NURS 6053 Assignment: Developing Organizational Policies and Practices
Sample Answer for NURS 6053 Assignment: Developing Organizational Policies and Practices Included After Question
NURS 6053 Assignment Developing Organizational Policies and Practices
Competing needs arise within any organization as employees seek to meet their targets and leaders seek to meet company goals. As a leader, successful management of these goals requires establishing priorities and allocating resources accordingly.
Within a healthcare setting, the needs of the workforce, resources, and patients are often in conflict. Mandatory overtime, implementation of staffing ratios, use of unlicensed assisting personnel, and employer reductions of education benefits are examples of practices that might lead to conflicting needs in practice.
Leaders can contribute to both the problem and the solution through policies, action, and inaction. In this Assignment, you will further develop the white paper you began work on in Module 1 by addressing competing needs within your organization.
RESOURCES
Be sure to review the Learning Resources before completing this activity.
Click the weekly resources link to access the resources.
WEEKLY RESOURCES
To Prepare:
- Review the national healthcare issue/stressor you examined in your Assignment for Module 1, and review the analysis of the healthcare issue/stressor you selected.
- Identify and review two evidence-based scholarly resources that focus on proposed policies/practices to apply to your selected healthcare issue/stressor.
- Reflect on the feedback you received from your colleagues on your Discussion post regarding competing needs.
The Assignment (1-2 pages):
Developing Organizational Policies and Practices
Add a section to the 2-3 page paper you submitted in Module 1. The new section should address the following in 1-2 pages:
- Identify and describe at least two competing needs impacting your selected healthcare issue/stressor.
- Describe a relevant policy or practice in your organization that may influence your selected healthcare issue/stressor.
- Critique the policy for ethical considerations, and explain the policy’s strengths and challenges in promoting ethics.
- Recommend one or more policy or practice changes designed to balance the competing needs of resources, workers, and patients, while addressing any ethical shortcomings of the existing policies. Be specific and provide examples.
- Cite evidence that informs the healthcare issue/stressor and/or the policies, and provide two scholarly resources in support of your policy or practice recommendations.
- Due to the nature of this assignment, your instructor may require more than 7days to provide you with quality feedback.
NURS 6053 Assignment Developing Organizational Policies and Practices
BY DAY 7 OF WEEK 3
Submit your revised paper.
SUBMISSION INFORMATION
Before submitting your final assignment, you can check your draft for authenticity. To check your draft, access the Turnitin Drafts from the Start Here area.
- To submit your completed assignment, save your Assignment as WK3Assgn_LastName_Firstinitial
- Then, click on Start Assignment near the top of the page.
- Next, click on Upload File and select Submit Assignment for review.
A Sample Answer For the Assignment: NURS 6053 Assignment: Developing Organizational Policies and Practices
Title: NURS 6053 Assignment: Developing Organizational Policies and Practices
Burnout among nurses compromises the quality of health-care services patients receive. The evidence-based practices require that nurses engage with their patients and create a friendly environment to identify their needs and develop better treatment measures. Besides, they have to take an adequate history of the patients and make accurate diagnoses. On the other hand, nurses experiencing burnout will not have the urgency to interact with the patients because they feel undervalued and insignificance. Various factors contribute to the burnout experiences among the nurses. Some of the factors include a poor working environment and relationship with the leaders. Alternatively, the increasing number of patients with chronic illnesses increases the demand for nursing services. Also, patients with terminal illnesses require palliative care which is dependent on the holistic care approach. Such environments cannot be achieved with the high incidence of burnouts among the nurses. Therefore, addressing the health issue will be important progress to improving the quality of life of the nurses and the quality of healthcare services patients receive.
Two Competing Needs Impacting Your Selected Healthcare Issue/Stressor
The previous analysis focused on improving the healthcare worker’s work-life in the University Of Florida Shands Hospital. The competing needs that could impact the burnout issues in the hospital include the need to improve leadership and management in the organization, the need to develop a collaborative culture that allows healthcare providers to share ideas widely and improve the patients’ management. Also, there is a need to promote nursing informatics in the institution, which will significantly improve the quality of healthcare services the patients receive. The healthcare system is dynamic and this means that the needs will also change from time to time. However, the ability of the healthcare institution to handle the needs as they arise depends on the leadership practices.
