Executive Summary: Nursing shortage Discussion
Nurses are among the most fundamental professions in the field of healthcare, hence playing a vital role in healthcare institutions. Despite being among the most influential, there is still nursing shortage in most parts due to reasons such as insufficient nursing educators, improper distribution of nursing workforce and low nursing turnovers (Graban & Toussaint, 2018). Nursing shortage may be experienced due to reasons such as aging of nursing workforce population, violence within healthcare institutions and family and career issues. As a result of this nursing shortage, the few available nurses work in unconducive environment for long hours impacting fatigue and job dissatisfaction. Such environments are prone to numerous mistakes and medical errors thus making the patient not to be satisfied and impacting low quality healthcare delivery (Einhellig, 2020). It is therefore essential to intervene and develop the possible solutions to nursing shortage for the health wellbeing of all citizens to be fully achieved. The aim of this paper is to make a proposal on nursing shortage as a quality improvement initiative to help curb the nursing shortage in most healthcare institutions in the country. Executive Summary: Nursing shortage Discussion
The purpose of the quality improvement initiative
Healthcare institutions and facilities all over the US should strive to develop a nursing platform where nurses raise the issues and challenges they face. It is a platform that should enable the nurses to voice their concerns to their respective supervisors and managers at work. Information concerning the nurses’ recommendations and apprehensions at work should be addressed through this platform to ensure that workflow operations are well addressed. Offering a platform where nurses can raise their concerns helps to boost the morale of nurses, increase job satisfaction for nurses as well as dealing with factors that may trigger burnout, dissatisfaction of jobs and turnover (Shah et al., 2021). It is an initiative that will therefore focus on good communication between nurses and their respective nurse managers in their respective institutions.
The target population or audience
The target population in this case are the nurses since they are the most affected individuals by the issue of nursing shortage. It is as a result of this nursing shortage that nurses are exposed to too long working hours in unconducive environments that result to dissatisfaction of jobs, turnover or even burnout. Nursing shortage also impact poor delivery of healthcare services since nurses experience numerous mistakes and medical errors, courtesy of fatigue and burnout. It is through offering a platform where nurses can address their concerns to their respective management that issues of morale and job dissatisfactions can be addressed (Shamsi & Peyravi, 2020). If nurses for instance feel not appreciated or working in poor healthcare environments, their morale goes down, which impacts dissatisfaction of job. Executive Summary: Nursing shortage Discussion
The benefits of the quality improvement initiative
Stress among nurses can be connected to factors such as unconducive working environment, fatigue, burnout and working for too long hours. It is therefore important to listen to the grievances of nurses which will impact improved morale and reduced burnout and turnover. According to Shah et al (2021), Motivated nurses tend to provide quality services to their patients. Moreover, moralizing the nurses plays a critical role in job satisfaction improvement thus facilitating retention of nurses. The nurses and healthcare supervisors/managers need to work together for effective development of solutions that will help curb the challenges that nurses encounter during their daily routine. It is the nurses who will submit their grievances to the supervisors/managers after which the latter will conclude and implement the possible solutions such as creating a conducive working environment which will improve the morale thus impacting job satisfaction positively.
The cost or budget justification
A nursing platform that enables nurses to express their concerns and challenges in a health institution is crucial in retaining of nurses while at the same time keeping them motivated. To achieve this, the institutions through the senior managements should address all the issues and concerns raised by nurses and which may impact work stress, high rate of turnover and burnout positively (Graban & Toussaint, 2018). Maximizing motivation will also play an important role in productivity promotion as well as enhancing quality delivery of healthcare services to the citizens. The initiative will thus be important in developing a conducive healthcare environment where nurses can be motivated to provide quality services. Executive Summary: Nursing shortage Discussion
The basis upon which the quality improvement initiative will be evaluated
After the initiative’s implementation process, effective implementation of an appraisal that focuses on determining failure or success of the approach should follow. It is at the evaluation stage that all the stakeholders will be offered the objective techniques for efficiency and effectiveness testing of the approach (Einhellig, 2020). The tests will also determine whether the approach is affecting the healthcare institution positively or negatively in terms of nursing shortage. For the purpose of enhancing the success of the entire approach, reinforcement of the strengths of the initiative and highlights of the required improvements can be done by the healthcare institutions. It is at the evaluation stage where the initiative’s effect on nursing morale will be analyzed to determine how nurse retention has been improved and how burnout has been reduced.
In a recap, shortage of nurses is a common healthcare problem affecting most healthcare institutions in the US. Some of the factors that have caused shortage of nurses in healthcare institutions include aging of nurse populations, nurse fatigue and burnout, violence at healthcare institutions, career and family issues among others. Due to this nursing shortage, nurses are forced to work for long hours and in unconducive working environments thus impacting fatigue and job dissatisfaction. One possible solution for this is development of nurse platforms where nurses can be expressing their grievances to the supervisors/managers of the respective institutions for proper interventions to be made. Executive Summary: Nursing shortage Discussion
References
Einhellig, K. (2020). Addressing the Global Nursing Shortage: An International
Collaboration. International Journal of Nursing, 7(2), 87-91. https://doi.org/DOI:
10.15640/ijn.v7n2a10
Graban, M., & Toussaint, J. (2018). Lean hospitals: improving quality, patient safety, and
employee engagement. Productivity Press. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315380827
Shah, M. K., Gandrakota, N., Cimiotti, J. P., Ghose, N., Moore, M., & Ali, M. K. (2021).
Prevalence of and factors associated with nurse burnout in the US. JAMA network
open, 4(2), e2036469-e2036469. https//doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.36469
Shamsi, A., & Peyravi, H. (2020). Nursing shortage, a different challenge in Iran: A systematic
review. Medical journal of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 34, 8.
https//doi: 10.34171/mjiri.34.8. PMID: 32284932 Executive Summary: Nursing shortage Discussion
Assessment Description
In this assignment, you will propose a quality improvement initiative from your place of employment that could easily be implemented if approved. Assume you are presenting this program to the board for approval of funding. Write an executive summary (750-1,000 words) to present to the board, from which the board will make its decision to fund your program or project. Include the following:
The purpose of the quality improvement initiative.
The target population or audience.
The benefits of the quality improvement initiative.
The interprofessional collaboration that would be required to implement the quality improvement initiative.
The cost or budget justification.
The basis upon which the quality improvement initiative will be evaluated. Executive Summary: Nursing shortage Discussion