This often leaves nurses feeling powerless over their work life as well as their personal life. Mandatory overtime has generated much hostility and resentment between nursing facilities and their employees. But if mandatory overtime is so problematic, why is this practice so commonly used? THE REASONS BEHIND MANDATORY OVERTIME Numerous factors contribute to the increased use of mandatory overtime. Several of those issues began in the 1990s when changes in the health care system were implemented.
There is an ongoing shortage of nurses, which along with emotional stressors, is said to be the cause of burnout among nurses. It has made nurses fearful of patient safety because of the inadequate staffing. The most common source of burnout among nurses is the work overload. The problem of inadequate staffing causes nurses to have an increased workload. Nurses can end up working long days and nights, overtime work, rotating shifts, and weekend work.
A third contributing factor is very interrelated to nursing education is that nursing education has shifted from hospital-based diploma programs to university and college programs. This shift created the need for hospitals to increase the percentage of paid nursing staff to keep up with the demand of related to the void of care provided by nursing students (Fox & Abrahamson, 2009). A fourth factor contributing to the current nursing shortage is the economic stress that nursing turnover creates in the healthcare setting. The nursing profession can be stressful mentally, physically, and emotionally creating an argument that nurses are not adequately compensated for their working environment. With other less stressful professional occupations available to a profession that is primarily female individuals are leaving the profession (Fox & Abrahamson, 2009).
Staffing issues Sandra Terry Drexel University Critical issues facing most hospitals and long term facilities today is staffing correctly on nursing units for the number of patients and acuity of patients. What happens when the nursing units are not staffed adequately from budget cuts, illness or nursing shortage, and what can be done? When units are not properly staffed, there is an increase in mortality nurses run the risk of medication errors, missed charting, decreased patient satisfaction, and the possibility of having a hospital stay longer than necessary. These issues are usually the result of nurses unable to take the time needed to assess their patients. When there are more patients to handle than time allows nurses might take short cuts in their nursing care.
MHA 624 Week 6 Final Paper Click Link Below To Buy: http://hwcampus.com/shop/mha-624-week-6-final-paper/ Executive Summary Ashford General Hospital has been face with a nursing shortage due to retirement, low retention rates, nurses feeling exhausted and overworked. This nursing shortage is not only affecting Ashford General Hospital, it is also affecting many hospitals within the United States. Nursing shortages has not only affected the safety of the nurses that are being overworked, the shortage has also affected patient satisfaction which could potentially cause a financial burden for the organization as well as human resource issues. In order to doctor this nursing shortage and possible future crisis, a proposal for change has
Topic Proposal NUR/598 XXXXXXX University of Phoenix Patricia Dehof XXXXXXX Poor job satisfaction is an issue being faced by many health care organizations. Nursing retention and inadequate staffing can occur as a result of job dissatisfaction. This paper presents a proposal to educate physicians and nurses on methods of improving collaboration and relationships. . There are many factors that can cause job dissatisfaction and turnover rates.
Executive Summary – Middlefield is facing the high employee turnover, workforce shortage - especially of Nurses and low employee morale problems. Some of the findings about the causes of the problems are opening of the new hospital with better facilities and advanced technology for patient treatment and care, unavailability of quality instructors for nursing degree programs at universities. To tackle the problems, efficient use of existing Nursing workforce should be done in the short term. Whereas aggressive retention policies and increase in production of quality Nursing workforce should be long term strategies. Also Middlefield must ensure to increase the employee morale.
According to the literature reviewed, there is a direct correlation between turnover of nurses and CNAs to the quality of patient care. Hunt (2009) gives a concise explanation of the correlation of staff shortage on patient care: Staff shortages caused by nursing turnover are associated with significant decreases in the general quality of patient care, increases in the length of patient stays within hospitals, and greater numbers of hospital-acquired patient illnesses and conditions that do not qualify for Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement (p.3) Another report published by the American Association of College of Nurses’ stated the same thing that there is a correlation between nurse to patient ratio and the quality of care given. As a result many organizations are left having to do major damage control externally, to prevent a bad reputation. Instead of external PR, organizations need to start taking a hard internal look at their staff management. Reasons for Staff
Nurses are overworked and understaffed because the government has made cut-backs to the very system that was designed to protect the health of every citizen. Doctors cannot be trained quickly enough to accommodate the population,
Malpractice can be increasing because of a severe shortage of trained nurses, and it happened because of a few factors: nurses are required to work longer shifts; they can lead to fatigue and increase the risk for an error; also short Nursing courses providing degrees with no sufficient time to train nurses results in malpractice. Nurses who lack the experience and knowledge fail their duty, and when it happen not only them but also the hospital in which they work bear the consequences. Because most nurses are employees of hospitals, hospitals are frequently defendant in nursing malpractice cases. Another factor that contributes to nurse malpractice is miscommunication. Even though it is unintentional it can lead to tragedy.