Staffing shortage is an organizational issue faced by Megan Hospital. Understaffing can be defined as a situation when an institution is unable to hire the number of employees desired for all processes to function properly (Winter et al., 2020). As a result, such a problem causes additional challenges that prevent the organization from meeting the regulatory requirements needed to provide high-quality care. For instance, insufficient stuffing increases the workload for the present workers, which contributes to poor patient outcomes (Winter et al., 2020). Consequently, some organizational challenges posed by the problem include interdepartmental conflicts and communication failure due to having too many tasks and lacking time to discuss important matters (Maunder et al., 2021; Winter et al., 2020). Moreover, a shortage of personnel may lead to deficient workplace morale, stress, a decline in current employee retention, and a loss of pride in one’s career. Professional standards cover the wellness of workers and are not met when people are overworked due to staffing shortages.
Potential financial issues like difficulties in budgeting may contribute to the organizational challenges that result from insufficient workers. Understaffing in the workplace may result if the healthcare institution cannot pay the salaries of extra employees. They needed more money to compete with nearby healthcare institutions, and employees may choose to work elsewhere for greater pay.
Evidence-Based Support
Budgeting for enough nursing personnel is a significant consideration when examining the Megan Hospital and determining why it is egregiously understaffed. Because they do not have the staff to care for all the patients alone, nurses make hard judgments about prioritizing certain patients over others. A health facility needs enough nurses to handle those circumstances without putting one over the other. A good example is when there are numerous patients, one is having a sudden hemorrhage, one is experiencing chest discomfort, one is having a stroke, and the other is choking. However, many nurses in the United States and throughout the globe claim that they are often compelled to make these painful evaluations because hospital officials are unwilling to invest the money required for adequate staffing. According to the US. Health Resources and Services Administration has had a surplus of trained nurses for years almost everywhere (Weigl et al., 2019). Nevertheless, the popular press often blames the persistently overcrowded situation of American hospitals on a nationwide nursing shortage. According to Metcalf et al. (2018), hospitals need to have more funded roles.
Megan Hospital utilizes healthcare management software as an Information Management System to staff emergency departments and critical care units to handle the demands of an expanding patient population in an attempt to solve understaffing. In general, healthcare organizations should use new technologies to increase the efficiency of internal processes (Tasri & Tasri, 2020). Accordingly, the mentioned program frees up staff time and drastically reduces labor expenses by transferring the burden of non-clinical chores to a user-friendly platform. Additionally, it helps borrow healthcare professionals (HCPs) from other institutions, move competent healthcare workers back into temporary clinical jobs from administration, and let non-clinical staff work remotely from home, providing quality healthcare.
In the past, this issue has been handled by looking at, for instance, the existing working circumstances of a nurse and attempting to make their job a bit easier. Examples include moving supplies into patient rooms and setting aside quiet time for patients to relax. These modest actions inside the hospital context may provide the nurses more time to catch up on essential chores and slow the pace at which they burn out at work. Although several promising initiatives have been put into practice by the TCAB hospital units, early outcomes are still being assessed (Weigl et al., 2019). Rapid response teams, which allow a nurse to bring in a group of physicians to act when a patient’s condition looks to be worsening, have been put into operation at several locations. This technique gives patients the help they need before they reach a more severe point of crisis and openly validates the nurses’ professional judgment. To enhance the workplace environment and the quality of patient services, several TCAB initiatives are implementing minor, straightforward adjustments (Weigl et al., 2019). For instance, some facilities have designated “quiet time” for an hour during each nursing shift to provide a soothing, therapeutic setting for patients. Besides transferring supplies from a central area of the unit to patients’ rooms, several teams have cut down on nurses’, ensuring that each room is stuffed with the right supplies for a specific patient and enabling nurses to spend more time giving direct patient care.
The current requirement for nurses working in healthcare facilities is to have an accredited license from a CCNE-certified curriculum. The probability of an atmosphere where nurses are overworked and understaffed may be significantly reduced by requiring that they take a significant break after a certain number of hours worked (Wadjidou et al., 2020). More excellent staffing may achieve positive patient outcomes, which enables nurses to conduct better monitoring, spend more time with patients, and identify issues sooner.
Since healthcare is concerned with the nation’s well-being, the sector is affected by many regulations. First, accreditation standards in the US are managed by the Joint Commission and include such measures as Environment of Care, Human Resources, and Performance Improvement (Tabrizi & Gharibi, 2019; The Joint Commission, 2022). Second, safety standards for healthcare workers are governed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and, for instance, contain criteria for Personal Protective Equipment (Surber, 2021; United States Department of Labor, 2022). Third, compliance standards ensure that organizations abide by different regulations. For example, the Office for Civil Rights is accountable for ensuring compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (Hayes & Vance, 2020). Fourth, various quality initiatives are implemented by the Health Resources and Services Administration, which funds health institutions nationwide. For instance, the Health Center program is meant to serve vulnerable populations experiencing financial difficulties (Topmiller et al., 2021). The reviewed standards promote a culture of safety by confirming that the hospital’s operations adhere to regulations aimed at protecting healthcare practitioners and patients.
