Essay Sample on Healthcare Industry Challenges: Population Growth, Unfunded Care & More

Introduction

The healthcare industry has evolved following the rapid population growth. However, it is facing challenges associated with factors such as shortage of workforce, an increase of chronic and contagious illnesses as well as the increase of containment cost. The challenges are contributed by the rise of unfunded care and a shortage of care providers across the globe. The healthcare system has to provide services to as many patients as possible to maximize the revenue and meet the federal and state mandate for the provision of the services to maintain economic viability. To achieve this, the healthcare industry has to provide more nursing staff at all levels of care provision. Such can be on various terms such as flexible unbenefited positions, voluntary overtime as well as contracted labor. Reduced nursing stuff leads to nurses working overtime to provide the necessary services to meet the health demands of the increased population with increased health issues. Nursing overtime has raised various concerns regarding the negative impacts of overtime on both the patients and nurses due to nurse fatigue as a result of long working hours and inadequate sleep. Therefore, nurses should not work overtime; rather, they need to work within the limited hours and off-duty to reduce medical errors, increase their level of satisfaction and improve the quality of the care they provide.

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Burnout and Job Dissatisfaction

Job satisfaction allows the employees to contribute effectively to the vision and mission of an organization. Such is achieved through motivation and provision of the necessary resources that allow for the achievement of the set goals and objectives. However, some factors can lead to a lack of job satisfaction, such as an unfriendly working environment, poor working relationships, and overworking, leading to burnout. Such reduces the level of productivity, which affects the overall profitability. This is not an exception in the health care industry where the physicians are in constant interaction with the patients. There is a need for working terms and an environment that boosts am individual productivity and gives them the morale of providing quality and safe care. “Working overtime increases burnout and dissatisfaction levels among the nurses and other health care providers,” as postulated by Di (2019). Nurse burnout has various adverse effects on both the nurse and the patient. It affects the nurse's wellbeing due to the feeling of both physical and mental exhaustion, sleep problems, and depression. Besides, it causes compassion fatigue, making the nurses disengage from the patients they should be providing care. The nurses suffering from burnout are less motivated and experience lower cognitive functioning as a result of emotional exhaustion, posing a risk to patient safety (Rajan, 2017). Research depicts that there is a close association between the physician's burnout and the surgical site infection. Therefore, the reduction of nurses’ burnout can decrease the probability of medical errors and therefore improve patient safety and save on the cost of infections. Turn-over and nursing shortage is a factor associated with under stuffing and overworking of the available nurses (Lobo et al., 2018). The factor has been a result of insufficient nursing school enrolment and faculty hence few specialized individuals to replace the aging and retiring working populations. Therefore, there lacks a balance between the working nurses and the increasing number of populations with various health needs. Such implies that the nurses will have to work overtime to meet the population health demands and therefore suffer the implications of continuous burnout. The solution to this is the enrolment of more nurses and employment in various health levels to provide sufficient labor such that an individual will have to provide care for a specific proportion of patients. This will ensure that there is close contact between the nurses and patients and, therefore, the provision of quality care, which increases job satisfaction levels.

Medical Errors

Nurses play significant roles in ensuring patient safety, especially because they deal with irreversible issues. Every action they take when handling a patient counts in whether they will offer the solution or allow the patient to achieve a peaceful death. Medical errors are some of the factors that make the nurses provide under quality care, which is against the health system expectations because there is no rehearsal in medical matters. Medical errors are common in hospital setups. Various factors lead to medical errors, including the lack of open communication as well as faulty information technology in the health facility. According to Son & Ko (2019), “Working overtime contributes to medical errors.” In the United States, medical errors are the leading cause of death, surpassing other chronic illnesses such as diabetes and Alzheimer’s. The most common types of medical errors include errors related to hospital-acquired infections, inadequate follow-up after treatment, failure to take the recommended precautions when handling the patient, avoidable treatment delays, and inadequate monitoring after a medical procedure. The identification of these mistakes is essential in learning how to prevent, monitor, and provide a timely response to the same (Wheatley, 2017). Such allows for the raising of care standards where the care providers protect themselves and the patients hence improving the quality of care while lowering the costs. Having nurses work for long hours can contribute to an increase in medical errors, affecting overall healthcare delivery. Such is a result of fatigue that affects their cognitive functioning such that they cannot concentrate when providing care. Besides, the lack of enough sleep and rest between the shifts affects their alertness hence causing medical errors and patient safety accidents like the needle stick injuries. Such has a significant influence on the quality of care delivery and, thus, the overall patient outcomes. Therefore, reducing nursing overtime has a substantial impact on patient safety and the quality of care they receive through the decrease if medical errors.

