The basic definition of healthcare environment is a place where ill people receive health restoration services. Nevertheless, despite the universal drive to enhance the quality of services to patients’, healthcare environment has failed to meet the standards of the health industry in many ways (Haughon, 2016) . Unless these issues are addressed, it will be hard for healthcare institutions will always have trouble in guaranteeing the provision of quality services to their clients. Nowadays, these issues have become more pronounced since many complicated and convoluted ideas have been developed to address the problems. At the same time, healthcare facilities are lacking the basic measures that would make hospitals a place where the ill can comfortably recuperate from their illness. In regards to going back to ensuring that these fundamental basics are understood in a healthcare environment, this article will provide ways in which this objective can be achieved.
Aspects in the Healthcare Environment that have been Broken
The healthcare environment faces many challenges that make it difficult for the health industry to meet its coveted goals. These issues include occupational violence, work overload, patients’ dissatisfaction and failure to adapt to change among others. All these matters will be discussed as under;
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Occupational Violence
In the modern world, occupationally related violence has become characteristic in health facilities. As such, scholars have identified occupational violence as a health and safety issue because it negatively affects all the stakeholders in a healthcare setting. This type of violence can take place in two forms namely verbal or physical abuse. In most health facilities, four types of abuse have been identified. These are patient-to-staff, non-stakeholder-to-stakeholder, worker-to-worker and personal relationship types of violence. The patient-to-staff violence occurs when a patient and or his or her relatives are aggressive to a health worker. Vice versa is also true. The non-stakeholder-to-stakeholder type of aggression occurs when the perpetrator of violence is not a stakeholder of the health industry. Worker-to-worker violence involves a worker attacking another employee. Finally, the personal relationship type of aggression is a violent act that can go unnoticed by the employer since it may be due to individual differences among the various stakeholders in the health sector.
A study that was conducted in Canada revealed that about 34% of Canadian nurses had been physically abused in 2005. In 2004, 47% of Canadian nurses reported that they were emotionally abused while in their line of duty. This is a clear indication that workplace violence is a vice that is going on in the health environment. Studies have also shown that patients usually abuse male nurses more frequently as opposed to their female counterparts. Male nurses are victims of attacks since there is a general perception among patients that nursing job is particular for women. Notably, health care facilities are a hub for occupational-related aggression because it is an environment that is filled with emotions. Nonetheless, this article will provide a way in which such violence can be mitigated as a way of improving the healthcare environment.
Work Overload
Workforce shortage characterizes the healthcare environment. This, on the other hand, makes the health personnel to work for very long hours. According to a study by American Nurses Association (2016), when medical practitioners work for long hours, they suffer from fatigue. Consequentially, cases of medical errors and mortality rates will increase. Besides, both the patients and the medical staffs will be dissatisfied. American Nurses Association (2016) indicated that nurses are the most affected individuals when it comes to working for extended hours. As a result, about 96% of them will experience fatigue during their first shifts.
Fatigue makes the nurses susceptible to errors, and most of them often end up regretting about their past decisions when they were working on their patients. Apparently, this is because the demand for services in a healthcare environment is high and the supply of service is limited. This trend implies that there will be few medics working on many patients. In the end, the staff will not only be fatigued but also dissatisfied. When the workforce is not satisfied the patients will also not be satisfied since the employees will not be motivated enough to demonstrate their innovative ability.
Poor Patients Satisfaction
Healthcare facilities need to ensure that the clients are satisfied with their services. However, this is not true in the healthcare environment. Patients are left dissatisfied with the services rendered in most healthcare settings ( Lee, 2004) . This is because such facilities are not meeting their urgent needs. Studies indicate that in America, the citizens are living longer because of technological advances. As a result, there is improved service delivery. Nonetheless, as the population keeps on aging, there are increased instances of chronic disorders. In America for example, despite the increased life expectancy, the rates of chronic diseases has increased. At now, it is estimated that about 125 million American have developed chronic conditions. The healthcare system of the country is well equipped to deal with acute cases. However, it has inadequate facilities or rather equipment that would enable the country to deal with chronic illness. According to The National Academies Press (2003), America has few clinical programs that are able to provide services that complement to the needs of people suffering from chronic conditions such as heart disorders, diabetes, and asthma among others.
