Analyzing a Current Health Care Problem – Staffing Shortage

Analyzing a Current Health Care Problem – Staffing Shortage

One of the most significant issues in healthcare organizations is staffing shortage, which impacts the quality of services, patients, and employees. This paper will analyze the staffing shortage problem, the solutions put forward and ethical considerations, and design a comprehensive approach to solve the issue of staffing shortage in healthcare facilities.

Elements of the Problem/Issue

Lack of staffing in the healthcare systems is due to an aging workforce, increased demand for healthcare, lack of training, and higher turnover rates (Winter et al., 2020). These challenges are general and affect nursing and other specializations in healthcare, leading to staff burnout, long working hours, and poor quality of patient care. The constantly growing population also plays a role, as there is more demand for healthcare services as individuals get older. More preparation for training programs is required, thus restricting the number of qualified personnel who can meet market demands.

Staff turnover rates are among the fundamental causes of staffing issues. Possible assumptions regarding the healthcare workforce turnover are exhaustion, dissatisfaction, and improved job opportunities. This turnover reduces the pool of employees to perform the work and overloads those remaining workers, thus creating a cycle of team member burnout. Such elements only speak to the situational nature of the staffing shortage problem that cannot be addressed through a one-size-fits-all solution.

Analysis

Lack of staff is one of the most significant issues healthcare organizations face worldwide. It also decreases the quality of patient care through more extended wait periods, reduces direct patient involvement, and increases the likelihood of making a medical error. The topic is chosen because it concerns patient safety, as well as the overall effectiveness of the health care system. It also causes staff fatigue and high turnover rates, leading to a vicious cycle of staff shortage and high turnover rates.

The staffing shortage affects different groups, such as patients, healthcare providers, and organizations. Patients receive less quality care and wait longer for services, resulting in higher mortality and morbidity rates. Employed healthcare workers experience pressure and work overload, thus suffering from burnout and high turnover. Medical care facilities face significant challenges in keeping up operating costs and profits because of the prohibitive costs of turnover and the use of agency staffing.

Research also shows that staffing shortages are critical. For example, the analysis of Drennan and Ross’s (2019) work reveals that the shortage of nurses results from an aging population, insufficient training, and migration of nurses. In the same vein, Poon et al. (2022) observed that the COVID-19 pandemic worsened the healthcare workers’ turnover intentions, a problem that the healthcare setting can ill afford. These studies highlight the necessity of developing proper measures to address the need for more staff.

Considering Options

Potential Solutions

Several possible strategies can be suggested for addressing the issue of staffing shortages in healthcare professions. First, one has to raise spending on training as well as education. Strengthening nursing education institutions and creating and supporting programs aiming at producing and training nurses may go a long way toward addressing the challenge. This also entails expanding the enrollment capacity of schools to train nurses, increasing scholarships, and offering incentives for students to enter a career in the health sector.

Second, improving the work environment would be significant. Encouraging respect, tolerance, and consideration for one another in the workplace positively affects staff turnover. This involves improving organizational culture, diversity, and inclusion (Stanford, 2020). To foster a good work culture, healthcare organizations should implement several policies, including policies on mental health, recognition for staff, and equality for employees.

Third, policy and international cooperation is essential. In terms of global staffing deficiencies, it might be helpful to increase international cooperation and change policies, as suggested by the authors Drennan and Ross (2019). This can include agreeing on memoranda of understanding to improve the flow of healthcare personnel, information, and work experience and putting in place measures to train and retain the health workforce in every region globally.

Evaluating Solutions

It is important to look at the strengths and weaknesses of these solutions when assessing them. From the standpoint of training and education, the main benefit is that it helps expand the pool of qualified healthcare workers, improving the supply-demand equation. However, it calls for considerable investment and patience since training of healthcare professionals is a process that takes time.

Enhancing the physical environment reduces factors associated with staff turnover, like burnout and dissatisfaction (Zhenjing et al., 2022). These changes can result in an almost instant increase in staff satisfaction and turnover. However, these may provoke significant organizational changes and constant work on the established culture. Adopting these changes may be costly, and there will always be resistance from the staff who are used to the existing system.

Policy and international cooperation provide a more macro-level approach to the problem of staffing shortages. This strategy can help address systemic issues on a larger scale and advance support for sustainable workforce solutions. However, it needs the cooperation of different actors and can encounter institutional issues. Furthermore, care must be taken that due to differences in regulations, standards, and cultural differences, international cooperation may pose some challenges.

Solution

Among the described possible solutions, enhancing the working environment is the most pressing and effective action regarding staffing gaps. Promoting staff retention can help address burnout and job dissatisfaction issues (Donley, 2021), creating an affirmative work culture to support diverse team member needs. This includes supporting organizational culture, diversity, and inclusion. Managers in healthcare organizations should adopt methods that enhance staff relations at the workplace, including offering counseling services, incentives for good performance, and promoting equity in the workplace.

Ethical Implications

When addressing staffing shortages, the professional ethical code has several aspects to consider, such as beneficence, nonmaleficence, autonomy, and justice. Beneficence ensures that the actions taken positively impact patients and staff. For instance, enhancing working conditions to increase staff welfare and patient care outcomes is beneficial. Another important principle is nonmaleficence or not harm. Strengthening adequate staffing can eliminate medical mistakes and poor patient care, which are negative consequences of inadequate staffing. Prioritizing sufficient staffing levels can mitigate risks associated with patient harm.

