Discussion: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues
Discussion: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues
Quite often, nurse leaders are faced with ethical dilemmas, such as those associated with choices between competing needs and limited resources. Resources are finite, and competition for those resources occurs daily in all organizations.
For example, the use of 12-hour shifts has been a strategy to retain nurses. However, evidence suggests that as nurses work more hours in a shift, they commit more errors. How do effective leaders find a balance between the needs of the organization and the needs of ensuring quality, effective, and safe patient care?
In this Discussion, you will reflect on a national healthcare issue and examine how competing needs may impact the development of polices to address that issue. Discussion: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues
To Prepare:
- Review the Resources and think about the national healthcare issue/stressor you previously selected for study in Module 1.
- Reflect on the competing needs in healthcare delivery as they pertain to the national healthcare issue/stressor you previously examined.
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By Day 3 of Week 3
Post an explanation of how competing needs, such as the needs of the workforce, resources, and patients, may impact the development of policy. Then, describe any specific competing needs that may impact the national healthcare issue/stressor you selected. What are the impacts, and how might policy address these competing needs? Be specific and provide examples. Discussion: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues
RUBRIC:
| Excellent | Good | Fair | Poor | ||
| Main Posting | 45 (45%) – 50 (50%)
Answers all parts of the discussion question(s) expectations with reflective critical analysis and synthesis of knowledge gained from the course readings for the module and current credible sources.
Supported by at least three current, credible sources.
Written clearly and concisely with no grammatical or spelling errors and fully adheres to current APA manual writing rules and style. |
40 (40%) – 44 (44%)
Responds to the discussion question(s) and is reflective with critical analysis and synthesis of knowledge gained from the course readings for the module.
At least 75% of post has exceptional depth and breadth.
Supported by at least three credible sources.
Written clearly and concisely with one or no grammatical or spelling errors and fully adheres to current APA manual writing rules and style. |
35 (35%) – 39 (39%)
Responds to some of the discussion question(s).
One or two criteria are not addressed or are superficially addressed.
Is somewhat lacking reflection and critical analysis and synthesis.
Somewhat represents knowledge gained from the course readings for the module.
Post is cited with two credible sources.
Written somewhat concisely; may contain more than two spelling or grammatical errors.
Contains some APA formatting errors. |
0 (0%) – 34 (34%)
Does not respond to the discussion question(s) adequately.
Lacks depth or superficially addresses criteria.
Lacks reflection and critical analysis and synthesis.
Does not represent knowledge gained from the course readings for the module.
Contains only one or no credible sources.
Not written clearly or concisely.
Contains more than two spelling or grammatical errors.
Does not adhere to current APA manual writing rules and style. |
|
| Main Post: Timeliness | 10 (10%) – 10 (10%)
Posts main post by day 3. |
0 (0%) – 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) – 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) – 0 (0%)
Does not post by day 3. |
|
| First Response | 17 (17%) – 18 (18%)
Response exhibits synthesis, critical thinking, and application to practice settings. Discussion: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues
Responds fully to questions posed by faculty.
Provides clear, concise opinions and ideas that are supported by at least two scholarly sources.
Demonstrates synthesis and understanding of learning objectives.
Communication is professional and respectful to colleagues.
Responses to faculty questions are fully answered, if posed.
Response is effectively written in standard, edited English. |
15 (15%) – 16 (16%)
Response exhibits critical thinking and application to practice settings.
Communication is professional and respectful to colleagues.
Responses to faculty questions are answered, if posed.
Provides clear, concise opinions and ideas that are supported by two or more credible sources.
Response is effectively written in standard, edited English. |
13 (13%) – 14 (14%)
Response is on topic and may have some depth.
Responses posted in the discussion may lack effective professional communication.
Responses to faculty questions are somewhat answered, if posed.
Response may lack clear, concise opinions and ideas, and a few or no credible sources are cited. |
0 (0%) – 12 (12%)
Response may not be on topic and lacks depth.
Responses posted in the discussion lack effective professional communication.
Responses to faculty questions are missing.
No credible sources are cited. |
|
| Second Response | 16 (16%) – 17 (17%)
Response exhibits synthesis, critical thinking, and application to practice settings.
Responds fully to questions posed by faculty.
Provides clear, concise opinions and ideas that are supported by at least two scholarly sources.
