Implementation of staffing ratios, use of unlicensed assistant personnel, and employer reductions of education benefits

Competing needs arise within any organization as employees seek to meet their targets and leaders seek to meet company goals. As a leader, successful management of these goals requires establishing priorities and allocating resources accordingly.

Within a healthcare setting, the needs of the workforce, resources, and patients are often in conflict. Mandatory overtime, implementation of staffing ratios, use of unlicensed assistant personnel, and employer reductions of education benefits are examples of practices that might lead to conflicting needs in practice.

Leaders can contribute to both the problem and the solution through policies, action, and inaction. In this Assignment, you will further develop the white paper you began work on in Module 1 by addressing competing needs within your organization.

To Prepare:

• Review the national healthcare issue/stressor you examined in your Assignment for Module 1, and review the analysis of the healthcare issue/stressor you selected.
• Identify and review two evidence-based scholarly resources that focus on proposed policies/practices to apply to your selected healthcare issue/stressor.
• Reflect on the feedback you received from your colleagues on your Discussion post regarding competing needs.

The Assignment (4-5 pages):

Add a section to the paper you submitted in Module 1. The new section should address the following:

• Identify and describe at least two competing needs impacting your selected healthcare issue/stressor.
• Describe a relevant policy or practice in your organization that may influence your selected healthcare issue/stressor.
• Critique the policy for ethical considerations, and explain the policy’s strengths and challenges in promoting ethics.

 

 

 

Developing Organizational Policies and Practices

 

 

 

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Developing Organizational Policies and Practices

Implementation of Staffing Ratios, use of Unlicensed Assistant Personnel, and Employer Reductions of Education Benefits

“For every minute spent in organizing, an hour is earned” (Benjamin Franklin). Organizations have to develop policies and procedures reflecting their vision, values, and culture as well as the requirement of their employees, which serve as the key to the development of the organizational policies and procedures. An organization’s policy is an arrangement of restrictions that provide guidance, consistency, accountability, competency, and clarity on how an organization operates (El Talla et al., 2018). It is essential to update policies and procedures in an organization, as outdated policies can leave an organization at risk. Old policies may fail to comply with new laws and regulations and may not address new systems or technology, resulting in inconsistent practice. Organizational policies may be, however, disadvantageous as the rigid nature of business rules and regulations may make it challenging to implement changes as, by their nature, business rules tend to be inflexible and binary, creating a rigid framework for the employees. This paper aims to describe competing needs impacting nurse shortage, a relevant policy or practice in an organization influencing nurse shortage, and finally, critique the policy for ethical consideration.

Competing Needs Impacting Nurse Shortage

Nursing staff shortage in the healthcare organization is a healthcare issue or stressor affecting many organizations globally. Nurse shortage has far-reaching implications for a health institution’s quality of care (Marć et al., 2019). The fact conveys from the fact that nurses are in direct contact with the patient, forming the face of the organization’s service product. One of the competing needs impacting nurse shortage is a need by the organization’s nurses to fulfill their financial obligations, take care of their families, and live a comfortable life (Andrew et al., 2023). The competing need comes against the organization’s owners’ need for a substantial return on investment in their business. A second competing need impacting nurse shortage is the need by the patient to get the best in healthcare and nursing services since they pay for the same and qualify for quality healthcare. This competing need is directed to nurses as they feel that they are not reimbursed well enough for their efforts, the patient will see the demotivated nurses as professionals who are not loyal to their calling and who are adhering to their professional standards practice. Such competition can significantly impact nursing shortage hence leading to poor patient outcomes.

Policy Influencing Nurse Shortage as a Healthcare Stressor

Policies implemented in most healthcare organizations can highly influence nursing shortages in most of the organizations. One of the organizational policies in most healthcare facilities directly influencing the nursing shortage is the policy of hiring only short-term contractual employees (Maleki et al., 2021). This contractual agreement between employees and the organization does not exceed five years, and after this, employees must renew their contracts if they wish to continue working for the organization. In most healthcare organizations, no permanent employees fully benefit from the status. Organizations place such a policy on their strategic plan to save on cost and spend less on human resources as they think long-term employees are more likely to request better payment than a recruit fresh from college. Hiring short-term contractual employees makes nurse shortages an everlasting drawback in most healthcare organizations (Serneels & Lievens, 2018). This policy affects not only the effectiveness of healthcare service delivery but also the quality. In a perpetual shortage of nurses, there is perennial non-compliance with the professional standards of nursing practice outlining the amount of work a nurse can comfortably handle. An organization must implement policies that positively influence the nursing shortage rate to improve patient outcomes.

Ethical Critique of Hiring Short-Term Contractual Employees

The bioethical principles of beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice demand that all patients to handle in such a way that only good is done to them, no harm to them, and fairness is exercised. These principles can be disrespected when policies encouraging and facilitating nurses to leave an organization for better employees are implemented. Clinical tasks may not be completed correctly and promptly due to the low numbers of nurses in any organization, and patients may miss their medication timings, especially those in insulin and may even go into life-threatening metabolic crises (Gao et al., 2020). This violates beneficence and nonmaleficence as patients are denied the chance to have enough nurses to care for them where no justice is done to them, and fairness becomes non-existent. The only strength of hiring short-term contractual employees is that the new employees are always eager to follow the rules, regulations, and standards of practice compared to those in the organization (McKeown & Pichault, 2021). New employees do not take shot-cuts in delivering care and are compassionate towards the patients as they know their work ethic is observed. This makes the patients get the best care by default and benefit from this situation and the policy. This policy can also have a weakness as it can harm the patients in the long run by way of chronic low quality nursing care and molest the nurse as they can get overworked without commensurate remuneration. This may affect them physically, emotionally, and psychologically to the extent that they may suffer from mental breakdowns leading to admission to the hospital.

Conclusion

The nursing shortage is a grave healthcare stressor or issue, and if not addressed on time, it can bring the operation of a healthcare organization to a triturating cessation. This is clear as the state regulatory authorities, like the nursing boards, do not allow such an occurrence to endanger the safety of patients. Ways of overcoming the stressor may include a change in the organization’s substandard policies, and the organization should implement new and progressive policies, where ethical consideration should be recommended during the review and implementation of the policies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

Andrew, L., Robinson, K., Dare, J., & Costello, L. (2023). Nursing students doing gender: Implications for higher education and the nursing profession. Nursing Inquiry, 30(1), e12516. https://doi.org/10.1111/nin.12516

El Talla, S. A., Al Shobaki, M. J., Abu-Naser, S. S., & Abu Amuna, Y. M. (2018). The Nature of the Organizational Structure in the Palestinian Governmental Universities-Al-Aqsa University as A Model.

Gao, X., Jiang, L., Hu, Y., Li, L., & Hou, L. (2020). Nurses’ experiences regarding shift patterns in isolation wards during the COVID‐19 pandemic in China: A qualitative study. Journal of clinical nursing, 29(21-22), 4270-4280. https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.15464

Maleki, M., Mardani, A., & Vaismoradi, M. (2021). Insecure employment contracts during the COVID-19 pandemic and the need for participation in policy making. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(23), 12548. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182312548

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

McKeown, T., & Pichault, F. (2021). Independent professionals as talent: Evidence from individual views of working as a contractor. Human Resource Management, 60(2), 313-328. https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.22045

 

Serneels, P., & Lievens, T. (2018). Microeconomic institutions and personnel economics for health care delivery: a formal exploration of what matters to health workers in Rwanda. Human resources for health, 16, 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-017-0261-9

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