Assignment: NUR 6053 Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue

Assignment: NUR 6053 Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue

Assignment: NUR 6053 Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue

Nurses play a crucial role in the promotion of optimum health outcomes for those in need in any healthcare setting. However, most health organizations in the United States are experiencing increasing nurse shortages. Nursing shortage has a negative effect on care outcomes, operational efficiency, and the realization of the set organizational visions and missions. Our organization is not exempted from this problem. Therefore, the purpose of this brief is to explore the issue of nursing shortage, its impact on the organization, and strategies that should be adopted to address it.

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Description of the Selected National Healthcare Issue 

The selected national healthcare issue is nursing shortage resulting in high nursing workload and burnout. According to Ladden and Hassmiller (2023), nurses are crucial in improving the health and wellbeing of the Americans. They also promote the culture of health equity in the United States. However, the American healthcare system experiences the challenge of nursing shortage. The severity of the problem was apparent during the Covid19 period. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics report that more than 275,000 additional nurses will be needed between 2020 and 2030. Nursing shortage is projected to continue because of inequitable distribution of the nursing workforce, high rate of turnover among nurses, and lack of potential nurse faculty educators (Ladden & Hassmiller, 2023). In addition, Taylor and Terhaar (2023) report that an expected shortfall of 200000 to 450000 nurses is expected to hit the United States by 2025. The shortage of nurses cuts across all the specialties, practice settings, and roles. The need for more men, women, and people who identify as LGBTQ in nursing and society is high because of the changing population dynamics, hence, the ever-increasing pressure on the nursing workforce (Taylor & Terhaar, 2023).

Summary of the Selected Articles

The articles by Cooper (2022) and Lasater et al. (2021) were selected for this summary. The study by Lasater et al. (2021) determined the variation of staffing across hospitals in New York and Illinois and the effect of staffing on patient outcomes. They obtained data from nurses and patients across 254 hospitals in Illinois and New York between 2019 and February 2020. They associated nurse staffing with patient experiences, care quality, and nurse burnout. The study results showed that the mean staffing in the medical-surgical units ranged from 3.3 to 9.7 patients per nurse with worst mean staffing being in New York City. More than half of the nurses who participated in the study experienced high burnout. Half of them gave their hospitals poor safety grades and two thirds reported that they would not recommend their hospitals. One-third of the patients expressed that their hospitals were less than excellent and would not recommend them to other patients. Each additional patient per nurse was found to increase the odds of nurses and percent of patients that gave unfavorable reports.

The study by Cooper (2022) examined the impacts of nursing shortages on the financial health of the Kentucky healthcare system. The research adopted qualitative method to understand the financial impacts of nursing shortage and the things that hospitals are engaging to address the problem. The study found that nursing shortage has led to an increase in the salary for a registered nurse salary from 1.66% in 2011 to 3.29% in 2020. The shortage has also increased the need for hiring travel nurses to offset the effect of nursing shortages in most hospitals. Therefore, the study recommended the need for adopting effective strategies to retain nurses and reduce high turnover rate, which worsens the problem.

Other healthcare organizations are addressing the issue of nursing shortage by adopting a range of interventions. They include providing opportunities for professional growth to their nursing staff, ensuring environmental safety, flexible work schedules, better remuneration, and rewarding performance to retain their best staff. These strategies aim at motivating nurses and reduce their turnover rates.

Strategies Used to Address the Issue

The selected scholarly resources explored the strategies that should be adopted to address the issue of nursing shortage in the United States. Cooper (2022) recommends the need for legislations that would see the allocation of funds in each state for use in retention efforts and recruiting new nurses. The author also identifies the need for financial allocation for bonuses for local nurses, recalling retired nurses to work, loan forgiveness for nurses working in underserved areas, and marketing nursing to make it an appealing profession. The author also recommends the need to promote nursing as a career to high school students to increase number of nurses being trained and maximize on licensure reciprocity to allow interstate practice for nurses.

Lasater et al. (2021) recommend the need for hospitals to create safe nurse staffing policies to address the issue of nursing shortage. They also recommend the need for states to implement the proposed policies to increase nursing retention and number of nurses being trained to avert the crisis. Adopting these recommendations will affect my organization positively. It will result in increased retention of nurses, which will reduce the overall costs incurred in the organization. Increased retention of nurses will also enhance the safety and quality of care that patients receive. It will prevent and reduce the rate of burnout and job dissatisfaction among nurses (Jacobs et al., 2018; Norful et al., 2018). For example, low nurse-to-patient ration will result in low workload, increased quality of patient care, and nurse and patient satisfaction with the care offered.

