Planned Change in a Department: Addressing Nursing Shortages

Planned Change in a Department
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Institutional Affiliation
Planned Change in a Department
The identified problem is nurses shortages. The selected healthcare unit is Montgomery Memorial Hospital (MMH). The inefficiency brought about the problem of nurse shortages is a heightened concern not only to MMH but also to other hospitals across the country. Nurse shortages are defined as a situation where the demand for physicians and nurses exceeds the supply within a specific period. The problem of nursing shortages is attributed to the changing in demographics pattern, uneven geographical distribution of nurses, training institution producing inadequate workforce and improper government policies that takes advantage of the medical graduates.
As a general specialty healthcare Centre in a constant growing American population, Montgomery Memorial Hospital receives a high number of patients every month to an extent of causing continuous congestions, hence triggering the problem of imbalanced nurse-to-patient ratio (Chapman, 2013). The hospital nurse-patient ratio currently at 1:14, which is more than double the optimal ratio. According to the American Nurses Association (ANA), the recommended right ratio is in general hospital is 1: 6 (Chapman, 2013). Practicing safe staffing in a hospital is important because it reduces instances of in medical error, hospital readmission, patient falls, patient mortality, length of patient stay as well as preventing nurse fatigue (Chapman, 2013). MMH is experiencing some of this problems due to unsafe staffing currently, therefore, an urgent solution to the problem is inevitable.
Specific, Realistic Change to Address the Issue
The specific and realistic solution to the problem is to establish a college of nursing campus that awards nursing degrees near the facility. The government has a duty to partner with a number of the facilities. The attached solution is in line with the government’s initiative to make primary care more attractive for medical students as this will attract more students to the intended medical school. The government has attained this by introducing incentives such including interns in a payroll and allowing generous loan repayment package. The idea will help in offsetting nurse shortages as the institution will provide the hospital with interim interns who will boost the nurse-patient ratio (Newman, 2013). Particularly, sufficient staffing will reduce cases of longer working hours, shifts waiting hours. In the end, all the problems associated with nursing shortage will be minimized significantly.
How the Changes Aligns with the facility’s Mission and Vision
The hospital’s mission and vision place much focus on improving patient care by delivering high-quality healthcare at an affordable cost. Therefore correct staffing will surely guarantee an improvement in the quality of patient care as nurses will not be overworked, an aspect that would affect their performance (Chapman, 2013). When the r optimal nurse-patient-ratio improves the attention given to patients, thus enhancing patient satisfaction. Correct staffing will improve safety outcomes within the facility such as reducing the incident of patient falls, healthcare-ass...