The National Academies Press (2003) showed that treating individuals with chronic diseases is a continuous process. As such, relevant authorities need to ensure that they work collaboratively with the patients so that a robust care system can be developed. Such collaboration should aim at developing a care plan, common goal and the steps that can be taken to implement the discussed plan. Essentially, the care ought to support self-management activities, regular follow-up, and face-to-face meeting. Nevertheless, studies have indicated that patients find it difficult to access medical care. In fact, the report by National Academies Press (2003) noted that 72%, 79 % and 74% of patients suffering from chronic illness in America had trouble in accessing primary care from physicians, medical specialists, and providers of drug therapy. As a result, chronic patients were receiving partial information which led to them developing secondary complications. This is why most patients end up doubting the potential of the healthcare facilities in providing quality health services.
Difficulty to Adapt to Change
One of the major issues in a healthcare environment is the management of change. Healthcare employees are required to acquaint and maintain the knowledge needed to perform their tasks. Besides, they are supposed to pursue jobs that match their professional training. Nonetheless, change is inevitable in all environments. Change is a continuous process that will be taking place regularly. Healthcare environment just like other environments is prone to changes. In fact, the health industry is one of the fields that experience regular changes. Nonetheless, some of the health institutions have failed to adapt to changes. This has made them perform poorly in terms of delivering quality and affordable healthcare services. This is a common issue among institutions that have bad organizational cultures. In such organizations, change is often met with resistance which later destabilizes the performance of the healthcare system (Stanley et al., 2008).
Mitigating the Challenges
Addressing Occupational Violence
Training: Occupational violence can be solved if health agencies embrace preventive measures. One way of achieving this is through organizing training program. The program notably should provide the employees with ways in which they can prevent and deal with aggressive acts. It is the mandate of the organizations to ensure that workplace is safe for the workers. As such, organizations are required to equip their staffs with skills that would enable them to deal with such challenges. Healthcare facilities need to develop a system that would regularly remind their employees about the necessary safety procedures. Mostly, the programs need to be proactive other than reactive since the employee's safety depends on the outcome of such training. Additionally, it is necessary for health institutions to guide their employees thoroughly through the organization’s safety procedures. Besides, it should emphasize the need to report cases of aggression. Finally, healthcare organizations can ensure that they organize regular refresher training on occupational safety and methods of dealing with patients and ergonomics.
Embrace technology : Technology can be used to ensure clients’ and employee safety. In this regards, electronic records can be developed to study the behavior of the patients. Electronic records can help in examining the violent behavior of a patient, and the care team can have prior information about the conduct of their client. Another equipment that can be used is the Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS). This equipment can help in providing information about the exact location of a patient or any stakeholder within the hospital setting. RTLS is vital, particularly when responding to emergency cases.
Dealing with Work Overload
Employees in the healthcare industry work extensively. It will be important for healthcare institutions to develop a flexible working schedule for the staff. Of essence, the plan ought to take into consideration the effects that would result in the general performance of the organization including the safety of the patients. The American Nurses Association (2016) indicated that proper staffing plays a significant role in ensuring that medical errors and deaths are reduced. As such, health industry needs to shorten the shifts so that the employees can contribute significantly to organizational performance. This is a clear indication that having few nurse to patients ratio would help in bettering the performance of the employees. On the other hand, this will assist in improving patients’ satisfaction.
Improving Patients Satisfaction
Patients’ satisfaction is a complicated concept. Notably, to improve patients’ satisfaction, many factors come into play. Patients’ satisfaction can also be increased by embracing cultural diversity at the workplace (Campinha, 2003). Embracing cultural diversity would ensure that the needs of diverse groups are met and addressed appropriately. It is important for health practitioners to understand the behavior, policies as well as attitudes that are characteristic of particular cultures. Such understanding would render an individual culturally competent (Campinha, 2003).