Demonstrates synthesis and understanding of learning objectives.
Communication is professional and respectful to colleagues.
Responses to faculty questions are fully answered, if posed.
Response is effectively written in standard, edited English. |
14 (14%) – 15 (15%)
Response exhibits critical thinking and application to practice settings.
Communication is professional and respectful to colleagues.
Responses to faculty questions are answered, if posed.
Provides clear, concise opinions and ideas that are supported by two or more credible sources.
Response is effectively written in standard, edited English. |
12 (12%) – 13 (13%)
Response is on topic and may have some depth.
Responses posted in the discussion may lack effective professional communication.
Responses to faculty questions are somewhat answered, if posed.
Response may lack clear, concise opinions and ideas, and a few or no credible sources are cited. |
0 (0%) – 11 (11%)
Response may not be on topic and lacks depth.
Responses posted in the discussion lack effective professional communication.
Responses to faculty questions are missing.
No credible sources are cited. |
|
| Participation | 5 (5%) – 5 (5%)
Meets requirements for participation by posting on three different days. Discussion: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues |
0 (0%) – 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) – 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) – 0 (0%)
Does not meet requirements for participation by posting on 3 different days. |
|
| Total Points: 100 | |||||
Solution
Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues
Organizations are faced with ethical dilemmas of making a choice between competing needs and limited resources. Competing needs such as patient needs, employees needs may affect policy development because it must align the competing needs with finite resources. Mental health is the national stressor issue I have selected.
How competing needs may impact the development of a policy
Competing needs may affect the development of a policy on mental health. This is because mental health affect both patient’s needs, employee’s needs, and organizational resources. For instance, with the COVID-19 pandemic which has led to loss of livelihoods and put a strain on the health sector, mental health problems are on the rise. Healthcare workers are also burdened with the workload, and themselves are at risk of mental health problems .
Individuals with mental health problems are often subjected to social stigma making them not to seek treatment. In addition, the cost of treating mental problems is high, insurance coverage is insufficient, and mental health services are inadequate despite the huge demand (Grover et al., 2020). A policy addressing mental health coverage is required to meet the patient needs of seeking adequate care services, meet employee needs of not being subjected to high workload, and keep organizational operational cost at sustainable level (Jacobs et al., 2019).
If the policy increases access to mental health services and fail to address the employee needs of fair workload distribution by increasing staff, it will lead to burnout and compromising of patient safety.
Specific competing needs that may impact Mental Health
A good fit between patient’s needs of accessing mental health treatment services and employees’ needs such as necessary skills to handle mental health patients as well as the staffing levels may impact mental health as a national healthcare issue. The organization needs to explore strategies to ensure that the healthcare workers are enough and have the required expertise to deal with mental health patients.
Livanos (2018) noted that healthcare workers capacity should be matched to patient needs. On the other hand, patients’ need for quality and safe services should be met while ensuring operating costs are sustainable.
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The impacts and how policy might address these competing needs
Mental health has an impact on patient and staff needs as well as on organization’s resources. Patient require access to quality, affordable and safe services while staff require necessary skills and fairly distributed workload to function optimally (Livanos, 2018). Organization seek to offer good services while minimizing costs. A policy might help address these competing needs by increasing education, communication and training on mental health for staff to equip them with the required skills.
A policy can help address the issue of increased workload by recommending a nurse to patient ratio, and encouraging employment of more staff to adequately serve mental health patients. In addition, a policy can recommend that all health facilities to embrace telehealth which will increase access to mental healthcare services (Jacobs et al., 2019).
References
Grover, S., Dua, D., Sahoo, S., Mehra, A., Nehra, R., & Chakrabarti, S. (2020). Why all COVID-
19 hospitals should have mental health professionals: The importance of mental health in a worldwide crisis!. Asian journal of psychiatry, 51, 102147.
Jacobs, J. C., Blonigen, D. M., Kimerling, R., Slightam, C., Gregory, A. J., Gurmessa, T., & Zulman, D. M. (2019). Increasing mental health care access, continuity, and efficiency for veterans through telehealth with video tablets. Psychiatric Services, 70(11), 976-982.
Livanos, N. (2018). A Broadening Coalition: Patient Safety Enters the Nurse-To-Patient Ration Debate. Journal of Nursing Regulation, 9(1), 68-70. Discussion: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare Issues
