Milestone Four: Evaluation Project Topic:   Nursing Shortage and the Need for More Nurses Milestone 3 is attached to help follow thru the flow of milestone four. SO PLEASE refer to milestone 3 to help

Running head: IMPLEMENTATION 0

Nursing Shortage and the Need for More Nurses

Implementation of Proposed Changes

Implementing a new model within a healthcare facility very sensitive. The implementation process has to be well structured to avoid any negative impact to the existing service delivery process and mechanism already implemented. The change being implemented must be consistent with existing policies and services at the healthcare institution, (Allen, 2016). In this case, implementing a new compensation system at Mary Manning Walsh must be done while considering the current workforce, and the impact of the change on the quality of care extended to patients. The institution must ensure that the change strategy will fall within its financial capabilities. Implementing the proposed change strategy would be a viable intervention to curb the problems associated with the nurse shortage.

Quality Outcomes

The major problem that is noted at Mary Manning Walsh is the poor quality of care extended to patients. On analyzing the ratio of caregivers to patients, it is evident that nurses at the institution are overwhelmed hence the quality of care deteriorates. Therefore, it becomes necessary to increase the total number of nurses at the health care facility to make the ratio of nurses to patients much better. The first thing that the change strategy is expected to achieve is to reduce the number of patient readmissions. In recent times, the healthcare facility has had so many patient readmission cases which are mostly due to hospital-associated infections (HAI) such as CAUTI, (Marć, et.al., 2019). Implementation of the proposed compensation and reward system is expected to lower the patient readmission cases by 35% within the first four months after implementation. As more nurses become interested to work at Mary Manning Walsh, it is expected that the ratio of nurses to patients will be 1:6. Attracting more nurses to the facility will eventually translate to better care for all patients. It will also reduce the expenses incurred to handle re-admission cases at the facility.

Communication

The success of a change implementation proposal in any healthcare facility is largely dependent on the information relayed to all stakeholders before its implementation. Furthermore, all persons who would be affected by the proposed change should be engaged in the process of implementation. With this in mind, it becomes necessary to analyze and select the most effective communication channels through which information would be disseminated. Acceptance of the proposed compensation and rewards systems will depend on how well the stakeholders are persuaded, (O'Connor & Wickramasinghe, 2017). Therefore, it would be necessary to schedule several meetings with all the nurses currently operating at the institution. The nurse practitioners at Mary Manning Walsh should individually be informed via mails on the implications of the proposed changes. Also, it would be appropriate to draft internal memos addressed to all members of staff to increase awareness of the changes being implemented at the facility, (O'Connor & Wickramasinghe, 2017). Nurse supervisors should be called into official meetings and requested to discuss the change implementation with all junior nurses at the facility. The communication should be spearheaded by departmental managers; human resources, finance, and operations managers.

Data Flow

The existing organizational structure is well designed to facilitate effective monitoring and supervision of processes undertaken at Mary Manning Walsh. The executive managers should be the first to approve the implementation of the change strategy. Finance officers at the institution should then verify the viability of the proposal and ensure the institution is well in range of its financial capabilities. The human resource department, in charge of hiring and staffing, should then advertise for the number of positions that need to be filled within the institution. In doing so, the nurses operating at the facility should be accorded the priority to apply for a new position in which they are qualified. This would not only improve the quality of care given to patients but also save time that would otherwise be spent on inducting new nurse recruits. The executive managers should then adopt a culture of preparing weekly audit reports to establish the progress being made after the proposed change is implemented, (Lim, et.al., 2016). By so doing, it would be possible to identify areas that still need improvement.

Needed Leadership

Healthcare managers play a vital role in policy formulation and implementation in different healthcare organizations. Their expertise in the field of healthcare enables them to effectively facilitate change implementation without disrupting normal operations or affecting service delivery. Therefore, the executive managers at Mary Manning Walsh should take up the responsibility of effective management and control to ensure the change implementation is a success. Most importantly, the leaders at the institution should adopt a servant leadership style. A servant leadership style will motivate the nurses to embrace change and aspire to deliver better quality of service to patients, (Allen, 2016). Monitoring and evaluation of the impact of the implementation can best be done by leaders at the healthcare facility. Responsible leaders and mangers often conduct appraisal to ensure strengths and weaknesses are identified to enhance service delivery.

In conclusion, implementing the proposed change strategy would be a viable intervention to curb the problems associated with the nurse shortage. However, all the stakeholders should cooperate to facilitate smooth implementation. Also, effective communication is necessary throughout the implementation process. Leaders at the healthcare institution should motivate their subordinate staff to perform better and generally improve the quality of care extended to patients, (Lim, et.al., 2016).

References

Allen, B. (2016). Effective design, implementation, and management of change in healthcare. Nursing Standard, 31(3).

Lim, F., Nelson, N., Stimpfel, A. W., Navarra, A. M., & Slater, L. Z. (2016). Honors programs: Current perspectives for implementation. Nurse educator, 41(2), 98-102.

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.

O'Connor, L., & Wickramasinghe, N. (2017). Investigating the mediating role of nursing information systems using activity theory.