ORGANIZATIONAL POLICIES AND PRACTICES TO SUPPORT HEALTHCARE ISSUES SAMPLE 3 Competing needs 

ORGANIZATIONAL POLICIES AND PRACTICES TO SUPPORT HEALTHCARE ISSUES SAMPLE 3 Competing needs 

As nurses we are met with ethical dilemmas daily. Ethics and laws cannot be confused, even though they both go hand in hand we must not get confused because ethics and laws are not the same. In the healthcare field, ethical dilemmas occur quite often, which aids in nurses being able to adapt and handle such events. All healthcare professionals that encounter an ethical dilemma are put in the mindset of doing what is best for the patient (Laureate Education, 2012).  

Currently, a national healthcare issue that is becoming a worldwide healthcare issue, is the nursing shortage in the work field. The shortages in nursing at many facilities have multiple effects on the quality of care rendered. Overwhelming patient assignments lead to dissatisfied and burned-out staff which then affects patient satisfaction and safety (Ingram & Powell, 2018). Safety is the number one goal of patient care. Over the years many policies surrounding safety have been revamped to ensure a safer working environment for nurses and patients during the shortage of nurses (Yang etal., 2015). 

Development of policies 

Leaders such as managers and directors of a unit must find the common balance to retain nurses. They should work to understand a common balance as well as demands being placed on staff with dangerous and unbearable patient acuities. Finding a balance between those key items can significantly aid in decreasing staff burnout and retention in medical facilities. Higher demands of needs for the care of patients vary for each unit. A patient in the Intensive Care unit will need a higher level of care than a patient on the mother baby/Postpartum unit. For each level of acuity for a patient the needs relayed back to the charge nurse and managers to appropriately assign safe nurse patient ratios on the unit. How the acuity is measured is by using an acuity tool that aids in formulating proper nurse to patient ratios. The purpose of acuity tools is to aid in increasing nurse satisfaction with their patient assignment (Ingram & Powell, 2018). 

Policies Addressing Nursing shortage 

The American Nurses Association (ANA) is an organization that safeguards nurses from unsafe nursing conditions. They have policies and standards in place to protect staff in what may be an unsafe working environment. Federal regulations have been put in place to support nursing staff for safer working environments. The goal of the policies is to ensure the patient’s safety and safe workloads in the healthcare facilities. In the state that I live in there are staffing laws, but with the use of the patient acuity tool it helps my facility create a safe and shared assignment amongst all the nurse son the unit. 

References 

American Nurses Association. (2015). Code of ethics for nurses with interpretive statements. Silver Spring, MD: Author. https://www.nursingworld.org/coe-view-onlyLinks to an external site. 

Ingram, A., BSN, RN-BC, & Powell, J., BSN, RN. (2018, April 18). Patient acuity tool on a medical-surgical unit. https://www.americannursetoday.com/patient-acuity.com