Healthcare organizations are faced with many challenges. It is the role of the leaders in these organizations to tackle the challenges as they come and formulate policies that enable resilience among the staff during the issues. When it comes to this health care firm, the significant challenges we face include staff shortages and layoffs resulting from declining revenues. The paper will discuss how these two issues impact the department and how best they can be resolved through improved communication, collaboration, and teamwork.
When it comes to the first issue on staff shortages, having inadequate staff in a given department has a direct impact on the performance of the staff and the satisfaction a patient gets. Jayaprakash et al. (2009) acknowledge that inadequate staffing is a chronic global problem that many hospitals face. Furthermore, this issue on staffing has adversely affected major hospital departments such as the Emergency Departments, leading to increased waiting times; thus, high levels of morbidity. Additionally, staff shortage leads to overcrowding since patients spend more time in the hospital waiting to be assisted. Further going into the overcrowding issue, King & King (2018) note that overcrowding outrightly leads to inefficiency and waste. Additionally, the overcrowding poses a threat to the safety of both the medical practitioners and the patients in cases where a patient reports to the department with a contagious disease.
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Inefficiencies and waste, as discussed by King & King, lead to misappropriation of resources, thus leading to low revenues. This statement ushers in the next problem faced by the department, which is staff layoffs as a result of declining revenues. Despite the compassionate nature of hospitals, most of them are run by corporations that are out to make profits. Therefore, when the investments do not pay off, stringent measures such as laying off some staff are put in place to ensure the shareholders make an interest on their investments. Greenglass & Burke (2016) discuss some of the effects of staff layoffs and point out that having less staff leads to increased workloads on the available staff, and this may have an impact on the health of the staff. The authors point out to staff layoffs becoming a predictor of depression among the survivors of the layoff. Ultimately, staff shortages and layoffs are interconnected and have a significant detrimental impact on patient satisfaction (Winter et al., 2020).
The solution to the above limitations lies in the adoption of improved communication, collaboration, and teamwork. Having policies in place that promote teamwork among the healthcare staff leads to efficient provision of services leading to improved patient outcomes. When a patient is satisfied with the services offered by the facility, chances are they will visit and recommend the hospital to close friends leading to an influx of clients. This influx leads to increased revenue and, in turn, prevents staff layoffs and can also mean the employment of new staff to deal with the higher number of clients visiting the facility.
Ahmed et al. (2018) suggest the adoption of the lean six sigma model to improve on the quality and performance of hospitals. The authors suggest that a feedback-based system, such as the six-sigma model improves service integration and collaboration among all the involved elements. Additionally, this model has been frequently recommended for use in a healthcare setting. The next tool that can also be appropriate is the SBAR communication tool. This tool relies on dynamic adaptability to solving a given problem through the use of communication among the involved parties. This tool has been used successfully to develop interprofessional collaboration and competence among colleagues (Shahid & Thomas, 2018).
References
Ahmed, S., Manaf, N. H. A., & Islam, R. (2018). Effect of Lean Six Sigma on quality performance in Malaysian hospitals. International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, 31 (8), 973-987.
Greenglass, E. R., & Burke, R. J. (2016). Stress and the effects of hospital restructuring in nurses. Canadian Journal of Nursing Research Archive , 33 (2).
Jayaprakash, N., O’Sullivan, R., Bey, T., Ahmed, S. S., & Lotfipour, S. (2009). Crowding and delivery of healthcare in emergency departments: the European perspective. Western Journal of Emergency Medicine , 10 (4), 233.
King, B., & King, B. M. (2018). Causes and Adverse Effects from Overcrowding of Emergency Departments: The Solution. I ntegrated Studies , 86.
Shahid, S., & Thomas, S. (2018). Situation, background, assessment, recommendation (SBAR) communication tool for handoff in health care–a narrative review. Safety in Health , 4 (1), 7.
Winter, V., Schreyögg, J., & Thiel, A. (2020). Hospital staff shortages: Environmental and organizational determinants and implications for patient satisfaction. Health Policy .
