increase the workload to decrease on health care costs.
A policy might address these competing needs by ensuring an optimal nurse to patient ratio which can improve care outcomes for patients and ensure patient safety. Healthcare policymakers’ involvement in developing a staffing policy in every organization to improve working conditions (such as working hours, violence in workplace, managing workload) for the nurses staff to improve competencies and better job satisfaction. Ensure adequate government funding to allocate resources for training and clinical skills without causing strains on the government and organization budget. Also, devote resources toward increasing nurses wages; a token of appreciation for their dedicated and hard work.
References
Haddad, L.M., Annamaraju, P., & Toney-Butler, T.J. (2020). Nursing Shortage. Retrieved June 15, 2021, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK493175/
Kelly, P., & Porr, C. (2018). Ethical nursing care versus cost containment: Considerations to enhance RN practice. OJIN: Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 23(1), Manuscript 6. doi: 10.3912/OJIN. Vol23No01Man06. Retrieved from http://ojin.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/ANAMarketplace/ANAPeriodicals/OJIN/TableofContents/Vol-23-2018/No1-Jan-2018/Ethical-Nursing-Cost-Containment.html
Park, H., & Yu, S. (2019). Effective policies for eliminating nursing workforce shortages: A systematic review. In Health Policy and Technology, 8(3), 296-303. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hlpt.2019.08.003
Sample Answer 3 for DQ: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues
This discussion explores the competing needs of health policy that are challenged to coexist with improved patient outcomes. Change adaption is difficult, is often met with resistance, and is perceived as burdensome. Healthcare organizations routinely default to a transactional approach to meet governmental regulations through cutbacks and organizational strain resulting in cultural degradation and ethical concerns (Kelly & Porr, 2018). Nurses are immersed in the reality of these unintended consequences of change. Ethical principles governing nursing practice drive nurses to speak up to protect their practice landscape (Milliken, 2018).
Value-based healthcare (VBHC) aims to reduce healthcare spending through a collaborative model while improving patient outcomes. This model presents itself as a win-win on paper but needs to be more evidently self-aware. Collaboration is not an inherent skill of all healthcare-related professionals. Furthermore, collaboration takes time many do not have within their busy schedules afflicted by a national workforce shortage. Utilizing health information exchanges (HIEs) can assist in time management barriers. However, HIE proficiency requires training and is not a universal solution as it faces ongoing patient privacy issues for participation and consent (Vest & Gamm, 2010).
The VBHC model is an active reimbursement model in outpatient community mental health, but practices still need to be assimilated. In the video, Buttaro (Walden University, 2012) discusses a common dilemma in meeting the needs of the underserved in outpatient care when encountering complex individuals that require a higher level of care. Many clients lack natural and community supports. Homelessness, persistent mental illness, and substance use complicate patient care and require extensive intervention. A full nurse schedule that allows a 30-minute time slot to achieve patient care needs is a daily uphill battle. Nurses driven by their principles strive to advocate, refer patients for support, and connect with family members and professionals, which requires time and critical thinking (Milliken, 2018). The care pathway needed to provide necessary interventions is seldom commensurate with the time available within the nurse’s workday. Nurses must decide what aspect of their duties must receive less attention. Robust charting is an organizational requirement. Patient advance and care is an ethical requirement. Working overtime can lead to burnout and patient safety risks and deviates from the nurse’s personal responsibility to take care of themselves.
Policy is the overarching force through which change happens. Rubino (Walden University, 2009) reminds us that change is necessary for all healthcare environments to address competing needs and is not an inherently negative paradigm. Reconciliation of policy and the reality of practice can align with transformational leadership within an organization. Nurses must be a voice that innervates incremental change with the potential for meaningful impact (Kelly & Porr, 2018). Nurses on my unit have spoken out about high-risk clients and the need for complex case management and collaboration. Leaders respond to data and request that nurses bring specific cases for discussion at site-based meetings with stakeholders. Numerous cases illustrated and quantified that high-need patients were straining healthcare resources through frequent rehospitalization, and crisis interventions unveiling that outpatient care was not meeting their needs. A response was implemented as a universal synchronized one-hour weekly block of care coordination time for each clinician. This time can be used for team meetings, case management, extended patient care, or charting overflow. Collaborative care has genuinely benefited from this alignment in schedules by maximizing relationships on behalf of patients. This small change needs to be evolved and revisited as an iterative process.
Nurses have the power to influence policy. In the video, Freshman (Walden University, 2009) advises that the process begins with self-awareness and understanding the environment and why circumstances exist. Complaining is not the solution. Competencies in data collection, observation, and evidence-based knowledge must be leveraged to grab the attention of stakeholders. Nurses with high-emotional intelligence are effective in unifying organizational values with personal values.
References
Kelly, P., & Porr, C. (2018). Ethical nursing care versus cost containment: Considerations to enhance RN practice. Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 23(1). https://doi.org/10.3912/OJIN.Vol23No01Man06Links to an external site.
Milliken, A. (2018). Ethical awareness: What it is and why it matters. Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 23(1). https://doi.org/10.3912/OJIN.Vol23No01Man0Links to an external site.
Vest, J. R., & Gamm, L. D. (2010). Health information exchange: persistent challenges and new strategies. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 17(3), 288-294. https://doi.org/10.1136/jamia.2010.003673Links to an external site.
Walden University. (2012). Ethical, moral, and legal leadership [Video file]. Walden University Canvas. https://waldenu.instructure.comLinks to an external site.
Walden University. (2009). Working with individuals [Video file]. Walden University Canvas. https://waldenu.instructure.comLinks to an external site.