Counter-Argument

Despite the negative impacts of nursing overtime, it has some positive side as well. Research postulated that working overtime improves the financial status of the nurses. The financial wellbeing act as a motivating factor in improving the quality of services they offer to the patient. In every working environment, there are organizational set goals and objectives that have to be met within a specified period. To achieve this, employers have to drive the employees to work in the same direction. At some point, the project may get tough, requiring an increase of workforce or having the available ones work extra harder to achieve the set goal and objectives. To enhance their productivity, the employer must motivate the workers by motivating them by rewarding the top performers and encouraging the rest to increase their productivity. The implication is to increase productivity and meet the set goals without increasing the workforce. Such happens even in the healthcare setting where the nurses work overtime and get financial motivation. The nurses feel empowered to fulfill their mandate in care provision. Besides, through improving their financial status, the nurses are likely to be more accountable in their duty. There is also an undeniable relationship between employee motivation and job satisfaction, which increases the probability of achieving the goals and objectives. Therefore, paid nursing overtime creates an organizational behavior in a health set-up, which enhances the quality of service. Such has a positive impact on patient safety, and overall outcome as the nurses will provide the required care. However, in the long run, financial rewards cannot help to increase productivity or enhance efficiency (Wheatley, 2017). Therefore, it is essential to mix financial rewards with other forms of motivation, such as training and social acknowledgment.

Solution

The healthcare industry should discourage overtime from working among nurses. The concept should not form part of the health system's organizational behavior. The incentives and packages to motivate the well-performing nurses should be provided instead of having them work overtime to improve their financial outcomes. When the nurses work within the specified time frame, there is a high probability that they will not suffer the implications of burnout and fatigue. The individuals will be responsible and committed to their obligation as they aim to offer quality and safe care to the patients. Besides, there will be reduced incidences of medical errors that will have a positive impact on overall patient safety. Reduced medical errors mean that the nurses can make follow-up care and ensure that the patient is following all the recommended steps towards their recovery (Gelinas, 2015). Besides, working with somber minds will reduce cases of avoidable delays, which risks the patient’s life and sometimes causes deaths, especially in case of accidents. The prevalence of nosocomial illnesses will be reducing the costs associated with such diseases. The impact is that health care investing the saved resources in other sectors will help improve the quality of care. Therefore, reducing the nurses’ burnout has both a direct and indirect impact on the management of the healthcare system.

The solution to reducing the cases of nurses working overtime and the consequences associated with the same is having more registered nursing schools. Such offers an opportunity for the individuals to enroll for nursing programs for the necessary training. Having young people get trained as nurses ensures there is a flow of human labor in the expanding healthcare system. The employment of more nurses allows for the replacement of the aging and retiring working population. The issue of turnout and nurse shortage will, therefore, be addressed. Such means that the proportion of nurses offering care matches that of the patients seeking care. The implication is the reduction of burnout as the nurses can work in shift and have enough resting time between the shifts. Besides, the nurses will be alert and have compassion for the service as a result of job satisfaction. Reduced fatigue will, therefore, protect the health care provider and the patient hence achieving quality and safe care delivery (Olds & Clarke, 2010). There will also be minimal cases of the nurses quitting their job because, with increased human resources, they will meet the health system productivity requirements; therefore, high satisfaction.

Conclusion

Nurses should not work overtime; instead, they need to work within the limited hours and off-duty to reduce medical errors, increase their level of satisfaction, and improve the quality of the care they provide. Working overtime is associated with some negative impacts such as burnouts and medical errors. Burnout affects both the nurse and the patient. The nurse suffers from mental and physical fatigue hence the inability to provide quality and safe care. On the other hand, the patient suffers from disengagement with the nurse as they have many people to attend and, therefore, no compassion for care. Medical errors are also common in health set up, and they have adverse effects on the quality of care provision.