NURS – 6053N
Module 1: Healthcare Environment (Weeks 1-2)Discussion: Review of Current Healthcare Issues.2 Peer Respond. Due on 12/1/21
If you were to ask 10 people what they believe to be the most significant issue facing healthcare today, you might get 10 different answers. Escalating costs? Regulation? Technology disruption?
These and many other topics are worthy of discussion. Not surprisingly, much has been said in the research, within the profession, and in the news about these topics. Whether they are issues of finance, quality, workload, or outcomes, there is no shortage of changes to be addressed.
In this Discussion, you examine a national healthcare issue and consider how that issue may impact your work setting. You also analyze how your organization has responded to this issue.
To Prepare:
• Review the Resources and select one current national healthcare issue/stressor to focus on.
• Reflect on the current national healthcare issue/stressor you selected and think about how this issue/stressor may be addressed in your work setting.
By Day 3 of Week 1
Post a description of the national healthcare issue/stressor you selected for analysis, and explain how the healthcare issue/stressor may impact your work setting. Then, describe how your health system work setting has responded to the healthcare issue/stressor, including a description of what changes may have been implemented. Be specific and provide examples.

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Solution

Response 1: National Healthcare Issue/Stressor

Hello Tiffany. I agree that staffing shortage is one of the main national healthcare issues globally. You have gone ahead to elaborate that staff shortage does not only affect nurses but also physicians, pharmacists, and specialists among other licensed professional employees. I find this discussion engaging, leaving the writer with compelling knowledge that something has to be done to stop the nursing shortage once and for all. However, I would like to add that this issue of nursing shortage has been existing over the years, with interventions directed towards home-based care services, rather than hiring more nurses to inpatient and outpatient hospitals and clinics.

You clearly elaborated the reasons behind the nursing shortage, in addition to future projections. It is true that the staff turnover rate is high in today’s clinic, as a result of burnouts, low pay, and increased work burdendue to the high patient-nurse ratio (Marć et al., 2019). New modalities of diseases are being discovered in addition to unexpected pandemics like the Covid-19 have led to increased patient numbers, responsible for increased demand for healthcare services (Velmurugan, 2017). This is one of the reasons why nursing is ranked the fifth most demanding job globally, just like you have mentioned.

The last part of the discussion is quite engaging but limits the number of current interventions that have been put in place to curb nursing or staff shortage. For instance, you have only mentioned the need to replace the nurses who are advancing to higher ranks as a result of attaining higher education levels. According to Velmurugan, (2017), the main intervention to mitigate nursing shortage is to improve the working environment and make it conducive for nurses to promote their retention, rather than replacing them.

References

Marć, M., Bartosiewicz, A., Burzyńska, J., Chmiel, Z., & Januszewicz, P. (2019). A nursing shortage–a prospect of global and local policies. International nursing review, 66(1), 9-16. https://doi.org/10.1111/inr.12473

Velmurugan, R. (2017). Nursing issues in leading and managing change. International journal of nursing education, 9(4), 148-151. https://doi.org/10.5958/0974-9357.2017.00087.3