National Healthcare Issues

If you were to ask 10 people what they believe to be the most significant issue facing healthcare today, you might get 10 different answers. Escalating costs? Regulation? Technology disruption? Social Determinant such as environment/community, education, access/quality to healthcare?

These and many other topics are worthy of discussion. Not surprisingly, much has been said in the research, within the profession, and in the news about these topics. Whether they are issues of finance, quality, workload, or outcomes, there is no shortage of changes to be addressed.

In this Discussion, you examine a national healthcare issue and consider how that issue may impact your work setting. You also analyze how your organization has responded to this issue.

I will post the other two students so you can respond to them:

1st response Angela12:40amAug 28 at 12:40am
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Initial Post

The national healthcare issue that I have selected is the lack of access to providers for mental health services. Many Americans lack the financial or physical resources to receive the appropriate healthcare services they require. Mental healthcare is particularly difficult because of the lingering social stigmas and shortage of services (Coombs, et al., 2021). Improved technology, increased delegation of work, and efficient care processes can assist practices meet the needs of patients with fewer physicians, but an increasing number of health professionals is still evident (Auerbach, et al., 2018). Mental health issues are common and can arise secondary to hospitalizations. Patients have to wait longer periods of time before they are able to see a provider. If Mental Health issues are not addressed in a timely manner, physiological processes begin to occur, and patients are put at risk for harm.

Social determinants that most affect this issue are the geographic location of a person. In more rural areas of the United States, health care providers for specialties can be harder to find. Another common social determinant that affects mental health is belonging to a minority population. Minorities have less access to mental health services and receive subpar quality mental health care. This results in minority individuals being left with unmet mental health needs (Kuriakose, 2020).

In my health system, we utilize tele medicine frequently for mental health visits in the hospital as well as for outpatients in the community. The mental health providers are located throughout Florida and are able to assess patients, prescribe medications and evaluate via tele medicine. Another strategy being implemented is hiring more Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioners (PMHNP). The collegial relationship between physicians and NPs proves to be an important aspect of care delivery and very beneficial to patients (Poghosyan, et al., 2018).

Reference

Auerbach, D. I., Staiger, D. O., & Buerhaus, P. I. (2018). Growing ranks of advanced practice clinicians—Implications for the physician workforce. New England Journal of Medicine, 378(25), 2358–2360

Coombs, N. C., Meriwether, W. E., Caringi, J., & Newcomer, S. R. (2021). Barriers to healthcare access among U.S. adults with mental health challenges: A population-based study. SSM – population health, 15, 100847. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2021.100847

Kuriakose S. (2020). Pandemics and Mental Health: an Unfortunate Alliance. SN comprehensive clinical medicine, 2(11), 2197–2201. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42399-020-00501-y

Poghosyan, L., Norful, A., & Laugesen, M. (2018). Removing restrictions on nurse practitioners’ scope of practice in New York state: Physicians’ and nurse practitioners’ perspectives Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, 30(6), 354–360.

2nd response ..Emily … There are several different positions and facilities that are in need for nurses. With the high demand for nurses there has become a shortage for nurses. Nurses work in several different conditions with varying work demands, support and approaches to work. With these differences there can be some added stressors of working in healthcare every day. These stressors can cause workplace challenges that can limit an nurses’ ability to deliver timely and effective care (Rose et al., 2021). With the higher demand for nurses and the short supply of them it has created a nursing shortage which has been a national stressor that can have several effects on patient care.

The effects of the nursing shortage has been seen in several facilities. I have noticed it in the facility that I work at. As Shah et al. stated, the nursing shortage is a leading cause of burnout among nurses. It increases the nurse-patient ratio implying that nurses are overworked and may lack time for self-care and other activities that enhance commitment to work further observed that nurses experiencing burnout are more likely to commit medical errors than nurses working within the standard nurse-patient ratios (Shah et al. 2021). When errors are made in patient care the patient’s safety is at risk. When patient’s notice errors it can cause them to not trust their healthcare providers and can deter them from seeking medical care. Burn-out is another reason for the nursing shortage. When employees feel burn-out they will often leave and seek a different profession or different position. Burnout triggers turnover and increases an organization’s costs since replacing nurses can be costly.

In order to avoid the possible damaging effects of the nursing shortage, healthcare organizations should implement strategies that are not only organization- wide but also staff-centered. The facility I work at has responded to the nursing shortage by not only giving the staff they currently have a raise along with an increase in paid time off but also by reaching out to nursing schools to get new hires to fill in the holes. There has also been policy changes on the nurse to ratios in order to help decrease the nurses workload. As Lee et al. noted, nurse motivation is critical to creating a positive work atmosphere and retaining nurses (Lee et al., 2022). This perspective helps guide management in developing and implementing programs and policies needed to help maintain staff. Nursing can be a mentally and physically straining job so having a management that supports their staff is important. It’s important to make sure that the workload that the nurse takes is a safe manageable load. This helps keep staff and it helps keep patients safe.

References

Lee, J. Y., & Lee, M. H. (2022). Structural model of retention intention of nurses in small-and medium-sized hospitals: Based on Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene theory. Healthcare, 10(3), 502. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare10030502Links to an external site.

Rose, S., Hartnett, J., & Pillai, S. (2021). Healthcare worker’s emotions, perceived stressors and coping mechanisms during the COVID-19 pandemic. PLoS One, 16(7), e0254252. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254252Links to an external site.

Shah, M. K., Gandrakota, N., Cimiotti, J. P., Ghose, N., Moore, M., & Ali, M. K. (2021). Prevalence of and factors associated with nurse burnout in the US. JAMA Network Open, 4(2), e2036469-e2036469. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.36469

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