NURS 6053 Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues

NURS 6053 Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues

NURS 6053 Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues

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.

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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

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