National Healthcare Issue Essay

, ,

National Healthcare Issue Essay

The Quadruple Aim provides broad categories of goals to pursue to maintain and improve healthcare. Within each goal are many issues that, if addressed successfully, may have a positive impact on outcomes. For example, healthcare leaders are being tasked to shift from an emphasis on disease management often provided in an acute care setting to health promotion and disease prevention delivered in primary care settings. Efforts in this area can have significant positive impacts by reducing the need for primary healthcare and by reducing the stress on the healthcare system. Changes in the industry only serve to stress what has always been true; namely, that the healthcare field has always faced significant challenges, and that goals to improve healthcare will always involve multiple stakeholders. This should not seem surprising given the circumstances. Indeed, when a growing population needs care, there are factors involved such as the demands of providing that care and the rising costs associated with healthcare. National Healthcare Issue Essay. Generally, it is not surprising that the field of healthcare is an industry facing multifaceted issues that evolve over time. In this module’s Discussion, you reviewed some healthcare issues/stressors and selected one for further review. For this Assignment, you will consider in more detail the healthcare issue/stressor you selected. You will also review research that addresses the issue/stressor and write a white paper to your organization’s leadership that addresses the issue/stressor you selected. 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 received from your colleagues on your Discussion post for the national healthcare issue/stressor you selected. Identify and review two additional scholarly resources (not included in the Resources for this module) that focus on change strategies implemented by healthcare organizations to address your selected national healthcare issue/stressor. The Assignment (3-4 Pages): Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue Develop a 3- to 4-page paper, written to your organization’s leadership team, addressing your selected national healthcare issue/stressor and how it is impacting your work setting. Be sure to address the following: Describe the national healthcare issue/stressor you selected and its impact on your organization. Use organizational data to quantify the impact (if necessary, seek assistance from leadership or appropriate stakeholders in your organization). Provide a brief summary of the two articles you reviewed from outside resources on the national healthcare issue/stressor. Explain how the healthcare issue/stressor is being addressed in other organizations. Summarize the strategies used to address the organizational impact of national healthcare issues/stressors presented in the scholarly resources you selected. Explain how they may impact your organization both positively and negatively. Be specific and provide examples. Looking Ahead The paper you develop in Module 1 will be revisited and revised in Module 2. Review the Assignment instructions for Module 2 to prepare for your revised paper.

ORDER A PLAGIARISM -FREE PAPER NOW

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than one third of the elderly adults aged 65 years and above fall with at least 646,000 deaths every year (WHO, 2018). Notably, they are the second leading cause of death and injuries across the globe. Like many organizations, my workplace has been challenged by the increasing rate of falls within the geriatric acute care unit. This has been experienced over the years with approximately three falls occurring every month. According to the administration and hospital records, falls have increased the hospital stays of the victims with some causing fatal injuries that result to physical and mental impacts and also deaths. In fact, one of the elderly patient aged 89 years succumbed to a head injury acquired from a fall in on the stairs following an unintentional slip. National Healthcare Issue Essay

Impact on the organization

As noted above, my organization has been affected by falls in several ways. Firstly, there is an increase in patient needs after falling. These include the care related to treatment of injuries and associated complications as well as the major illness that brought them to the hospital. In addition, this increases the cost of healthcare which creates an economic burden on the budget of the facility. More so, the rising needs of patients increase the demand for services. This rises the workload of the nurses in the facility resulting in burnout and turnovers. For instance, two nurses have left the facility over claims of overworking in the geriatric facility over the last three months.

Another impact of falls in the hospital is that it has caused prolonged hospital stays of patients. This has resulted in overcrowding of the facility as the needs of clients as well as the population increase. This is also feared to increase medical errors as the staff strive to diagnose and treat many patients within the timelines. On the other hand, the quality of care delivered has been compromised on particular occasions while several cases of unethical conduct have been noted especially with fatigued medical practitioners.

