Human Resource Management Strategy in the Health Industry Paper Example

Introduction

The physicians were placed at the top of the hierarchy while the nurses came at the bottom before a major hospital restricting that happen in the 1980s and 1990s. However, as competition intensified in the health industry, hospitals resorted to keeping the costs down while ensuring nurses retention and improvement of the patients care (Kobis & Kennedy, 2006). For instance, the hospitals ended up hiring unlicensed assistants to aid the nurses, decentralized decision making and shared governance without raising the cost of operations (Greiner, 1995). The restocking of supplies and cleaning of the patient's rooms were some of the non-nursing tasks that the assistant personnel was recruited to assist. Improved efficacy was seen by the hospital administrators as the nurses could use more of their time and energy to focus clinically on the patients (Clarke & Donaldson, 2008). Moreover, during this era, hospitals were forced to address the efficiency of the patients care through the Medicare Prospective Payment System. In order to decrease the waste of costs and time, improve hospital efficiency by providing efficient healthcare, hospitals resorted to the use of throughput (Clarke & Donaldson, 2008). However, focusing on nursing, the use of throughput leads to an increase in workload as it raises the demand for nursing care. However, the hospital's administrators are more inclined to an economy based lens while nurses are inclined on the safety of the patient throughput and patient care (Kobis & Kennedy, 2006). Nurses argue on the basis of the patient outcome in relation to nurse staffing in order to lure the hospital administrators to provide additional resources (Clarke & Donaldson, 2008).

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Several studies on the patient outcomes and the hospital structure have focused on the outcomes at the hospital level, the proposition of RNs and the nurse staffing education level. Administrative data has played a critical role in the provision of the necessary information for these studies. There seem to be higher rates of poor patient outcomes based on low nurse staffing as per the study was done by the Agency for Healthcare (2004).

Associated ethical concerns

An increase on the bottom line, decrease quality based on the adverse events, higher readmissions, patient dissatisfaction and longer lengths of stays are some of the issues that can be brought about by the lack of adequate nurse staffing. An increase in the requirements for nursing care might be contributed by a variety of factors. Nurses' workload might be influenced by high patient turnover rates (Kobis & Kennedy, 2006). The top influencers of nurse's workloads include the high numbers of unplanned discharges and admissions (Kobis & Kennedy, 2006). For instance, the transfer, discharge or admission of a patient takes a nurse approximately 1-1.5 hours (Lane et al., 2009). There is an increase in the risks of adverse events to the patients as the nurse concentration is taken away from providing surveillance and care to the rest of the patients. Therefore, the abilities of the nurses to provide adequate care might be significantly affected. Kalisch et al., (2009) argue that nurses are faced with several challenges and disruption in their planned care when the patient's turnover is more rapid. For instance, based on cognitive psychology research under demanding work circumstances an individual performance is best when it remains undisturbed and focused (Kalisch et al., 2009). Missed patient care or delays might be brought by through this disruptions. Moreover, a nurse may misinterpret or miss a patient's vital information during transfers, discharges or admissions hence sometimes it might result to putting the life of the patient at risk (Kalisch et al., 2009). Nurses receive or send patients vital information during the patients' transfers, discharges and admissions as they are fundamental hand-off points. Therefore, any misinterpretation of the hand-off points may result in information errors, omissions, and gaps (Kitch et al., 2008). Nurses need to be provided with enough resources and time during the recording and sending of patient's information in order to prevent missed care and provide high-quality care (Kalisch et al., 2009). Without these measures, the probability of patients failing to get the best services is high.

The hand-off points are significant during the hospitalization of a patient. For instance, a head-to-toe physical examination is done by nurses during admissions in order to transport the patient safely to bed, obtain interface with the physicians and the family member, laboratory specimens and the collection of pertinent psychosocial information. The discharge of a patient entails the care coordination with the home health agencies, potential social workers, and the families. Therefore, nurses are mandated to provide answer and teaching that the family or the patient on how to continue with medication or care after the patient is discharged. The same effort and time are required during the transfer of a patient out of a hospital or a unit (Kalisch et al., 2009). Moreover, there are similarities in admitting and transferring a patient. A nurse workload is also increased through the transfers of the patient within the same hospital or organization. The internal transfers might include the intra-unit and inter-unit transfers.