Another way of ensuring that the patients are satisfied is by making sure that the employees are satisfied. If the staff was motivated, the employees would be motivated to serve their clients diligently. Besides, they would be creative in their partaking and would come up with solutions that would help in addressing the challenges in the organization.
One of the ways in which the staff can be motivated is through empowerment. Empowerment in this regards refers to a culture whereby the employees are given the authority to make their own decisions. Empowerment offers the employees with an opportunity to realize their full potential. When employees have total control of their occupations, they would be productive. Doughty & Rinehart, (2004) indicated that empowering provides the staff with a chance to nurture their problem solving and leadership skills. Notably, employees’ contribution plays a significant role in determining the levels of patients’ satisfaction. This is because an empowered employee would always be committed to organizational success which in this regards is measured with the amount of patients’ satisfaction.
Furthermore, empowerment makes the employees be responsible for their actions. As such, the employees will be working as if they were controlling their destinies. Notably, empowerment makes it easy for institutions to ensure patients’ satisfaction since they will be efficient and effective in decision making that would help the organization to address challenging situations ( Lee, 2004) . Essentially, the medical staff will not be depending on the manager to make decisions that would solve problems. This is because empowerment enhances autonomy among the employees. As a matter of fact, autonomy will yield innovativeness that would give the institution comparative advantage.
Adapting to Change
Change is a complex process that can be made easy if the leadership adopts a proper strategy. This process requires proper planning, implementation, and monitoring. Effective change should entail unfreezing old cultures, introducing new cultures and re-freezing them (Nickols, 2012). Change can take two forms. It can be either spontaneous or predictable. A likely change may provide the leadership with time to respond to the change. However, when it is spontaneous, the time limit for responding to the change may be limited. Most changes that occur in the healthcare environment are spontaneous. In that regards, institutions that can adapt to the sporadic changes would always have a competitive advantage.
Notably, most institutions that have failed to adapt to change are characterized by a lack of vision statement from the leadership, limited interplaying between systems within the organization and poor implementation plans. For institutions to be successful during the process of change the leadership needs to have a robust plan regarding change and the major issues that the needs to be addressed. First, it is important for the leadership to inform the employees why change is necessary (Nickols, 2012). The change process may lead to high levels of retrenchment. This may develop a feeling of job insecurity among the remaining employees. Introducing change requires the management to challenge the initial organizational culture and convince the staff on the need to embrace new norms. Change takes time and requires the manager to commit his or her time to understand the important values that need to be adopted and focus on changing of old the values. Essentially, the leaders need to have a clear information regarding what is necessary and establish a response as well as appropriate proactive actions.
This is to say that leadership plays a significant role in ensuring that organizations adapt to change. As such, healthcare environment need to embrace the catalytic leadership style since this type of leadership ensures that the leader and the employees have a cordial relationship. The main feature of catalytic leadership is the manner in which the leader is able to align the employees’ goals with that of the organization. The brilliance of this style is the manner in which the leadership addresses some issues and motivates the employees. This is typical of an emotionally intelligent leader. Nevertheless, this type of leadership ensures that the manager creates an open communication with the employees in order to understand the employees’ needs (Claudia, et al., 2012). Besides, it ensures that there is a cordial relationship between the leadership and the employees. A leader can use the established friendship to communicate to the employees about organizational goals and what is required from them (Metheny, 2012). With this type of leadership, it would be easy for health organizations to address the numerous challenges they face.
In a nutshell, this paper has shown that a healthcare environment is a place where ill people receive health restoration services. This environment faces many challenges that make it difficult for the health industry to meet its coveted goals. The problems discussed herein include occupational violence, work overload, patients’ dissatisfaction and failure to adapt to change. However, this paper suggests that through training, empowerment, flexible work schedule, good organizational culture and decentralized leadership, the noted challenges can be addressed.
References
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