“Public health is a powerful tool to level that playing field, to bend the arc of our country away from distrust and disparities and back towards equity and justice.” (Leana S. Wen). The healthcare system in the United States encounters distinct issues influencing the quality of healthcare offered to Americans. It is vital to apprehend that there has been a requirement for implementing healthcare reforms in managing some of the problems hindering access to healthcare services. Healthcare providers experience high pressure to offer better outcomes at proportionally lower costs. The States disburses more resources on healthcare compared to other countries, and the high lavishing is anticipated to maximize in the future (Shrank et al., 2019). The main disquiet is that the high healthcare costs do not simplify better health outcomes. This essay will explore a national healthcare stressor and its impact on a healthcare organization, a summary of two articles, and strategies used to address the organizational impact of the national healthcare issue.
With the rising number of people indemnified by government-sponsored health insurance programs, a confrontation has developed on how to serve the nation’s healthcare demands. The number of financial investments has been on the rise, but the workforce has failed to catch up to the rising number of patients demanding healthcare services. This has mainly been the case with the rising aged population qualified for the Medicare and Medicaid programs (Blouin & Podjasek, 2019). This issue has oozed down to the healthcare facilities involving the organization working for. Nursing staffing is discussed as fundamental in patient outcomes and the quality of care delivered to patients. Numerous studies have highlighted the effects of nurse staffing on patient outcomes, with a majority mentioning that lower nurse staffing levels outcomes in missed care, a rising in nursing errors and, as an outcome, poor patient outcomes (Carthon et al., 2019). Also, low levels of nurse staffing lead to low work satisfaction and high burnout encountered by nurses. In the current organization, the rising number of patients has been moderately leading a strain on the nurses, with a raised frequency of floating in more than one unit. Handling the rising number of patients using short-term ways such as floating will not be appropriate in the long run as a need to develop a more concrete solution. In the amenity, data collected in the previous year indicated that there was a rise in the number of missed nursing care.
One of the selected articles is an article conducted by Griffiths et al. (2018). The study highlighted an apparent connection between nurse staffing and adverse patient outcomes involving mortality in in-patient facilities. The conductor also indicated that using missed care can be a more precise way of measuring the adequacy of nurse staffing or placing it in another way to measure better the causal connection on the effect of inadequate nurse staffing. The article’s authors summarized that reduced staffing levels resulted in increased missed care, leading to poor patient outcomes; hence, missed care was considered a good highlighter for assessing nurse staffing ratios in a healthcare unit, as per the study’s findings. Some ways of handling nurse staffing include ensuring there is minimal employee turnover to be possible within the healthcare facility. It is clear that nurses are in demand as the number of patients reacquiring their services has increased. Most nurses are willing to labor for organizations offering better working conditions, bringing the issue of organizational leadership. Good leadership makes the working condition of healthcare providers ideal, resulting in high job reparation and lowering nurse turnover (Boamah et al., 2018). It means the staffing issues come up with a formal staffing plan after engagement with the nursing staff. A rigid staffing framework is not absolute in an ever-changing and more flexible staffing plan enabling the facility to handle the uneven nurse-to-patient ratios.
From the studies conducted, numerous commendations were indicated for handling the issue of low nurse staffing ratios. One of these ways is by developing effective strategies to increase nurse staffing and enhance the laboring conditions dealing with the issue of nurse turnover. Implementing such strategies may positively impact the organization as nurses will perform more efficiently with lower levels of burnout, resulting in positive patient ou
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