NURS – 6053N
Module 1: Healthcare Environment (Weeks 1-2)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 the 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.
Looking Ahead
The paper you develop in Module 1 will be revisited and revised in Module 2. Review the Assignment instructions for Module 2 to prepare for your revised paper.
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Solution
Pertinent Healthcare Issue Analysis
Healthcare organizations have a moral and professional obligation to deliver quality care to patients and deserving populations. Healthcare organizations should be adequately resourced in staff, materials, and finances to achieve this goal. Workplace problems should be critically low to ensure that professional relationships are optimal as required. However, this vision for a healthy workplace is usually hypothetical due to increased workplace issues. Many issues are widespread to the extent of being national healthcare issues or stressors. This paper analyzes nurse burnout as a national healthcare issue adversely affecting organizational outcomes and effective interventions proposed in scholarly sources.
Nurse Burnout and Organizational Impacts
Optimal output for healthcare workers is vital to achieving the desired patient care levels. Nurse burnout is a leading hindrance due to its devastating effects on nurses’ physical, mental, and emotional health. From a health perspective, nurse burnout is manifested by a significant decline in nurses’ energy. Defining elements include emotional exhaustion, reduced motivation, and getting frustrated easily(Dall’Ora et al., 2020). Organizational culture, workplace relationships, and the effects of strain associated with patient care on nurses are leading causes. Unless nurses get appropriate support, they cannot guarantee quality care and patient safety as generally expected in practice.
The impacts of nurse burnout in the organization are weighty and detrimental to interprofessional collaboration and patient care. Nurse burnout seems to trigger workplace incivility. Frequent reports from progressive and summative performance reviews indicate that about 10-20 cases of workplace violence are triggered by emotional exhaustion. In the same case, 30%-40% of cases related to workplace disrespect are associated with physically and emotionally exhausted nurses. Other incivility issues, although minimal, linked with nurse burnout include silent treatment and social exclusion. Unless appropriate measures are applied, the problem could be unmanageable as time advances. Besides incivility, nurse burnout has been a leading cause of turnover. Approximately 15% of nurse turnover cases in the organization are associated with exhaustion to the extent that nurses cannot cope anymore.
The impacts of nurse burnout in the organization are overwhelming and require effective control. Its connection with workplace incivility implies a significant risk to healthy relationships, quality care, and nurse satisfaction. According to Dall’Ora et al. (2020), the persistence of workplace incivility leads to job dissatisfaction and communication problems. Other problems include psychological stress and a general decline in physical health. On the other hand, nurse turnover is challenging to manage from management, financial, and service quality dimensions (Samad et al., 2021). It prompts healthcare organizations to recruit new nurses to replace the lost workforce frequently. Such practices are dissatisfying and draining. They can be avoided by ensuring that nurses are in the right mental and physical states to commit to their routine mandate.
As the organization’s data reveals, nurse burnout is a threatening problem due to its multidimensional nature. It adversely affects nurses, patients, and the organization. On nurses, burnout exposes the current workforce to health and relationship problems. Besides the inevitable physical and emotional exhaustion, nurse burnout may affect nurses’ attitudes towards their work. They are likely to perceive it negatively and lack the necessary intrinsic motivation to be actively involved in care processes. Such nurses also lack the desire to optimize health outcomes. They cannot apply innovative strategies to maximize patient outcomes, affecting the overall quality of patient care and organizational output.
Nurse Burnout Review from Scholarly Sources
As a national healthcare concern, nurse burnout has attracted interest from many researchers in nursing and the general healthcare field. The research has explored nurse burnout from various dimensions, including prevention and strategies to reduce its impacts. One of the useful resources in addressing nurse burnout is an article by Zhang et al. (2020) on reducing burnout among physicians and nurses. The article explored how global healthcare organizations can use a bundled strategy to address nurse burnout. According to Zhang et al. (2020), nurse burnout cannot be effectively addressed via a single strategy due to its multifaceted nature. A bundled strategy including individual-focused, structural or organizational interventions and combined interventions is the most effective. The study is found on the premise that nurses and the management must work collaboratively to address burnout by eliminating individual, structural, and organizational problems causing burnout.
The other useful resource is an article by Brook et al. (2021) on reducing nurse burnout in a UK university. The explanatory sequential mixed-methods study focused on the interventions necessary to reduce burnout and increase nurse retention. The study’s primary finding was that nurse burnout is more mental than a physical problem. Nurses’ mental health is more affected than the physical aspect, implying that the most feasible interventions should focus on psychological skills and cognition. For instance, Brook et al. (2021) emphasized mindfulness and psychological skills training as effective strategies for nurse burnout. Outcomes can be improved by combining the strategies with cognitive realignment.
Summary of the Proposed Interventions and Practice Implications
The proposed interventions can be applied in the organization to reduce nurse burnout. Each strategy has positive and negative impacts. Regarding the bundled strategy, Zhang et al. (2020) explained that individual-focused strategies for addressing nurse burnout include self-care workshops, stress management skills, and mindfulness. Structural or organizational interventions include workload or schedule-rotation adjustments, enhanced teamwork and support, and communication training. Resilience training was also recommended. The leading positive impact of the bundled interventions is their multidimensional nature and comprehensiveness. They address nurses’ emotional, mental, and physical health problems underscoring their high chances of success. However, concurrently implementing these strategies can be expensive from managerial and financial dimensions.
As further proposed, the mental health of nurses should be a priority area when addressing nurse burnout. The organization should be consistently involved in performance enhancement while applying strategies that increase enjoyment and self-satisfaction. Such strategies include mindfulness and psychological skills training. On positive impacts, interventions focusing on improving mental health help create a happy, satisfied, and focused workforce. They are instrumental in enabling nurses to understand their role and execute it passionately. Similar interventions are needed in the organization. A happy and satisfied workforce is necessary to reduce incivility and promote cohesion. However, focusing too much on mental health may not address the problem comprehensively. It may trigger other issues if the physical and emotional health needs are not addressed.
Conclusion
Nurse burnout is a rampant healthcare concern affecting nurses, patients, and organizations adversely. It is characterized by physical and emotional exhaustion, where nurses cannot cope anymore. As a cause of workplace incivility and turnover in the organization, innovative and lasting solutions are necessary. As proposed in the articles, healthcare organizations should consider a bundled strategy. Interventions specific to nurses’ mental health are also effective in addressing nurse burnout. The choice of a strategy depends on the nature of the problem, intensity, and the organization’s ability.
References
Brook, J., Aitken, L. M., MacLaren, J. A., & Salmon, D. (2021). An intervention to decrease burnout and increase retention of early career nurses: a mixed methods study of acceptability and feasibility. BMC Nursing, 20(1), 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-020-00524-9
Dall’Ora, C., Ball, J., Reinius, M., & Griffiths, P. (2020). Burnout in nursing: A theoretical review. Human resources for health, 18, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-020-00469-9
Samad, A., Memon, S. B., & Maitlo, A. A. (2021). Workplace incivility and turnover intention among nurses of public healthcare system in Pakistan. Independent Journal of Management & Production, 12(5), 1394-1412. doi: 10.14807/ijmp.v12i5.1409
Zhang, X. J., Song, Y., Jiang, T., Ding, N., & Shi, T. Y. (2020). Interventions to reduce burnout of physicians and nurses: An overview of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Medicine, 99(26). doi: 10.1097/MD.0000000000020992