NURS 6053 Developing Organizational Policies and Practices

NURS 6053 Developing Organizational Policies and Practices

NURS 6053 Developing Organizational Policies and Practices

Click here to ORDER an A++ paper from our Verified MASTERS and DOCTORATE WRITERS: NURS 6053 Developing Organizational Policies and Practices

As nurses we’re faced with ethical dilemmas daily. We must not confuse ethics and the actual laws surrounding this profession. Although ethics and the law are very similar and paths overlap, they are not the same. Ethical dilemmas occur quite frequently in the healthcare field, which makes healthcare professionals more aware of how to respond to such events. Ethical issues put all healthcare professionals in the mindset of doing what is best for the patient. A national healthcare issue that is currently on a higher trend seems to be the nursing shortage in the work field. Overwhelming patient assignments ultimately lead to disgruntled staff affecting the overall working environment. The shortage in nursing many organizations are facing seem to have multiple effects on quality improvement or indicators such as customer service scores, increased amount of workloads and a decrease in the quality of care rendered (Buerhaus, Skinner, Auerbach, & Staiger, 2017). As safety is the number one goal inpatient care, polices over time have been revamped to ensure safer working environments for the shortage of nurses ultimately reducing medication errors as well as nurse burnout. Moreover, whereas patient needs dictate that hospitals shpuld hire more nurses, the financial performances of these hospitals is also a factor. Thus, nurisng shorateg is being affected by the need to provide quality healtt care services vis-à-vis the need to maintain heallty financial performances by health care facilities. Evidence suggests that hospitals have chosen the latter need hence the existence of nursing shortage.

Policies and Practices to Address Nursing Shortage

Leaders must strike a balance between retaining nurses by any means necessary and understanding the demands placed on staff with unbearable patient acuities. Finding such balances necessitates the implementation of strict policies, even if they are state-regulated. Within my organizations, we have strict policies in place to determine the patient/nurse ratio at various levels of care (Abhicharttibutra et al., 2017). With higher demands for the patient’s care, they are placed on different units, which also sets the bar for the nurse-patient ratio. A patient receiving medical-surgical care does not and may not require the same level of care as a patient in an intensive care unit. Our hospital follows guidelines for each level, which inform providers, managers, and patient flow coordinators about the patient’s needs and the appropriate floors. This is done to ensure that the acuity levels on that unit are not too high, especially given the nurse-patient ratio. Patient acuity tools are used in addition to setting limits for units and patient level of care. Patient acuity tools have proven useful in determining proper nurse-to-patient ratios and dispersing workloads. Nursing tools are designed to “increase nurse satisfaction with their patient assignment.”

Healthcare policies and procedures aid in the standardization and clarity of addressing challenges as well as activities critical for health and safety, legal liabilities, and regulatory requirements in day-to-day clinical practice. Workforce satisfaction and customer satisfaction are two competing needs that affect organizational nursing shortage. Healthcare institutions are often preoccupied with patient satisfaction and fail to recognize the specific workforce that provides care to clients. When the workforce is unmotivated due to factors such as a lack of recognition by management, it reflects the likelihood of providing low-quality healthcare, which leads to patient dissatisfaction (Anand & Dwivedi, 2019). When patients are dissatisfied, management may choose to relieve some employees of their duties; others may also leave due to dissatisfaction, resulting in a nursing shortage within the organization. The goal of this paper is to look at relevant policies that could be used to address two competing needs related to the issue of nursing shortage as a stressor.

Relevant Organizational Policy or Practice Impacting Nursing Shortage

Healthcare organizations are required to be innovative in attaining the needs of the workforce, while at the same time ensuring the provision of safe and quality care to the patients. An effective practice to address the issue of nursing shortage as adopted by my organization is the use of the Magnet Certification for assessing the effectiveness and quality of nursing within it (Haddad & Toney-Butler, 2020). My organization can use the policy to remove issues related to competition between the needs of the nurses and patients’ satisfaction (Rodriguez-Garcia et al., 2020). This is because the policy encompasses involvement of nurses in decision-making processes for effective clinical outcomes as well as effective grievance resolution measures. This in turn ensures nurses’ job satisfaction with low rates of turnovers as well as their delivery of top patient outcomes.

Ethical Concerns of Magnet Certification

The Magnet Recognition Program for adoption by the organization has sound ethical considerations, and no noteworthy ethical concerns or challenges. The strength of the policy in promoting ethics is founded on the rigorous approach that involves several months of evaluations for evidence of excellence in terms of nurse satisfaction, patient satisfaction, and care outcomes within the given institution (Haller et al.). The documentation strategy for the Magnet Certification Strategy involves transformational leadership, structural empowerment, exemplary professional practice, and new knowledge, innovation as well as enhancements. This is done for purposes of compliance of certification together with ethical considerations.

Magnet Program certification necessitates the need for describing the healthcare institution, practice settings for the nurses, and undertakings for upholding patient-centered care, sound ethical considerations, continued EBP research projects, and the Chief Nursing Officer’s (CNO) work description as well as their resume. The aspect of ethics is incorporated within various courses in the program that necessitates addressing social conducts via continued educational research on core cultural behaviors. Every year, mandatory, updated computer-tests are carried out on social conduct alongside ethical content and education is given by leaders to the clinical staff who fail to attain competent scores (Van Bogaert et al., 2018). The program’s robustness in engagement and commitment of the clinical staff in inspiring excellent patient outcomes within every day interdisciplinary practice is overseen through clear frameworks, methodologies as well as resources upheld by governance and policy contexts that attains visible and accountable outcomes.

Recommendation of Policy or Practice Changes for Addressing Competing Needs of Resources, Workers, and Patients

A practice change may be fixated on a change of governance for transparency, accountability, and putting in place effective mechanisms for tackling the challenges. These may include the need for the conflicts arising from the competing needs to be encompassed as a key item within the agendas of relevant committees. This is then followed by making reports on the set needs for attaining the desired outcomes (Harris et al., 2017). There should also be the aspect of quality improvement initiatives within decision-making structures for ensuring a process of review for pinpointing where the issues lie and coming up with effective strategies for addressing them.

Ethical shortcomings that can be tackled within the present policies include autonomy that necessitates for patients to be involved in the decision-making process of healthcare that they receive. Another ethical concern is nonmaleficence that aids in the evaluation of probable harms within the existing clinical systems. The principle of beneficence can also be addressed to ensure the attainment of the objectives of offering as well as inspiring positivity in the realization of the best healthcare outcomes and satisfaction (Ramsom & Olsson, 2017). The ethical consideration of justice can be fulfilled by ensuring a full analysis of the limits of the available healthcare resources within the set healthcare organization.

Conclusion

Policies within healthcare are crucial as they help devise the overall plans of action utilized in leading required results, and are also key for helping in decision-making. They help create clear communication to the workforce the intended outcomes within the institution. The healthcare personnel is in turn able to comprehend their set roles combined with responsibilities within the settings. They help set the foundation for the provision of safe, and cost-effective care to patients.

Click here to ORDER an A++ paper from our Verified MASTERS and DOCTORATE WRITERS: NURS 6053 Developing Organizational Policies and Practices

By Day 7 of Week 3

Submission and Grading Information