Alternatives for resolving the issue

The alternatives for resolving Inadequate nursing staffing and increased risk for patient safety include alternative work arrangements, empowerment of nurses, team working and strategic management as discussed below.

Alternative work arrangements

Alternative work arrangements are approaches to staffing; they are different from the employment of employees on a full-time basis. The most common methods include temporary workers recruited by an agency on behalf of the firm and pay the workers through the recruiting agency. Independent contractors, one-call and contract company workers are the other methods under this approach. Therefore, For instance, its hospital needs to have their administrative policy permitting the use of alternative work arrangements which accommodates both the needs of a department and employees. Therefore, the alternative work arrangement is the collaboration between the supervisors and staff members where they both arrive at a deal that is beneficial to the department and patients. The use of alternative work arrangements will enhance the hospitals' efficacy in patient care.

Employee empowerment

Employee empowerment is defined as the act of giving both authority and responsibilities to employees so that they can make their own decisions with regard to customer services, and all other aspects of the development of products. Therefore, the employees will be held accountable for everything that is related to the services and products while sharing the resulting rewards and losses. This aspect of human resource management can be extended to innovations. Therefore, there is the sharing of ideas by all nurses at different levels for operating more safely and efficiently hence satisfying the company's clients. A good example of how nurses are empowered through the "Head of Sustainability" program which is a campaign that focuses on nurse engagement, where each nurse is appointed ahead of sustainability. Hospitals should also employ nurse empowerment so as to enhance their productivity.

Teamwork

Teamwork is the act of assigning duties to various groups of employees who have different skills who come together to provide services or assemble products. This teams often carry out duties and functions that are for the management. For instance, they select members of the team, coordinate and schedule work with both the other units and clients. Moreover, these teams perform quality control and inspections to ensure that the services are provided. Hospitals should provide an excellent platform where an individual nurse has a responsibility to contribute towards teams efforts. Workers within the hospital are expected to work closely with each other so that they can foster a sense of collaboration. Working as a team encourages innovative thinking and the stimulation of idea. Leaders share challenges and ideas which evolve and shape the future of the medical institutions (Burton et al., 2016).

Strategic management

Armstrong defines human resource management strategy as the intentions and arrangements that an organization of how it is going to achieve the business aims that should be achieved through people who are employed in the organization. HRM strategies are based on three principles; first, the human resource is an essential basis for competitive advantage in the industry. Second, it is the human beings who put the strategic plans on an action, and finally, logical principles should be used to come up with the destination that the business wants to reach and the means to get there. Therefore, Armstrong views human resource management strategy as the blueprint that shows how an organization intends to achieve its general goals using its employees. Human resource management strategy is also defined by Fottler as the complete collection of managerial practices that are associated with coming up and maintaining a credible workforce. The human resource managers have been observed to take strategic views of their job and to acknowledge the important relationship between the strategies of the organization and the human resource strategies. Fottler view is based on the principles of coming up with an employee base that can achieve tasks that are allocated to them.

Hospitals should have a human resource department that is in charge of taking care of basic human resource activities. The basic roles of this department are outlined below each accompanied by an in-depth evaluation. The first human resource core activity is staffing or recruitment. Recruitment is the basic human resource activity since it determines the workforce that the organization will have hence has a great impact on organizational performance.

The hospitals staffing criteria should have a basis on performance related HRM strategies approaches of human resource strategies. The recruitment process is mainly focused on getting a workforce that has a high-performance capability. This principle is the core of high-performance management approach of HRM strategy that aims to affect the results that the organization gets in sections that include productivity, quality, customer satisfaction, expansion, and revenue returns. This approach goes in line with the vision of the company to have a satisfied customer base, thus having maximum profits.

Hospitals should be involved in carrying out intensive recruitment procedures with the aim of selecting the best of the candidates who have the capability of improving the performance of a specific section of the organization. The high-performance management approach involves having rigorous training for the employees especially the recruits so that they can have reliable knowledge and skills to carry out the tasks to their best (Burton et al., 2016). The practices that involve the high-performance management approach greatly put input in the skills and the abilities of the employees, designing work that ensures proper coordination among the employees.

Employee training and development is significant to the retention and performance of nurses. Employee development is a framework attempts to help employees grow in personal and organizational skills, knowledge, and abilities. The main components of employee training are based on the orientation, operational and managerial skills of th...