Healthcare has been facing the issue of oversupply and undersupplies of health professionals with the recent problem being shortage and discontent of nurses, and other healthcare professionals and experts cite that chances of resolving this problem are low. According to Aiken et al., (2001), the shortage of healthcare professionals was 6% in 2000 with only 1.89 million professionals in the health workforce, and this shortage is predicted to increase to 29% by 2020 if measures are not taken to solve the issue. Many hospitals in the country have a shortage of nurses with 75% of the job vacancies in healthcare facilities being for nurses. Although enrollments in entry-level are being done in healthcare centers to solve the problem of nurse shortage in hospitals, the number of nursing students in educational institutions is inadequate and cannot meet the high demand for nurses in the country.
Many nurses and other healthcare professionals working in healthcare facilities are dissatisfied with their work because of various reasons such as heavy workload, increased overtime, poor working environments, inadequate staff support, and meager salaries. According to Aiken et al., (2001), 40% of nurses in healthcare centers are not satisfied with their work with 1 out of 3 nurses below 30 years planning to quit their jobs for other job alternatives. The workforce shortage and dissatisfaction especially that of the nurses in healthcare facilities has adversely affected the healthcare sector hence this issue is of concern and should be addressed by the government. The shortage and dissatisfaction of healthcare professionals have resulted into problems of patients’ safety and other adverse health effects such as the death of patients, physical and psychological stress in patients, frustrations and burnout on the health professionals.
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Public Policy Used To Address This Problem
The problem of workforce shortage and discontent in healthcare facilities in USA has been adversely affecting many people as well as the government, and therefore the country needs to implement public policy to address this issue. The state should use the approach of financial incentive which will help policymakers in attracting and retaining high-quality health professionals in the health sector (Buerhaus et al., 2004). The policy will aim at benefitting health professionals, the public and the country hence it is a distributive policy. The policy entitles signing of bonuses for the health professionals which is cost-effective in improving enlistment as it helps in attracting workers into the health sector. The rewards can either be conditional allowing commitment to work for a specific time or paying the workers in a staggered way on certain employment years. The policy should aim at retaining health workers as this will be cheaper than recruiting other employees for replacement. This can be done through implementing transitional payments for staff who are laid off and granting reconstruction benefits to the employees.
The financial incentive policy should aim at providing scholarships for students of healthcare courses as this will a cost effective method of increasing the number of healthcare enlistments in the country (Buerhaus et al., 2004). Also, this will help in increasing the number of long-term health workers because most of the health professionals recruited in health facilities would have attained the intermediate level when they are employed hence they will see no need of going for further studies. The scholarships should be limited to specific institutions in the carry to make them useful and facility the possible opportunism through commitment in the health care jobs. The financial incentive policy should consider housing reconstruction subsidies which can be helpful to attract and retain healthcare employees. This would help in the physical rebuilding of the cities where healthcare facilities are located because the residents of the towns will benefit from the nearby services provided by the healthcare professionals residing in the cities. The policy should facilitate raising pays and supplements to help in maintaining the pay scales of healthcare professionals. Providing transitional wage supplements will help in compensating for the current difficult living conditions in the country as well as help in attracting low-salary healthcare workers.
Strategy Federal Government Should Use To Address This Issue
Human resources are essential to a useful healthcare system as the resources help in solving the problem of workforce shortage and discontent in the healthcare system. In a country’s economy, salaries of healthcare professionals constitute a significant share of health budgets in that country as health workers are the critical gatekeepers of the health system. The USA federal government should implement the strategy of motivation for healthcare professionals to help in addressing the issue of workforce shortage and discontent in the health system. Motivation refers to a person’s willingness to perform and retain efforts towards a company’s goals and objectives. It is closely related to job satisfaction which is helpful in maintaining employees at their jobs over time. Keeping employees in the health system in the USA helps in reducing the costs of recruiting, hiring and orienting new employees and decreases the likelihood of having vacant posts in the health system (Vujicic & Zurn, 2006). Keeping healthcare professionals satisfied and motivated facilitates the smooth running of the entire system as well as improves public health as health workers will willingly attend to patients.
Motivation is based on professional, social and economic factors which influence health workers’ willingness to stay in their jobs. When health employees are motivated, they feel satisfied and effective in their jobs and performs well in delivering their services to the public. Factors which facilitate motivation and satisfaction among healthcare employees include enough compensation, developing health career as well as the provision of adequate living and working environments. The USA federal government should ensure there are strong human resource methods in the healthcare system to facilitate the provision of the appropriate motivational factors at adequate levels to make the healthcare workers satisfied. The federal government should focus on delivering online training courses to healthcare workers in rural areas to motivate them to continue working in those areas (Deussom et al., 2012). Health employees can be unmotivated due to lack of promotions opportunities as this makes them develop bad feelings which affect their services. Therefore, the federal government of USA should ensure the legislative government implements a policy which facilitates proper communication in healthcare facilities through holding staff appraisals and having transparent promotion procedures in health centers.
Motivation strategy implemented by the USA federal government through the government’s legislation should offer chances for development of health career, ensure enough compensation for health employees as well as enhancing favorable working and housing conditions. Knowing that there is an opportunity for career development is an essential factor in motivation of healthcare employees and permit them to continue interacting with the changing medial requirements in the societies. Job satisfaction in healthcare facilities is indicated by the increased number of job opportunities in the health facilities through moving up facility hierarchy or through offering employees the chance of learning new things (Vujicic & Zurn, 2006). The strategy should ensure health systems in the country help healthcare employees in planning their health careers to give them morale and facilitate maintenance of ambitious personnel in the health system.
