To Prepare: Review the national healthcare issues/stressors presented in the Resources and reflect on the national healthcare issue/stressor you selected for study. Reflect on the feedback you recei
Running head: Analysis of a pertinent healthcare issue 0
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STUDENT
SCHOOL
As you all know, healthcare is always in high demand. With such a growing demand for healthcare services creates an even greater demand for health providers. Because the populations demand for healthcare is ever-growing and lack of health providers is on the rise, patient care deficits are prevalent. Patient care is not being met because there simply aren't enough providers to provide care for every patient in need. On the other hand, health care providers and organizations are suffering too. The workload is very strenuous on healthcare providers and detrimental to healthcare organizations. In our organization we are affected by this by having an overwhelming demand of patients in our emergency rooms and an underwhelming amount of staff to accommodate these patients.
In more detail this affects our organization by causing an increase in nurse burnout, 30-day readmits, and poor patient satisfaction scores to name a few examples. Heavy workload environments along with poor patient to nurse ratios contribute significantly to nurse burn out (Norful, 2018). Because of this, the chances of nurses making medical errors are more likely. As a result, our organization chances of liability for medical errors are increased. If patient care was not provided adequately because of lack of providers, many patients will come back to the hospital within 30 days. When this happens often insurance companies find the hospital responsible and will not pay (Park, 2018). As a result, the hospital is held accountable for lack of care and suffers financial losses. Satisfaction rating by patient often result in greater financial opportunities for our organization. A lot of patient dissatisfaction responses came from their needs not being meet. Things such as time spent with physicians and wait time to be seen are common issues.
Now that we know what the issue is what are we going to do about it? Though the lack of healthcare providers is a prominent issue for all healthcare entities it is not a new. For years studies have been conducted to help alleviate this issue. In a study, advanced scheduling was used to alleviate high wait times and overall continuity of patient care (Qu, 2007). The daily health care provider demand was examined along with the patient need to create a schedule that consist of adequate provider to patient ratios. As a result, healthcare providers were not overbooked, and patients had less of a wait time and more time spent with providers.
In another study, federal qualified health centers were initiated in order to decrease the shortage of health providers (Xue, 2018). These health centers provided underprivileged communities that did not have access to health care facilities, a place where they could be seen by primary providers. As a result, the demand for healthcare providers decreased in the entire community.
I believe the strategies used in the previous studies are were highly effective. Furthermore, I believe the methods used provided validated results of effectiveness. When we think about the lack of health providers in the hospital setting and how to solve this issue, we need to look at the overall healthcare of the patients. Most patients who frequent emergency rooms are patients who are uninsured, lack primary care providers or do not have access to healthcare facilities specified for their needs (KFF, 2019). With this knowledge mind, trying to alleviate this issue requires strategies from both inside the hospital setting and outside.
I believe the use of advance scheduling for patients and providing health clinics in underprivileged areas will positively impact our organization, by clearing out our emergency rooms. Providing primary healthcare providers to patients who lack them promotes a healthier lifestyle. As a result, these patients will seek emergent care less and thus the number of patients to provider ratios will improve in the hospital care setting. As an example, a patient who lives in a rural area that normally must drive a far distance to reach the nearest hospital, would probably use the nearest urgent care center if it were provided.
Additionally, advanced scheduling for the patients who are insured and do have access to healthcare facilities, but lack of appointment times redirects them to hospital settings, will be able to obtain appointments. Because these strategies prove beneficial to both patients and providers it does pose the risk of negatively impacting our organization as well. As an example, if patients can be seen primarily on and outpatient setting it does pose the risk of potential losing business due to the lack of patient flow. Also, from a provider standpoint the appeal of better patient ratio’s in outpatient settings may lure staff away. As a result, may cause the patient to provider ration to remain the same.
As it follows competing needs surrounding this issue are prevalent. Primary the need of maintaining staff and staffing ratios are two of the most significant. Currently in my organization there is a staffing committee that works primarily on improving our both nurse and patient safety by evaluating staffing ratio’s. They meet routinely and review safety events that occurred and staffing numbers at that time.
