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.
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Solution
Pertinent Healthcare Issue: Nurse Shortage
In the healthcare business, nurses perform a critical role. They account for the lion’s share of the world’s total number of healthcare workers. According to the Globe Health Organization’s World Health Statistics Report, 29 million nurses and midwives are working around the globe, with 3.9 million working in the United States (Drennan & Ross, 2019). Nonetheless, in the United States of America, a persistent nursing shortage severely hinders good health. For example, approximately 1.6 million additional nurses would be needed by the end of this year to fill the shortfall (Drennan & Ross, 2019). One of the reasons contributing to the growing need for extra nurses is that a high number of baby boomers have reached retirement age. Nurses over 55 who desire to retire or reduce their clinical work volumes account for 23% of the total (Broome & Marshall, 2020). According to predictions, around 1.1 million baby boomer nursing professionals will retire over the next two decades. Consequently, there is a persistent nursing shortage in the United States, contributing to the country’s current condition of affairs (Fraher and Brandt, 2019). The purpose of this article is to study nurse shortages in-depth, the implications for an organization, and to provide viable solutions.
The Impact of Nurse Shortage on the Organization
Throughout my organization, the nursing shortage is readily apparent. According to the American Nurses Association, approximately 50 nurses have left the field in the last five years. In addition, the facility’s nurse turnover rate exceeds 19 percent on an annual basis. The upshot of this has been a scarcity of nursing personnel. The rate of new nursing employees, on the other hand, is around 10% lower than the national average. Consequently, the nurses at the institution are dealing with an increase in workload. Nurse burnout is on the rise within the nursing sector due to a lack of qualified nurses in the country. Medical errors are a result of burnout, and these mistakes result in patient fatalities and litigation. According to one example, the institution lost almost $55,000 in the previous fiscal year in order to compensate families whose loved ones died or fell sick because of erroneously administered care. The expense of medication has also climbed in tandem with the lengthening of patient stays, which is a worrying trend. Because the patient’s health worsens because of the inconsistent medicines, the patient’s safety scores also drop. A decrease in patient safety has occurred at the institution, as shown by a reduction in the LeapFrog Patient Safety Score from a grade of C to a grade of D. Therefore, there is a compelling need to address this public health issue on a national scale throughout the country.
Article 1: Global nurse shortages: The facts, the impact, and action for change.
The goal of this study was to undertake a comprehensive examination in order to provide potential remedies to the global nursing professor shortage. To address or mitigate the shortage of nursing faculty, a meta-analysis was utilized to examine and critically evaluate the solutions given by key nursing organizations for alleviating or ameliorating the shortage of nursing faculty (Drennan and Ross, 2019). According to the authors, a scarcity of nursing professors at nursing schools throughout the world is causing a shortage of nurses in the United States and around the world.
In order to develop a plausible point of view on the issue, the authors performed a thorough review of several published resources. They searched for white papers and position statements in multiple databases using CINAHL, PubMed, and Google Scholar, among other resources. There were 62 articles that yielded 181 ideas. The responses provided in these publications were split into eight major categories (Drennan and Ross, 2019). These included more significant funding for nursing faculty positions in nursing schools, worldwide collaboration in nursing research activities, data consolidation, and increased funding for nursing research endeavors.
They observed that a convergence of factors, including global nurse migrations, a chronic devaluation of faculty by academic programs, a lack of incentives, and a drop in full-time equivalent faculty employment, among other things, is the cause of nursing faculty shortage. The outcomes of the research, according to the authors, show that a change in approach and direction is necessary to solve the lack of nurse educators (Drennan and Ross, 2019). The healthcare department might do this via the creation of new types of nursing education as well as the creation of a mutually beneficial service contract.
Article 2: Transition to nursing faculty: Exploring the barriers
This article will examine the progress achieved on previously planned efforts, such as extending nursing certificate and graduate programs and nurse educators, enhancing graduate student recruitment into faculty posts, and deferring the retirement of present nurses and professors (Bagley et al., 2018). This academic paper is a review of the literature that dives into the subject at hand. Additionally, the authors propose novel solutions to the problem, including expediting the transition from bachelor of science in nursing to doctor of philosophy curricula; ensuring that Advanced Practice Nurses are recruited into faculty roles while the faculty arranges for clinical practice time; and elevating the nursing career image to make it a prestigious profession (Bagley et al., 2018). Additionally, the authors advocated for developing a national certification program for nurse educators and the Department of Health and Human Services to collaborate with other healthcare authorities to resolve the problem (Bagley et al., 2018). The authors observed that linking the general nursing shortage to an absence of nurse educators improves the case for funding and public policy initiatives. The author concluded that some of the existing methods are successful (Bagley et al., 2018). Deferring faculty retirement, for example, has resulted in an estimated considerable increase in the United States’ nursing services shortage. Other practical approaches include expanding certificate and graduate nursing programs and aggressively recruiting graduate students for teaching positions.
Strategies used to address the organizational impact of Nurse Shortage.
As a first step, Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRNs) might be recruited to serve as adjunct faculty while faculty members negotiate clinical practice time with the administration. This will ensure that nursing schools always have sufficient nurse educators on their staff (Fraher and Brandt, 2019). Raising the public’s perception of nursing will increase nursing school enrollment, resulting in an increase in the number of people interested in pursuing a career in nursing. In turn, improved remuneration leads to increased demand for the profession, which in turn leads to more funding. In addition, extending the retirement age for nurses and faculty members would ensure that nurses who are currently working in the health care industry stay in the field for a more extended period of time, thereby decreasing the overall rate at which nurses are leaving the area (Drennan & Ross, 2019). Nurse turnover will reduce as the working environment improves, which will result in a reduction in the nursing shortage consequently (Fraher and Brandt, 2019). If the organization follows these procedures, our healthcare organization’s nurse shortage problem will be resolved.
References
Bagley, K., Hoppe, L., Brenner, G. H., & Weir, M. (2018). Transition to nursing faculty: Exploring the barriers. Teaching and Learning in Nursing, 13(4), 263-267.
Broome, M. E., & Marshall, E. S. (2020). Transformational Leadership: Complexity, Change, and Strategic Planning. Transformational Leadership in Nursing: From Expert Clinician to Influential Leader, 35.
Drennan, V. M., & Ross, F. (2019). Global nurse shortages: The facts, the impact, and action for change. British medical bulletin, 130(1), 25-37.
Fraher, E., & Brandt, B. (2019). Toward a system where workforce planning and interprofessional practice and education are designed around patients and populations, not professions. Journal of interprofessional care, 33(4), 389-397.