Furthermore, poor leadership contributes to a poor working environment, which ultimately contributes to high burnout among the nurses. As a result, there is an urgent need to embrace transformational leadership and a culture of collaboration in the institution. The leadership and cultural system will create a sense of belonging and so reduce the turnout rate as well as burnout incidences among the nurses. Furthermore, nursing informatics needs to aim at linking the patients to the healthcare providers and utilizing the available data to improve the quality of healthcare services the patients receive. It may appear futile to increase the number of nurses or even offer counsel when their working environment is unconducive. Integration of an automated data management system will allow the nurses to access the patients’ data and link with other departments easily and so minimize the time taken to attend to a patient.
Relevant Policy or Practice in Your Organization That May Influence Your Selected Healthcare Issue/Stressor
The policies for addressing the healthcare issue in the organization include the increased use of an outside agency to supply the nurses, offering of counseling programs, shifting the 12 hours of work to 8 hours in a day, and offering preceptors for each new employee during the training. The policies aim to improve the nursing experiences and making them more productive in the duties. The policy on increasing the nurse supply and reducing the ratio of patients to nurses will prevent overload and so allow the nurses to spend adequate time with their patients (Boamah et al., 2016). Inadequate supply of the nurses results in overload and prolonged working hours because of the ever ballooning number of patients.
On the other hand, the counseling programs seek to deal with the psychological concerns of the patients. Burnout is characterized by emotional and psychological exhaustion with the victims having low energies to deliver in their areas of responsibilities. Therefore, offering counseling services will help in identifying other factors likely to be contributing to burnout and how to address them. Furthermore, reducing the working hours from 12 to 8 hours means that the nurses will have time to rest and engage in social activities. Also, their levels of fatigue will reduce significantly (Liu et al., 2019).
Critique The Policy for Ethical Considerations
The policies and practices support the ethical principles guiding the healthcare practice. The goal of healthcare delivery is to promote healthy living and reduce suffering among patients. On the other hand, it may be impossible to reduce suffering among patients when the healthcare providers are suffering. Therefore, the practices aimed at improving the quality of life for the nurses and giving them the freshness to handle patients’ needs accordingly. Also, the policies support the ethics of justice. On the other hand, some of the policies regarding the promotion of ethics include discrimination in recruitment by external agencies. Furthermore, the counsellors could provide bias information or rather use the nurses’ data against them. The effectiveness of the counselling sessions depends on the transparency and openness between the nurses and their counsellors. There are cases where nurses may outline specific relating to the organization’s management. Lack of confidentiality from the counsellor could lead to exposing the nurses and affecting their working relationships further.
Policy or Practice Changes Designed To Balance The Competing Needs Of Resources, Workers, And Patients
The organization should embrace open forums where both the leaders and nurses can share their ideas and opinions on the work process. The policy will help in balancing the need to address nurse burnout and the leadership approaches in the organization. The forums will promote the transformational relationship between the nurses and the leaders and so facilitate quality healthcare delivery. Recruiting transformation leaders or rather offering training may require additional resources. Similarly, adding the number of nurses in the organization will require more financial input. However, creating open forums and regular meetings will help in devising collaborative methods to address the nurses working conditions and improve leadership experiences. Burnout is not always about inadequate staffing; however, employees’ experiences and interactions with the organization plays an important role.
According to Asif et al. (2019), transformational leaders seek to understand the experiences of the nurses and work with them to overcome the challenges. The regular interaction between the leaders and the nurses allows frequent communication and sharing of ideas that alleviate the burnout experiences among the nurses (Wu et al., 2020).
Conclusion
Finally, burnout is a serious concern in healthcare delivery. Proper policies should be developed to improve the working experiences of the nurses and allow them to offer quality healthcare services to the patients. There is a need to increasing the nursing staff, reduce the working hours and offer counselling services; however, the hallmark approach to burnout incidences is improving the leadership practice and working environment which stimulates passion for work among the nurses.
