The healthcare service provision industry is undergoing tremendous changes with the increasing advancements in research and technology. Patient attitude is also changing, and United Health Center is facing an urgent need to improve quality of care and patient satisfaction to keep up with the increased competition as well as the changing laws and policies regulating health practice. One major challenge that undermines the performance efforts and quality of care offered at the facility is a shortage in the number of staff. Understaffing is a huge challenge in the improvement of quality of patient care. The strain on the human resource available to provide services to their pateints harms the quality of care offered at the facility.
The ratio of healthcare provider to staff is very big, hence one member of staff is required to see many patients. This results in fatigue and burnouts which harm the quality of care offered to pateints. More staff members should be recruited to improve the healthcare worker to patient ratios, this will ultimately improve the quality of care. The organization therefore needs to restructure their policies to prioritize recruitment of staff to the facility, particularly clinicians. Additional staff members would improve the staff to patient ratio, which will improve the quality of interaction between staff members and their patients. Additionally, staff members will experience reduced levels of fatigue and burnout (Shang, 2019). Hence staff morale and job satisfaction will improve. Evidence shows that increases staff morale results in improved quality od care offered in health facilities and increased patient satisfaction.
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Recruitment of additional staff members to United Health center will result in increased running costs for the health facility. However, the overall increase in costs is outweighed by the increase in profitability of the organization following the policy change and implementation (Davis, 2017). The reduction in the staff patient ration will improve the quality of care and patient experiences at the facility, which will improve the reputation of the facility among its clientele. Positive reviews for the organization will increase the client base and expand the base form the low resource rural community to higher resource communities. This will have a direct impact on the profit margins of the facility. An increase in profits will cover the additional costs attributed the increase in number of staff at the facility. Additionally, increase in staff members will also result in a reduction in the numbers of medical errors made in the facility and improved patient experience which will reduce malpractice lawsuits against the facility. This eliminates the cost of legal fees as well as compensation fees given to patience thereby saving on costs. Additionally, the reputation of the hospital is also spared.
Recruitment of additional clinical staff also ensures that the organization meets the standards and performance metrics required by policy makers. For instance, the American Nurses Association proposes that the level of adequacy of nursing staffing has a direct impact on the safety of patient in a particular facility. Understaffed facilities have been shown to exhibit poorer health outcomes for their patients (Almost, 2016). Additionally, their patients also stay longer in hospital and face a higher risk of loss of life. Increasing the number of staff is therefore vital for the adherence of laws and regulations. For instance, The Registered Nurse Safe Staffing Act of the year 2011 mandates all health facilities that receive Medicaid to implement optimal staffing plans for all units as well as shifts at the facility.
All stakeholders in the organization should be actively involved in implementing the changes in staffing policy at the hospital. The influence and power of patients in policymaking has increased in recent years. The patient should therefore be involved in implementation of the policy change through feedback and reviews. Patients should detail their experience with staff members and any areas of improvement they identify, particularly in the quality of time spent with clinicians. The clinicians are also an important stakeholder. The clinical staff should be given and enabling environment to provide feedback on the work environment and the size of workload. Their feedback will then be used to determine the number of additional staff required and the appropriate staffing and shift schedules. The hospital administration is an important stakeholder in the implementation of the policy change. The administration is custodian to all resources and determines the urgency and priority accorded to the needs at the health facility (Davis, 2017). The administration should thereby incorporate the feedback from both staff and pateints to develop an optimal framework for implementation of the policy changes, and to appropriately allocate the resources for recruitment of the required members of staff.
References
Almost, J. W.‐P. (2016). Managing and mitigating conflict in healthcare teams: an integrative review. Journal of advanced nursing, 72(7), 1490-1505.
Davis, L. J. (2017). Legislation Addressing Minimum Registered Nurse Staffing Deficiencies in Healthcare Settings.
Shang, J. N. (2019). Nurse staffing and healthcare-associated infection, Unit-Level analysis. JONA: The Journal of Nursing Administration, 49(5), 260-265.
