Staff Shortage and Poor Job Satisfaction Rates Resulting in Turnover

                    Developing a Shared Vision: Staff Shortage and Poor Job Satisfaction Rates Resulting in Turnover Name Institutional Affiliation  
Developing a Shared Vision: Staff Shortage and Poor Job Satisfaction Rates Resulting in Turnover Issues Facing the Organization             In the ancillary department, our hospital with over 500-bed capacity continues to face severe challenges related to staff shortage where we have been experiencing a record low count of the number of physicians, nurses, ancillary services and other allied health providers. The issue of staff shortage has consequently resulted in poor working conditions where healthcare providers work for long hours leading to job burnouts. Failure to address such critical issues has led to high turnover among care providers who have opted to seek other environments that could offer better conditions. These problems are not unique to our ancillary department, but a common issue affecting countless leaders of today’s health care organizations. In order to address these challenges, it is important to appreciate the impact of the issues to the ancillary department, devise ways to enhance communication, collaboration and teamwork to improve the current conditions in the department and point out ways in which inclusion can be fostered to improve collaboration and communication. Impact of Staff Shortage and Poor Job Satisfaction to Ancillary Department             There is an acute shortage of healthcare workers across the world with increasing numbers of professions such as physicians, nurses, and allied healthcare providers recording high vacancy rates across the United States and other nations. This exerts pressure to a point where the ancillary department is challenged to support primary physicians with roles traditionally defined to them. Leaders of healthcare organizations are ever challenged to fill such vacancies at increasing costs. For instance, expenses to cater for the recruitment and retention of registered nurses (RN) continue to soar. A number of hospitals are now using traveling or agency nurses to fill the vacant positions with others paying expensive sign-on bonuses to nurses. This only leaves hospitals with hiked operation costs and the overcrowding and diversion at the ancillary department. This is a challenge that directly calls for the intervention of the administrators since such a shortage can result in declined staff morale.             Research shows that there is an association between job satisfaction and the rates of turnover in hospitals globally (Baernholdt & Mark, 2009). Work environment and the characteristic of nursing units significantly influence both job satisfaction for healthcare workers and the turnover rates. In the ancillary department, there is increased pressure to support primary care providers with routine therapeutic, diagnostic and custodial duties when the turnover rates of care providers are high. Hospitals experiencing poor retenti...