References
Asif, M., Jameel, A., Hussain, A., Hwang, J., & Sahito, N. (2019). Linking transformational leadership with nurse-assessed adverse patient outcomes and the quality of care: Assessing the role of job satisfaction and structural empowerment. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(13), 2381. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16132381
Boamah, S. A., Read, E. A., & Spence Laschinger, H. K. (2016). Factors influencing new graduate nurse burnout development, job satisfaction, and patient care quality: A time-lagged study. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 73(5), 1182-1195. https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.13215
Liu, C., Liu, S., Yang, S., & Wu, H. (2019). Association between transformational leadership and occupational burnout and the mediating effects of psychological empowerment in this relationship among CDC employees: A cross-sectional study. Psychology Research and Behavior Management, 12, 437-446. https://doi.org/10.2147/prbm.s206636
Wu, X., Hayter, M., Lee, A. J., Yuan, Y., Li, S., Bi, Y., Zhang, L., Cao, C., Gong, W., & Zhang, Y. (2020). A positive spiritual climate supports transformational leadership as means to reduce nursing burnout and intent to leave. Journal of Nursing Management, 28(4), 804-813. https://doi.org/10.1111/jonm.12994
A Sample Answer 2 For the Assignment: NURS 6053 Assignment: Developing Organizational Policies and Practices
Title: NURS 6053 Assignment: Developing Organizational Policies and Practices
Healthcare organizations focused on delivering high-quality patient care usually have various ongoing activities at any occasion of different project lengths that require different investments of human and financial resources. The activities often conflict, potentially hindering the organization’s success due to competing needs. However, health organizations can balance the competing needs by planning strategically, setting goals, constant communication, and utilizing supportive tools (Gaim et al., 2018). Nursing shortage is the identified national healthcare stressor. The purpose of this paper is to explore the competing needs that impact nursing shortage, discuss practice in the organization that impacts nursing shortage, and recommend a practice change that can balance the competing needs.
Competing Needs Impacting Nursing Shortage
Nursing shortage is measured in connection with a healthcare organization’s staffing levels, available resources, and approximates of health care demand. The gap between the currently available workforce and the target for a higher level of workforce provision is defined as a shortage (Marć et al., 2018). The competing needs affecting the nursing shortage in the organization include patients’ healthcare needs and financial needs for the organization’s projects. There is an increasing need for high-quality healthcare among patients, which creates a high workload for nurses. With the increased aging population characterized by a high prevalence of chronic illnesses, patients need nurses to provide high-quality care (Marć et al., 2018). The patients’ healthcare demands have significantly created the nursing shortage in healthcare organizations. Furthermore, the increasing healthcare needs cause fatigue and burnout among the current workforce resulting in high turnover, which results in further nursing shortage.
The financial needs for an organization’s ongoing projects are another competing need impacting nursing shortage in organizations. Limited financial resources significantly contribute to the nursing shortage since healthcare leaders are required to allocate resources based on priority needs (Marć et al., 2018). Competing needs occur when leaders are forced to choose if to prioritize financial resources to hire more nurses or to use the resources for projects such as infrastructure and purchasing medical commodities. Besides, competing needs arise when leaders have to choose whether to use the limited financial resources as financial incentives for nurses or utilize the resources in other projects (Marć et al., 2018). Choosing the latter option results in inadequate motivation from the organization causing low job satisfaction, high turnover, and eventually nursing shortage.