The motivation strategy should facilitate the safety of the health workers to help in increasing the health workers’ productivity and decisions to retain their jobs. The safety measures should include providing the workers with access to clean water, training the employees to handle health equipment appropriately, ensuring an adequate supply of health equipment to healthcare centers and lowering amount of lifting heavy machines for health workers to prevent cases of absenteeism (Deussom et al., 2012). The federal government of USA should ensure motivation strategy reinforces accountability services through the development of well-performing financial systems and payments for performance plans. This ensures that healthcare staff has a high stake in achieving the health system performance goals. The motivation strategy should have a cost-benefit analysis to make it complete and therefore, the judiciary should weigh the cons and pros of implementing the plan and gather the necessary stakeholders to facilitate vetting of the required changes on the proposed strategy.
Plan of Advocating the Strategy of Motivation
The strategy of motivation can be advocated in the USA government through developing public-private associations (Goodman et al., 2006). In many countries, policy providers and educators are working together in different manner to solve the issue of workforce shortage and discontent in health systems. This has been done through private and public financing, consulting loan instructors, holding promotion campaigns, advocating flexible work-study programs for health employees undertaking advanced studies and implementing leadership qualities which enhance the value of the healthcare professionals. Proper communication should be ensured between the healthcare organizations and the federal government entities, business society and schools.
Many states have joined Nursing Licensure Compact (NLC) which permits a nurse to own a license in one country and practice in another compact country based on the country’s practice rules and regulations (Goodman et al., 2006). The agreements aid in the transfer of licensed nurses across specific geographic regions either responding to change of demand of nursing or reacting due to the occurrence of a crisis or a disaster hence this helps in preventing workforce shortage and dissatisfaction in a country. The strategy should be advocated through offering remote training places in respective regions for healthcare students in different areas. This would be more economical for the USA government to sponsor healthcare education than constructing new medical institutions. Providing remote training for healthcare students helps in providing educational chances to learners in regions without medical institutions and keeping the trainees in remote areas hence increasing the opportunities of them working in these regions.
The strategy of addressing workforce shortage and discontent can be addressed through collaboration across the country. Health systems, educational institutions, and businesses should partner to work together, create and implement the motivation strategy through providing flexible scheduling, developing particular benefits for the health system and offering loan forgiveness (Goodman et al., 2006). This will help in enticing healthcare professionals into the health systems as well as maintaining the high-quality healthcare employees. These associations should ensure government eases transfers of resources within an area about the requirements of licensure. The associations and the governments should look for an understanding of the issue facing health systems and each other’s role in addressing this issues as this will facilitate the development of a good partnering team with a common goal.
The partnerships should operationalize the strategy through understanding the sustainable and useful need for the association to work towards improving the strategic and operational levels of the approach. The collaborations should be continuously reviewed to ensure that the partnerships remain focused on its goals and are determined to attain their intended mission. This indicates that cooperation can adapt to any changes in their mission and evolving other regulations and laws for the purpose. The associations should ensure that the government offers the appropriate requirements of education and certification according to the changing medical environment. The partnerships should be assessing the progress the government is taking in implementing the strategy by evaluating their initial starting point and the growth there are making over time. They should develop effective and data-based performance measures to assess if the strategic vision is attained and permit the necessary changes to be made on the strategy.
Proposed Regulation Policy for the Issue
SECTION 1.
The innovation of motivation strategy Act in the health system.
Innovation motivation Act should be aimed at introducing new information of motivation which facilitates the provision of motivational factors which at adequate levels to make the healthcare employees satisfied with their working environments. The Act will be able to enhance proper communication in healthcare facilities, development of medical career, increased compensation for health professionals and improving working and housing conditions for the health workers.
SECTION 2.
Human resources are essential elements of the health system which play a role in providing services to societies.
Motivation is the act of enhancing a person’s willingness to perform and retain efforts toward healthcare goals and objectives.
Compensation is pay given to counterbalance defects of work or structures in a health system.
Pay for performance is value-based performance purchasing model which provides financial incentives to healthcare professionals for attaining specific performance measures.
SECTION 3.
The innovation motivation strategy Act will be implemented by the legislative government agency which would enforce accountability services by providing adequate financial well-performing financial systems and pay for performance initiatives. The Act should be reinforced to improve safety measures of healthcare employees through providing the workers with access to clean water, training the employees to handle health equipment appropriately, ensuring an adequate supply of health equipment to healthcare centers. This will lower the amount of lifting heavy machines and workload for health workers which will help in preventing cases of absenteeism. The legislative agency should implement the Act to help healthcare employees in the planning and management of their health careers to give them morale and facilitate maintenance of ambitious personnel in the health system.
SECTION 4.
The Act will be implemented from January 21, 2019, to June 15, 2019
SECTION 5.
All laws in conflict with this legislation are at this moment declared null and void.
Introduced for Congressional Debate by _____
References
Aiken, L. H., Clarke, S. P., Sloane, D. M., Sochalski, J. A., Busse, R., Clarke, H., & Shamian, J. (2001). Nurses’ reports on hospital care in five countries. Health Affairs, 20(3), 43-53.
Buerhaus, P. I., Staiger, D. O., & Auerbach, D. I. (2004). New signs of a strengthening US nurse labour market. Health Affairs, 23(2), 526-533.
Deussom, R., Jaskiewicz, W., Dwyer, S., & Tulenko, K. (2012). Holding Health Workers Accountable: Governance Approaches to Reducing Absenteeism. Capacity plus Technical Brief, IntraHealth, Washington, DC.
Goodman, D. C., Stukel, T. A., Chang, C. H., & Wennberg, J. E. (2006). End-of-life care at academic medical centers: implications for future workforce requirements. Health Affairs, 25(2), 521-531.
Vujicic, M., & Zurn, P. (2006). The dynamics of the health labor market. The International journal of health planning and management, 21(2), 101-115.