Conclusion

Nursing shortage is a crucial issue affecting our organization and the country. Nursing shortage affects safety, quality, and efficiency of care and organizational performance and productivity. The reviewed scholarly articles reveal the severity of the issue in the United States. Therefore, evidence-based strategies should be adopted to address the issue and improve care outcomes.

References

Cooper, M. (2022). What Impact does the Nursing Shortages have on the Financial Health of the Kentucky Healthcare System? MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/mpampp_etds/353

Jacobs, B., McGovern, J., Heinmiller, J., & Drenkard, K. (2018). Engaging Employees in Well-Being: Moving From the Triple Aim to the Quadruple Aim. Nursing Administration Quarterly, 42(3), 231. https://doi.org/10.1097/NAQ.0000000000000303

Ladden, M. D., & Hassmiller, S. B. (2023). The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Future of Nursing Scholars Program. Nursing Outlook, 71(1). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.outlook.2022.07.001

Lasater, K. B., Aiken, L. H., Sloane, D. M., French, R., Martin, B., Reneau, K., Alexander, M., & McHugh, M. D. (2021). Chronic hospital nurse understaffing meets COVID-19: An observational study. BMJ Quality & Safety, 30(8), 639–647. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2020-011512

Norful, A. A., Jacq, K. de, Carlino, R., & Poghosyan, L. (2018). Nurse Practitioner–Physician Comanagement: A Theoretical Model to Alleviate Primary Care Strain. The Annals of Family Medicine, 16(3), 250–256. https://doi.org/10.1370/afm.2230

Taylor, L. A., & Terhaar, M. F. (2023). Preparing for Doctoral Study in Nursing – E-Book: Preparing for Doctoral Study in Nursing – E-Book. Elsevier Health Sciences.

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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 (2-3 Pages):

Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue

Develop a 2 to 3 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.

******Topic-National Healthcare Issue: Nursing Shortage Resulting in High Nursing Workload and Burnout

***5 references

Learning Resources

Required Readings
Broome, M., & Marshall, E. S. (2021). Transformational leadership in nursing: From expert clinician to influential leader (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Springer.

Chapter 2, “Transformational Leadership: Complexity, Change, and Strategic Planning” (pp. 34–62)

Chapter 3, “Current Challenges in Complex Health Care Organizations and the Quadruple Aim” (pp. 66–97)

Read any TWO of the following (plus TWO additional readings on your selected issue):

Auerbach, D. I., Staiger, D. O., & Buerhaus, P. I. (2018). Growing ranks of advanced practice clinicians—Implications for the physician workforce. New England Journal of Medicine, 378(25), 2358–2360.

Gerardi, T., Farmer, P., & Hoffman, B. (2018). Moving closer to the 2020 BSN-prepared workforce goal. American Journal of Nursing, 118(2), 43–45.

Jacobs, B., McGovern, J., Heinmiller, J., & Drenkard, K. (2018). Engaging employees in well-being: Moving from the Triple Aim to the Quadruple Aim. Nursing Administration Quarterly, 42(3), 231–245.

Norful, A. A., de Jacq, K., Carlino, R., & Poghosyan, L. (2018). Nurse practitioner–physician comanagement: A theoretical model to alleviate primary care strain. Annals of Family Medicine, 16(3), 250–256.

Palumbo, M., Rambur, B., & Hart, V. (2017). Is health care payment reform impacting nurses’ work settings, roles, and education preparation? Journal of Professional Nursing, 33(6), 400–404.

Park, B., Gold, S. B., Bazemore, A., & Liaw, W. (2018). How evolving United States payment models influence primary care and its impact on the Quadruple Aim. Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, 31(4), 588–604.

Pittman, P., & Scully-Russ, E. (2016). Workforce planning and development in times of delivery system transformation. Human Resources for Health, 14(56), 1–15. doi:10.1186/s12960-016-0154-3. Retrieved from

https://human-resources-health.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1186/s12960-016-0154-3

Poghosyan, L., Norful, A., & Laugesen, M. (2018). Removing restrictions on nurse practitioners’ scope of practice in New York state: Physicians’ and nurse practitioners’ perspectives. Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, 30(6), 354–360.

Ricketts, T., & Fraher, E. (2013). Reconfiguring health workforce policy so that education, training, and actual delivery of care are closely connected. Health Affairs, 32(11), 1874–1880.