I do believe the policy has good intentions of promoting safety on the units. However, I believe it is run more form a business point of view than from a nursing perspective. While they do review staffing and safety events, in order to formulate new plans and ratios that will make patient care more efficient; they must do so while maintaining a budget friendly approach. The need for nurses is always frequently in demand, but the hospital must be able to afford it. To hire more staff means to spend more money, that the hospital may or may not be able to afford.
For years nursing organizations have been trying to get policies made to enforce
nurse to patient ratios. I believe if this were incorporated into the nursing practice nationwide it would balance some of the competing needs of the workforce. Currently, only the state of California has been able to get a law passed that will enforce staffing ratios in the hospital (Nancy, 2010).
Studies show that enforcing nurse and patient ratios did improve patient care and wait times (Jan, 2009). Nurses were able to provide care in a timely fashion while making minimal medical errors. Other studies showed that while directors of hospitals had a difficult time accommodating these ratios, end the end patients needs were still met and nurses were able to practice with less complications (Benko, 2003). There were some medical facilities that closed because of this; however, it was not for medical reasons and more so financial.
In closing, I do believe the benefits that the strategies posed do overweight the risk associated with them. I think they are defiantly worth implementing. As an organization I think we can establish programs to help patients obtain primary care providers and even open new urgent care centers. From doing this I am confident we will meet our goal.
References
Benko, L. B. (2003). Ratio daze in California; State staffing law may exacerbate nursing
shortfall. Modern Healthcare, (24). Retrieved from https://search-ebscohost-
com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsgea&AN=edsgcl.103801729
&site=eds-live&scope=site
Jan, G. (2009). Nurse Groups, Administrators Battle Over Mandatory Nursing Ratios: California
Law Debated on National Stage. Annals of Emergency Medicine, (3), A31. Retrieved
from https://search-ebscohost-com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsovi&AN=edsovi.00000566.200909000.00002&site=eds-live&scope=site
KFF (2019). Key Facts about the Uninsured Population. Retrieved from
https://www.kff.org/uninsured/fact-sheet/key-facts-about-the-uninsured-population/
Nancy, D., & Susan, S. (2010). Impact of California Mandated Acute Care Hospital Nurse
Staffing Ratios: A Literature Synthesis. Policy, Politics & Nursing Practice, (3), 184.
https://doi-org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.1177/1527154410392240
Norful, A. A., de Jacq, K., Carlino, R., & Poghosyan, L. (2018). Nurse practitioner–physician
comanagement: A theoretical model to alleviate primary care strain. Annals of Family
Medicine, 16(3), 250–256. doi:10.1370/afm.2230
Park, B., Gold, S. B., Bazemore, A., & Liaw, W. (2018). How evolving United States payment
models influence primary care and its impact on the Quadruple Aim. Journal of the
American Board of Family Medicine, 31(4), 588–604.
doi:10.3122/jabfm.2018.04.170388
Qu, X., Rardin, R. L., Williams, J. A. S., & Willis, D. R. (2007). Matching daily healthcare
provider capacity to demand in advanced access scheduling systems. European Journal
of Operational Research, 183(2), 812–826.
https://doi-org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2006.10.003
Xue, Y., Greener, E., Kannan, V., Smith, J. A., Brewer, C., & Spetz, J. (2018). Federally
qualified health centers reduce the primary care provider gap in health professional shortage counties. Nursing Outlook, 66(3), 263–272. https://doi-
org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.1016/j.outlook.2018.02.003
Jan, G. (2009). Nurse Groups, Administrators Battle Over Mandatory Nursing Ratios: California
Law Debated on National Stage. Annals of Emergency Medicine, (3), A31. Retrieved
from https://search-ebscohost-com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsovi&AN=edsovi.00000566.200909000.00002&site=eds-live&scope=site