Moreover, autonomy means that decisions on enhancing the work environment should involve the healthcare workers. This means allowing staff to participate in policy and process formulation concerning their work environment. HCWs’ decision-making participation will enhance organizational commitment, hence job satisfaction and reduced turnover. Further, justice entails the fair treatment and protection of the rights of all healthcare personnel. This involves the establishment of policies that are aimed at eliminating discrimination in the workplace and providing equal treatment and support for everyone in the company. According to Stanford (2020), diversity and inclusion in the workplace enhance the welfare of staff and patients in healthcare facilities. Diversely integrated teams are more innovative and effective in organizational activities and have higher team member motivation and job satisfaction.

Implementation

The changes that have been proposed will require the following approaches in their implementation. Improving training and education means that authorities and healthcare systems spend money on educational initiatives, grant scholarships, and establish a career ladder. This can involve collaborations with academic institutions to scale up the existing capacity of nursing and medical schools or provide monetary incentives for students to pursue health careers.

Workplace enhancement entails periodic evaluation of organizational culture, mental health officers, and staff recognition programs (Donley, 2021). In addition, several recommendations should be adopted to enhance the workplace environment: flexible working hours and child care, professional development, and work-life balance.

Policy and international cooperation imply that policymakers must develop frameworks that support cross-national partnerships and labor force portability. This can involve treaties by nation-states to accredit certifications in health and nurturing schemes to enhance the mobility of healthcare professionals and collective undertakings to solve the issues of the healthcare workforce globally.

Conclusion

The problem of staffing shortages in healthcare is more than merely a simple problem that requires simple solutions. It is possible to solve this problem through increased training and education, better working conditions, and learning, policy, and international cooperation. Based on ethical values, these solutions will guarantee long-term and effective healthcare staff training that is favorable for patients and healthcare organizations. Strengthening staffing levels is essential to preserving the quality, safety, and effectiveness of patient care and promoting healthcare workers’ health and job satisfaction. Working together and upholding standards of morality establishes a stronger healthcare system.

References

Donley, J. (2021). The impact of work environment on job satisfaction. Nurse Leader, 19(6), 585–589.

Drennan, V. M., & Ross, F. (2019). Global nurse shortages—The facts, the impact, and action for change. British Medical Bulletin, 130(1), 25–37. https://doi.org/10.1093/bmb/ldz014

Poon, Y.-S. R., Lin, Y. P., Griffiths, P., Yong, K. K., Seah, B., & Liaw, S. Y. (2022). A global overview of healthcare workers’ turnover intention amid COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review with future directions. Human Resources for Health, 20(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-022-00764-7

Stanford, F. (2020). The importance of diversity and inclusion in the healthcare workforce. Journal of the National Medical Association, 112(3), 247–249. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7387183/

Winter, V., Schreyögg, J., & Thiel, A. (2020). Hospital staff shortages: Environmental and organizational determinants and implications for patient satisfaction. Health Policy, 124(4), 380–388. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthpol.2020.01.001

Zhenjing, G., Chupradit, S., Ku, K. Y., Nassani, A. A., & Haffar, M. (2022). Impact of employees’ workplace environment on employees’ performance: A multi-mediation model. Frontiers in Public Health, 10(890400). NCBI. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.890400

a:link {text-decoration: none;}a:visited {text-decoration: none;
}a:hover {text-decoration: underline;} a:active {text-decoration: underline;}

We’ll write everything from scratch

---

4-6 page Analysis of a current problem or issue in health care, including a proposed solution and possible ethical implications

1. Describe the healthcare problem or issue you selected for use in Assessment 2 and provide details about it.
As you describe the topic you explored in Assessment 2, use the first four steps of the Socratic Problem-Solving Approach to aid your critical thinking. This approach was introduced in Assessment 2.
Identify possible causes for the problem or issue.
Use scholarly information to describe and explain the health care problem or issue and identify possible causes for it.
Identify at least three scholarly or academic peer-reviewed journal articles about the topic.
You may find the How Do I Find Peer-Reviewed Articles? library guide helpful in locating appropriate references.
You may use articles you found while working on Assessment 2 or you may search the Capella library for other articles.
You may find the applicable Undergraduate Library Research Guide helpful in your search.
Review the Think Critically About Source Quality to help you complete the following:
Assess the credibility of the information sources.
Assess the relevance of the information sources.
Analyze the health care problem or issue.
Describe the setting or context for the problem or issue.
Describe why the problem or issue is important to you.
Identify groups of people affected by the problem or issue.
Provide examples that support your analysis of the problem or issue.
Discuss potential solutions for the health care problem or issue.
Describe what would be required to implement a solution.
Describe the potential consequences of ignoring the problem or issue.
Provide the pros and cons of one of the solutions you are proposing.
Explain the ethical principles (Beneficence, Nonmaleficence, Autonomy, and Justice) if the potential solution was implemented.
Describe what would be necessary to implement the proposed solution.
Explain the ethical principles that need to be considered (Beneficence, Nonmaleficence, Autonomy, and Justice) if the potential solution is implemented.
Provide examples from the literature to support the points you are making.

Last Completed Projects