A Practice in My Organization That May Influence Nursing Shortage
Mandatory overtime is a practice in my organization that may influence nursing shortages. The organization has seen a dramatic increase in leaders using mandatory overtime as a staffing tool. Mandatory overtime is an unsafe staffing practice that is commonly used to address the nursing shortage. Nurses are forced to work extra shifts because of inadequate staffing resulting in high burnout levels and job turnover, further worsening the shortage issue (Son et al., 2019). Besides, mandatory overtime negatively affects patient care since it is attributed to increased cases of medical errors and missed nursing care, resulting in poor patient outcomes and high healthcare costs. Nurses are involved in numerous activities during a single shift, including admitting patients, administering medication, conducting patient assessments, implementing nursing care interventions, and discharges. The duties cause physical and psychological fatigue such as muscle, joint, and back pains, high anxiety levels, depression, and sleep disturbances (Santana et al., 2020). The fatigue and negative health effects of long working hours from mandatory overtime shifts have been associated with a high nursing turnover rate secondary to low job morale. Furthermore, the negative effect on nurses’ health has caused a high rate of sick offs, which further causes a nursing shortage.
Ethical Considerations of the Practice
Mandatory overtime practice aims to meet the nursing staffing needs necessary to meet patient healthcare needs, thus promoting the best health outcomes. Mandatory overtime ensures that adequate nurses attend to patients at every shift, which ensures all interventions are implemented and promotes patient satisfaction. Therefore, the strength of the practice in promoting ethics is seen in ensuring patients receive the needed nursing care to promote better health outcomes (Son et al., 2019). The practice upholds beneficence by ensuring that there are enough nurses to meet patients’ needs at any shift and thus promote the best patient outcomes.
Nevertheless, the mandatory overtime practice is faced with ethical challenges since it puts patients’ and nurses’ health at risk, thus failing to uphold nonmaleficence. Extended shifts have been linked with increased risks for injury, such as musculoskeletal injuries, cardiovascular symptoms, development of high blood pressure, and high-stress levels due to fatigue and inadequate rest (Santana et al., 2020). The practice makes nurses work extended hours without having sufficient sleep, which is detrimental to their mental health. Inadequate rest and sleep and the ensuing fatigue affect a nurse’s ability to provide optimal patient care, thus affecting the quality and safety of patient care. Therefore, the practice puts patients’ safety at risk and increases the risk of hospital-acquired complications from poor or missed nursing care (Son et al., 2019). Furthermore, mandatory overtime violates the nurses’ right to make independent decisions on when to work overtime. Although some nurses do not mind working overtime, mandatory overtime is often an intrusion into nurses’ free time. It takes away their opportunity to engage in social life and have a healthy work-life balance (Santana et al., 2020). Besides, nurses hardly ever assess their fatigue levels correctly until they are at a point of being impaired.
Policy or Practice Changes Designed To Balance the Competing Needs
Task shifting is a practice change tailored to balance the competing needs in relation to the nursing shortage. Task shifting refers to a practice in which trained cadres without competencies for specific tasks implement the tasks, thus increasing levels of health care access (Afolabi et al., 2019). Task shifting seeks to offer cost-effective healthcare services by a new cadre of workers when a nursing shortage puts irrational demands on the existing nurses who cannot meet patients’ health needs. For instance, some trained nurses from other countries may not have the credentials to work as registered nurses in the US due to training differences. Task shifting can be applied by employing these nurses as health care technicians or nurses’ aides. It shifts their roles and responsibilities to diverse practices, especially in areas of long-term care (Leong et al., 2021). Besides, the registered nurses can delegate simple tasks to the nurses, thus reducing the workload.
Conclusion
Nursing shortage is a persistent health issue that affects nurses’ ability to provide high-quality care to patients, thus, compromising the safety of care and patient outcomes. It is not only an organizational challenge but also a healthcare challenge since it adversely affects healthcare outcomes. The competing needs affecting the nursing shortage in the organization are patients’ healthcare needs and financial needs for the organization’s projects. Mandatory overtime shifts have adverse health effects on nurses and patients. Task shifting can be introduced in the organization to lower nurses’ workload, thus reducing the associated nursing shortage.
