NURS 6053 week 2 Assignment: Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue Essay

NURS 6053 week 2 Assignment: Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue Essay

Analysis of a Pertinent Health Issue

Among the responsibilities of nurses in the care setting is to offer safe and acceptable patient care. However, offering safe and appropriate care is never straightforward as various obstacles face such efforts. The implication is that these obstacles have to be addressed by applying various strategies that can help in effectively removing them. One of such problems is the heavy workload (Molero et al., 2018). The heavy workload in the care setting has been associated with various adverse impacts such as nurse burnout, high turnover, medical errors, and poor patient services (Sturm et al., 2019). Therefore, this paper aims to explore heavy workload as a healthcare issue. Therefore, the issue will be described and its impacts on the organization. In addition, a brief summary of two articles that address the issues will be given and how other entities address the issue. Besides, this paper will summarize the strategies used in the literature materials to address the impact of the issue and how such strategies might positively or negatively impact the organization.

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Heavy Workload and Its Impact

Heavy nursing workload is among the common healthcare problems usually caused by a shortage of nursing staff. Heavy workload occurs when the hours that a nurse has to work caring for patients exceed the ideal duration that they can serve to effectively offer quality patient care. Whenever there is a high workload, various adverse impacts can result (Sturm et al., 2019). For instance, there are increased incidences of patients’ death in some cases due to poor care. In addition, recent data also shows that when there is a heavy workload, the nurse spends less time observing and taking care of the individual patients as they have to strive and offer the same care services to other patients as well within the same time period.

Indeed, the heavy workload was at some duration associated with a 20% increase in medical errors, which negatively impacted the organization, the staff, and the patients.  Heavy workload also leads to higher incidences of nurse turnover as the current staff may experience nurse burnout; hence they try to seek lighter duties in other organizations. The end result is that the organization has to spend more money in recruiting new staff to fill the vacant positions.

Summary of Articles on Heavy Workload

Holland et al. (2019) conducted a study that focused on examining the connection between nurse workload, nurse well-being, and intention to leave the occupation. These researchers used an online survey as the methodology where they prompted close to three thousand responses from various participants to get their view of the high nurse workload. From the analysis performed on the responses, the researchers realized that a high workload is closely connected with the nursing staff’s desire to leave the nursing occupation. Such a desire to quit the nursing profession was also shown to be mediated by the work-life balance satisfaction among the nurses (Holland et al., 2019). The analysis also indicated that the use of organizational supports as offered through a high involvement work practice are key in mitigating the intentions by the nurses to quit the profession due to heavy workload. Therefore, human resource management strategies should be aligned to offer such support since the aspects are within their control.

Another literature that addresses the issue of heavy workload is an article authored by MacPhee et al. (2017). This study explored the relationship between various workload factors and the nurse and patient outcomes. The researchers employed a cross-sectional correlational study of four hundred and seventy-two acute nurses working in Canada. Some of the workload factors explored include patient dependency and patient acuity, perceptions of heavy workloads, compromised standards and pending pieces of work, medication errors resulting from nurses’ actions, urinary tract infections, and patient falls.

The researchers noted that task-level interruptions and heavy workloads substantially impact the nurse and patient outcomes from the analysis. In addition, pending tasks were shown to mediate between the patient and nurse outcomes and heavy workloads and between the patient and nurse outcomes and interruptions (MacPhee et al., 2017). Besides, the researchers also noted that the compromised professional nursing standard mediates the correlation between nurse outcomes and heavy workloads and between nurse outcomes and interruptions. The researchers suggest that administrators need to collaborate with the nurses to foster the process of identifying work environment strategies to address the effects of workload.

Various organizations have employed different strategies to address the heavy workload. One of the strategies is that the organization focuses on planning, implementing, and evaluating staffing and workload practices at various levels, such as tactical, logistical, and strategic. Such a step helps in having staff that can facilitate the delivery of ethical, culturally sensitive, competent, and safe patient care (Muabbar & Alsharqi, 2021). The other use methods include using a strategic nursing staffing process by aligning the budget with the required staffing levels that meet the patient needs.

Summary of Strategies Used To Address the Organizational Impact of Heavy Workload

From the articles summarized, the researcher suggested various strategies that can be used in addressing the organization’s impact of high workload. One of the strategies is the use of a high involvement work practice to mitigate the impact. The other strategy is the use of collaboration between the administrators and the nursing staff to formulate strategies that can substantially address the problem within the context (MacPhee et al., 2017). These suggestions can also be effective in our organization as appropriate use of the strategies is likely to lead to the desired improvements. On the other hand, these strategies may impact our organization negatively. For example, aligning the budget to the staffing needs may mean that the funds will have to be taken off other important projects, impacting negatively on the organization.

Conclusion

High workload as a healthcare problem is a major problem that adversely impacts patients, nursing staff, and the hospitals. Therefore, efforts should be focused on lowering it down or addressing the adverse impacts. This write-up has therefore explored the high workload among the nurses. In addition, two research articles addressing the issue have also been explored, and the findings presented and discussed.

References

Holland, P., Tham, T. L., Sheehan, C., & Cooper, B. (2019). The impact of perceived workload on nurse satisfaction with work-life balance and intention to leave the occupation. Applied nursing research, 49, 70-76. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apnr.2019.06.001.

MacPhee, M., Dahinten, V. S., & Havaei, F. (2017). The impact of heavy perceived nurse workloads on patient and nurse outcomes. Administrative Sciences, 7(1), 7. https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci7010007.

Molero, M. D. M., Pérez-Fuentes, M. D. C., & Gázquez, J. J. (2018). Analysis of the mediating role of self-efficacy and self-esteem on the effect of workload on burnout’s influence on nurses’ plans to work longer. Frontiers in psychology, 9, 2605. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02605

Muabbar, H., & Alsharqi, O. (2021). The impact of short-term solutions of nursing shortage on nursing outcome, nurse perceived quality of care, and patient safety. American Journal of Nursing Research, 9(2), 35-44. https://doi.org/10.12691/ajnr-9-2-1

Sturm, H., Rieger, M. A., Martus, P., Ueding, E., Wagner, A., Holderried, M., … & WorkSafeMed Consortium. (2019). Do perceived working conditions and patient safety culture correlate with objective workload and patient outcomes? A cross-sectional explorative study from a German university hospital. PLoS One, 14(1), e0209487. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0209487

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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 such as heavy workload and its impact on your healthcare 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 (heavy workload) 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.