Performance Enhancement Program
The decision to concentrate this research on the lack of qualified nurses in the healthcare sector, particularly in Megan Hospital, is because of its impact on patients. Developing a partnership with a nearby nursing college is one of the strategies that would significantly aid in increasing the number of adequately qualified nurses in a hospital. This partnership will address ISO 13485 to create a Quality Management System in Megan Hospital. Teaming up means that the college should be able to recommend to the hospital several recently graduated nurses from the program. To attract these nurses’ attention while looking for work, the hospital might provide them with a few incentives. They may offer more leave days, partial reimbursement of student loan debt, etc. The transfer may entail signing a contract requiring the nurses to work for the hospital for at least two years before they can look for other jobs (Shang et al., 2019). This will assist the new nurse in obtaining experience right out of nursing school, and it will also offer the hospital qualified nurses who can fill in the gaps caused by their existing nursing shortage. The population’s health will improve by more than 50% by collaborating with a nearby nursing college and setting up a career path for newly graduated nurses, improving patient experiences and results. The reduced number of patients in the hospital will indicate an increase in the quality of the hospital’s services.
Partnering closely with the regional nursing college to ensure that their teaching standards are good enough for the hospital to want to collaborate with the students right after graduation is the data needed to deliver a favorable result. The information should include the graduate’s educational background, ambitions, and contract for work after graduation. If the hospital successfully does this, it might result in a favorable outcome for everyone concerned.
Implementation of the Plan in the Organization
Getting the whole hospital staff on board is also necessary for this approach’s success. The present staff will need to understand that it is for everyone’s benefit, including the hospital, the current staff, incoming nurses, and patients (Rydon-Grange, 2018). The personnel must be informed that this transformation will be challenging and present its fair share of difficulties, but they must also be aware of the project’s overall benefits. The newly created project might significantly lower the existing patient load on the overworked and overburdened personnel to a more tolerable load.
The hospital will send weekly updates to tell the whole team of the project’s status. The number of patients seen that week will be included in the statistics. It would outline the number of hours the staff put in to accommodate those patients, as well as a comparative chart outlining the number of hours that would have been added had there been no extra personnel to aid with the surge of patients. Consider how the additional nurses would benefit the hospital by reducing tiredness, boosting morale, and improving patient care. Everyone concerned would benefit if this idea were to be put into action.
Once this strategy is implemented, the graduating nurses can home their recently acquired nursing abilities. The hospital’s current nurses would have a lighter caseload and more time to devote to each patient without feeling hurried. The inability to move a patient with more assistance would reduce the risk of injury to a nurse. Because no further support is available to carry the patients, it would also lessen the possibility that a nurse might unintentionally damage a patient while attempting to mobilize them on their own (Metcalf et al., 2018). The modification has a good influence on the patients. More individualized treatment would be given to the patients. For patients admitted to the hospital, the more tailored treatment plan may speed up recovery periods and improve patient satisfaction overall.
The performance quality would improve by adding more nursing personnel to the hospital. The current nurses could concentrate on their duties since they would not be as worn out and overworked. Before beginning any therapy, give the nurses enough time to execute appropriate patient timeouts. The patient timeouts include making sure the location, dosage, patient, time, and medicine are all right. Patients’ and workers’ safety standards would rise, resulting in a more encouraging atmosphere for everyone to work and recover.
The Performance Improvement Plan’s Success
If the effort in question is successful, Megan Hospital’s finances will be very affected. It would be necessary to make the job of nurse inside the company more “attractive” to increase the total number of people working in the nursing profession. The nurses at Megan Hospital will want an incentive for them to desire to work there and remain employed there. The motivation could include a competitive salary, outstanding healthcare benefits, and flexible working hours (Lasater et al., 2020). The hospital will have to spend a big chunk of its budget to make room for the new nurses. Because of this, the hospital has to be ready to give the same benefits to its already-employed nurses as to their new employees; otherwise, the current staff would look for work elsewhere.
In different ways, the already-in-place information management systems assist in accomplishing this proposition. The idea would be a success if it led to an increase in the overall quality of the care given to patients and the productivity of the nurses who work there. Increasing the number of nurses who are already on staff would greatly boost the productivity of the nurses already working there. The number of patients at a facility will be lower if more registered nurses are working there. This will allow nurses to pay more attention to each of their patients. This will help reduce medication mistakes and give each patient more time for a proper timeout. This will help reduce staff injuries when patients are moved without the right support. These are very simple changes, but having enough time to do one’s job properly is of the utmost importance. Adding more nurses will help reduce patient accidents and boost morale.
There may be many different barriers in how an organization does things that could make it easier to improve performance. Implementation of the plan will be much easier due to the present policy adoption process. The hospital’s policies use collected data to make decisions. Businesses that use data to make decisions have an advantage in their fields. Most quantitative methods for strategic planning in health care are based on the population. Demographic changes and population growth affect the demand for services. Healthcare companies often try to improve their performance to improve care for patients and results while cutting costs. If these projects aren’t done right, they could turn into “black holes” that waste time, money, and other resources without producing many real, long-term benefits (Andel et al., 2021). Finding the issue is always the first step, after which it must be examined to see how it may be fixed. Megan Hospital can make a performance improvement effort work through education, training, and communication.
Any department hiring more employees will find that communication inside the unit is essential for success. Frequent contact with staff done after two weeks ensures the team is committed to the implemented strategy. When it comes to the hiring of new employees, they must be informed of the procedure so that all staff members are on the same page. All staff employees, whether new or experienced, must continue to receive specific and current training and instruction. The activity must continue to be a top focus for the department that is growing its employees. Within the department, all employees should be able to do related jobs without considerable variance or reluctance. The backbone of the department and the whole business will ensure that every employee receives enough equitable training, ongoing training, and good communication.
References
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