Demonstration of Professional Standards of Practice to Minimize Nurse Turnover or Maintain Professional Conduct

Demonstration of Professional Standards of Practice to Minimize Nurse Turnover or Maintain Professional Conduct

Nurses are the backbone of the healthcare system and thus they form a great part of support staff when it comes to the patient’s primary care. Nursing is both dynamic and also a challenging profession. It demands engagement, especially with inspirational role models and leaders (Pandey, Davis, et al., 2016). Nevertheless, in a healthcare setting where proper measures and policies have not been put in place, undesirable leaving of nurses from their work stations can be witnessed. This situation is commonly referred to as nurse turnover. nurse turnover not only carries along with it the institutional costs of hiring new nurses, but as well, it jeopardizes the day-to-day operations of the involved healthcare facility and at the same time denying the much needed continued and quality care services to the patients.Effective Approaches in Leadership and Management.

Finding and retaining the best nurse workforce is of great importance as this reduces the cost of hiring in terms of time and process expenses and as well fostering an uninterrupted environment that is best for offering the best quality primary care service (Doyle & Turkie, 2006).  Although nurse turnover has been a major challenge in the healthcare system, some policies and measures can be put in place to ensure that this undesirable trend is minimized and the health institutions’ operations are not affected in a great way(Sinclair, 2013). This paper will focus on nurse turnover, its impact on the quality of care and patient, and the differing roles of nursing leaders and nursing managers on this issue as well as the best initiatives to minimize the nurse turnover.Effective Approaches in Leadership and Management.

Nurse Turnover and Its Impacts on Quality of Care and Patient Safety

Nurse turnover has a great negative impact on the quality of care and patient safety. As nurses leave their place of work, they overstretch those that are left leading to overworking,which can turn into the patient neglect or reduced quality of care that may be unsafe to the concerned patients. Nurse on-the-job stress is common where the patient-nurse ratio is low, a situation that is mostly associated with high nurse turnover. On the other hand, healthcare facilities follow a certain guideline and work policies which may be unique to each facility. As such, newly hired nurses need to familiarize themselves with these guidelines and work policieswhich may take some time. During such a time, the newly hired nurses may not be in a position to execute their duties accordingly, a situation which may lead to a negative impact on the quality of care and patient safety within the concerned health facility(Doyle & Turkie, 2006).Effective Approaches in Leadership and Management.

Furthermore, nurses usually work as a team and thus their morale is highly dependent on team performance. When nurse’s turnover occurs, it disrupts the team performance consequently reducing the nurses working morale. This can negatively affect the quality of care disseminated by the affected nurses jeopardizing patient safety. What’s more, it is always advisable to retain an experienced workforce to ensure high-quality service delivery and professionalism within the institutional operations. In such a case, when the most experienced nurses leave their place of work, it sometimes poses a challenge to replace them with equally capable nurses with the same experience and familiarity with the facility situations (Sinclair, 2013). This may delay hiring, add up to the costs of training and as well, deny the patients the much-needed care thus posing an unsafe environment for the patients within the health facility. With all these aspects in mind, nursing turnover can be termed to be a hindering factor when it comes to the quality of care and patient safety within a given facility (Martin, 2004).Effective Approaches in Leadership and Management.

Demonstration of Professional Standards of Practice to Minimize Nurse Turnover or Maintain Professional Conduct

Nurses are guided by their professional code of conduct which guides them during their duty’s execution. This is also backed up by the established institutional work policies and guidelines. Likewise, institutions are also guided by professional standards of practice which they are obligated to observe, especially when it comes to their employees. In this case, both nurses and institutions have a role to play when it comes to minimizing nurse turnover or maintaining professional conduct (Sinclair, 2013). In this regard, the health institutions must observe standards of hiring personnel such as qualifications, experience, and institutional need basis. The institution should also comply with ILO guidelines such as freedom of unionship for the nurses.Effective Approaches in Leadership and Management.