Article summary

The articles reviewed during the literature search include, Clinical risk factors for head impact during falls in older adults: a prospective cohort study in long-term care. Journal of head trauma rehabilitation by Caplan, B., Bogner, J., Brenner, L., Yang, Y., Mackey, D. C., Liu-Ambrose, T., … and Robinovitch, S. N. published in 2017. The source examines the risk factors associated with head impact during falls in older adults in long-term care (LTC). It presents a prospective cohort study that supports the occurrence of head injuries after falls in the LTC. Another article reviewed in this task is, Effects of falls prevention interventions on falls outcomes for hospitalized adults: protocol for a systematic review with meta-analysis, published in the BMJ open in 2017. The authors focus on the impacts of falls prevention interventions on the outcomes of falls among the hospitalized elderly adults.

How the stressor is addressed and strategies addressing

According to the above articles, different organizations have devised diverse ways of addressing falls within their facilities. For example, some have set up bedside alarms that help monitor movement of the patients as they seek to climb of the beds (Caplan et al., 2017). These alarms are also able to be pressed by the patients in the event that they require some help to climb up or reach their personal belongings. National Healthcare Issue Essay.

Other strategies include the formulation of an hourly rounding program for the nurses to monitor and detect high risk patients and situations that could result in falling. This helps in the mitigation of the problem before they occur. Staff education initiative on fall prevention is also used to create awareness on prevention and patient handling in a manner that prevents falls (Slade et al., 2017). Furthermore, structural modifications to improve lighting, installation of non-slip floors particularly in the bathrooms and stairs as well as fixing of rails in the walkways have been made my various organizations to reduce falling in the acute care settings.

Positive and negative impacts of strategies on the organization

These strategies are important in the prevention and reduction of falls among the elderly population in the inpatient care settings. In my organization, they are expected to have both positive and negative impacts. The positive impacts are reduction of the number of falls which is the main aim of addressing the national healthcare issue. Another impact is that the nurse’s workload will reduce thus preventing misdiagnosis, burnout and turnovers associated with increased falls. Consequently, the economic burden of the hospital will be reduced as the falls reduce as well as the individual needs of the clients. The quality of services delivered is also improved thus attracting more clients to the organization.

On the other hand, the negative impacts include increased costs of implementation of fall prevention strategies. For example, installation of bedside alarms devices can be financially draining to the organization and its adoption may force other projects to be put on hold. Additionally, training of staff and allocation of duties demands increased financial investment and sometimes an increase in the nursing staff.

ORDER A PLAGIARISM -FREE PAPER NOW

References

Caplan, B., Bogner, J., Brenner, L., Yang, Y., Mackey, D. C., Liu-Ambrose, T., … & Robinovitch, S. N. (2017). Clinical risk factors for head impact during falls in older adults: a prospective cohort study in long-term care. Journal of head trauma rehabilitation, 32(3), 168-177.

Slade, S. C., Carey, D. L., Hill, A. M., & Morris, M. E. (2017). Effects of falls prevention interventions on falls outcomes for hospitalised adults: protocol for a systematic review with meta-analysis. BMJ open, 7(11), e017864.

World Health Organization. (2018). Falls. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/falls

Required Readings

Marshall, E., & Broome, M. (2017). Transformational leadership in nursing: From expert clinician to influential leader (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Springer.

Chapter 2, “Understanding Contexts for Transformational Leadership: Complexity, Change, and Strategic Planning” (pp. 37–62)
Chapter 3, “Current Challenges in Complex Health Care Organizations: The Triple Aim” (pp. 63–86)

Read any TWO of the following (plus TWO additional readings on your selected issue): National Healthcare Issue Essay.

Auerbach, D. I., Staiger, D. O., & Buerhaus, P. I. (2018). Growing ranks of advanced practice clinicians—Implications for the physician workforce. New England Journal of Medicine, 378(25), 2358–2360. doi:10.1056/NEJMp1801869