Project - Interview Decision Makers

Introduction of Project: Week 1

Tanyanika McMillian

South University

The person in charge of any health care facility may have direct or indirect effect on the financial and budget tasks. Financial management of a facility encounters various challenges and issues when it comes to the aspect of dealing with funding. Patient care problems is any factor that will hinder or delay the process of patients enjoying the quality health care service. The effects of patient care issues are felt directly on the finances of health care facilities.

An example of a health care problem in my workplace is the inability of patients to enjoy services of well trained and adequate personnel in their treatment due to understaffing of nurses. There is an impact on budget as a financial management issue in my workplace due to understaffing of the staff members mainly nurses. Understaffing occurs when the total demand of nurse service is outweighed by the high numbers of patients which has financial implications (Stanton & Rutherford, 2004). 

Understaffing has been an issue at my place of work causing various financial challenges which makes it tough for the facility to function on the set and allocated budget. There is reduced labor in the facility which forces the available nurses to offer poor quality service to the patients, along with poor staff retention. It cost our facility money when we take the time to have employees go through paid orientation, pay for background checks, and drug screens with the employee not staying on staff. Poor employee retention affects our facilities financial plan and leading to financial management issues.

When an inadequate number of nurses are caring for patients the quality of service will be reduced hence increasing the rates of infection and the spread of nosocomial infections. This can cause the facility extra money to treat patients receiving infections during care from the facility hence affecting the budget.

From the two articles, I have researched; it is very clear to me that patients tend to take a prolonged period of time in hospital beds or increases the number of revisits which are associated with nurse understaffing. Understaffing leads to exhausting the nurses hence meaning they will offer poor quality services, medication errors, and missed treatments just to name a few.

The summary of literature, entitled “Managing Unnecessary Variability in Patient Demand to Reduce Nursing Stress and Improve Patient Safety” by Litvak, Buerhaus, Davidoff, Long, McManus & Berwick talks more on how hospital is affected by understaffing of nurses. Understaffing causes distress both to patients and nurses (Litvak, Buerhaus, Davidoff, Long, McManus & Berwick, 2005). The stress of understaffing nurses can be solved through improving patient safety and quality of care. The hospital needs to have the needed resources so that it can cater for the demand of patients according to the article.

Summary of the second article named; “Effects of Hospital Care Environment on Patient Mortality and Nurse Outcomes” was by Linda, Sean, Douglas, Eileen and Timothy. A study was conducted to investigate the impacts of nurse practice surroundings on nurse and patient results after accounting for nurse enrollment and education. The result for this study was that nurses testified more positive job capabilities and fewer anxieties with care superiority, and patients had knowingly lower threats of death and letdown to rescue in hospitals with better care surroundings (Aiken, Clarke, Sloane, Lake & Cheney, 2008).

The literature gives the solution to the health care problem of understaffing of nurses through giving several options. The options highlighted are; that the health facility needs to have adequate and qualified nurses who will ensure they provide quality health care services to patients. The insights for understaffing is working on staff retention, ensuring that staff if oriented to the unit and facility policy and procedures given the proper education to provide patient-centered quality care.

The role of the nurses in relationship with the health care problem of understaffing nurses will affect the recovery of patients either directly or indirectly. Having few nurses in a health facility, it will imply that the patients will often fall affecting negatively their recovery. While in health facility, the patients are likely to give their responses or launch their issues to nurses for the necessary cation to be taken. In cases of reduced nurses in numbers, it lead to delayed responses hence affecting recovery. It is the role of a nurse to guide and ensure that all the admitted patients take medication as required, the right person, right dose, at the right time. In cases of understaffing of nurses in health facilities, some of the patients will lack guidance and advise from nurses when taking medication leading to them either taking overdose, underdose or wrong medication resulting to medical errors from the lack of proper patient education from the nurse.

In summary, health care problems affects both patients and the health facility involved. From the literature, it is very clear that nurses are very vital in the health care facility and they should be sufficiently staffed.

Aiken, L. H., Clarke, S. P., Sloane, D. M., Lake, E. T., & Cheney, T. (2008). Effects of hospital care environment on patient mortality and nurse outcomes. The Journal of nursing administration, 38(5), 223.

Stanton, M. W., & Rutherford, M. K. (2004). Hospital nurse staffing and quality of care. Rockville: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Litvak, E., Buerhaus, P. I., Davidoff, F., Long, M. C., McManus, M. L., & Berwick, D. M. (2005). Managing unnecessary variability in patient demand to reduce nursing stress and improve patient safety. The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, 31(6), 330-338.