NURS – 6053N
Module 2: Professionalism (Week 3)
Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues
Quite often, nurse leaders are faced with ethical dilemmas, such as those associated with choices between competing needs and limited resources. Resources are finite, and competition for those resources occurs daily in all organizations.
For example, the use of 12-hour shifts has been a strategy to retain nurses. However, evidence suggests that as nurses work more hours in a shift, they commit more errors. How do effective leaders find a balance between the needs of the organization and the needs of ensuring quality, effective, and safe patient care?
In this Discussion, you will reflect on a national healthcare issue and examine how competing needs may impact the development of policies to address that issue.
To Prepare:
• Review the Resources and think about the national healthcare issue/stressor you previously selected for study in Module 1.
• Reflect on the competing needs in healthcare delivery as they pertain to the national healthcare issue/stressor you previously examined.
By Day 3 of Week 3
Post an explanation of how competing needs, such as the needs of the workforce, resources, and patients, may impact the development of policy. Then, describe any specific competing needs that may impact the national healthcare issue/stressor you selected. What are the impacts, and how might policy address these competing needs? Be specific and provide examples.
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Solution
Obesity is one of the major healthcare issues in the United. This complication is characterized by the increase in body mass index to the point where an individual’s life becomes threatened (NCD Risk Factor Collaboration, 2019). Obesity is associated with other complications such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and some cancers (Katzmarzyk et al., 2019). To effectively control the increasing level of obesity, there is always the need for effective policies from healthcare organizations and government institutions. However, these policies may be impacted by the competing needs brought about by the limited resources.
Competing needs such as workforce, resources, and patients may interfere with the policy development towards controlling obesity. With the increase in the number of patients suffering from more serious complications, there may be a limited number of healthcare professionals to take care of obese patients. Besides, the limited number of community health workers may interfere with the implementation of obesity preventive programs. In most cases, healthcare policy development requires collaboration among different healthcare specialists; however, due to lack of enough financial resources and workforce, there may be an overall interference with the formulation of effective interventions and preventive measures (Wolfenden et al., 2019). Also, a lack of enough specialists may lead to the development of ineffective policies.
One of the competing needs that may impact the management of obesity is the workforce. The management of the increasing number of obese patients requires a large workforce that should start with the intervention program at the community level. However, due to some other serious complications such as COVID-19, Diabetes, cancer, and high blood pressure, management of obesity may not be effectively executed. The impacts of this competing need will be an increase in the number of underlying conditions and increased hospitalization. Effective policies may advocate for the increased number of healthcare workers to aid in the management of obesity. For instance, the policies may advocate for increasing the number of community health workers to provide preventive measures and create community awareness.
References
Katzmarzyk, P. T., Chaput, J. P., Fogelholm, M., Hu, G., Maher, C., Maia, J., … & Tudor-Locke, C. (2019). International Study of Childhood Obesity, Lifestyle and the Environment (ISCOLE): contributions to understanding the global obesity epidemic. Nutrients, 11(4), 848. https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/11/4/848
NCD Risk Factor Collaboration. (2019). Rising rural body-mass index is the main driver of the global obesity epidemic in adults. Nature, 569(7755), 260. 10.1038/s41586-019-1171-x
Wolfenden, L., Ezzati, M., Larijani, B., & Dietz, W. (2019). The challenge for global health systems in preventing and managing obesity. Obesity Reviews, 20, 185-193. https://doi.org/10.1111/obr.12872