References
Afolabi, O., Abboah-Offei, M., Nkhoma, K., & Evans, C. (2019). Task-shifting must recognize the professional role of nurses. The Lancet Global Health, 7(10), e1328-e1329. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(19)30358-4
Gaim, M., Wåhlin, N., e Cunha, M. P., & Clegg, S. (2018). Analyzing competing demands in organizations: a systematic comparison. Journal of Organization Design, 7(1), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41469-018-0030-9
Leong, S. L., Teoh, S. L., Fun, W. H., & Lee, S. W. H. (2021). Task shifting in primary care to tackle healthcare worker shortages: An umbrella review. European Journal of General Practice, 27(1), 198-210. https://doi.org/10.1080/13814788.2021.1954616
Marć, M., Bartosiewicz, A., Burzyńska, J., Chmiel, Z., & Januszewicz, P. (2018). A nursing shortage – a prospect of global and local policies. International Nursing Review. https://doi.org/10.1111/inr.12473
Santana, I. R., Montes, M. A., Chalkley, M., Jacobs, R., Kowalski, T., & Suter, J. (2020). The impact of extending nurse working hours on staff sickness absence: Evidence from a large mental health hospital in England. International journal of nursing studies, 112, 103611. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2020.103611
Son, Y. J., Lee, E. K., & Ko, Y. (2019). Association of Working Hours and Patient Safety Competencies with Adverse Nurse Outcomes: A Cross-Sectional Study. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(21), 4083. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16214083
Grading Rubric
| Performance Category | 100% or highest level of performance
100% 16 points |
Very good or high level of performance
88% 14 points |
Acceptable level of performance
81% 13 points |
Inadequate demonstration of expectations
68% 11 points |
Deficient level of performance
56% 9 points
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Failing level
of performance 55% or less 0 points |
| Total Points Possible= 50 | 16 Points | 14 Points | 13 Points | 11 Points | 9 Points | 0 Points |
| Scholarliness
Demonstrates achievement of scholarly inquiry for professional and academic topics. |
Presentation of information was exceptional and included all of the following elements:
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Presentation of information was good, but was superficial in places and included all of the following elements:
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Presentation of information was minimally demonstrated in all of the following elements:
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Presentation of information is unsatisfactory in one of the following elements:
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Presentation of information is unsatisfactory in two of the following elements:
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Presentation of information is unsatisfactory in three or more of the following elements
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| 16 Points | 14 Points | 13 Points | 11 Points | 9 Points | 0 Points | |
| Application of Course Knowledge
Demonstrate the ability to analyze and apply principles, knowledge and information learned in the outside readings and relate them to real-life professional situations |
Presentation of information was exceptional and included all of the following elements:
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Presentation of information was good, but was superficial in places and included all of the following elements:
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Presentation of information was minimally demonstrated in the all of the following elements:
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Presentation of information is unsatisfactory in one of the following elements:
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Presentation of information is unsatisfactory in two of the following elements:
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Presentation of information is unsatisfactory in three of the following elements
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| 10 Points | 9 Points | 6 Points | 0 Points | |||
| Interactive Dialogue
Initial post should be a minimum of 300 words (references do not count toward word count) The peer and instructor responses must be a minimum of 150 words each (references do not count toward word count) Responses are substantive and relate to the topic. |
Demonstrated all of the following:
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Demonstrated 3 of the following:
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Demonstrated 2 of the following:
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Demonstrated 1 or less of the following:
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| 8 Points | 7 Points | 6 Points | 5 Points | 4 Points | 0 Points | |
| Grammar, Syntax, APA
Points deducted for improper grammar, syntax and APA style of writing. The source of information is the APA Manual 6th Edition Error is defined to be a unique APA error. Same type of error is only counted as one error. |
The following was present:
AND
AND
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The following was present:
AND/OR
AND/OR
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The following was present:
AND/OR
AND/OR
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The following was present:
AND/OR
AND/OR
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The following was present:
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The following was present:
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| 0 Points Deducted | 5 Points Lost | |||||
| Participation
Requirements |
Demonstrated the following:
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Failed to demonstrate the following:
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| 0 Points Lost | 5 Points Lost | |||||
| Due Date Requirements | Demonstrated all of the following:
A minimum of one peer and one instructor responses are to be posted within the course no later than Sunday, 11:59 pm MT. |
Demonstrates one or less of the following.
A minimum of one peer and one instructor responses are to be posted within the course no later than Sunday, 11:59 pm MT. |