Public Health Question

OVERVIEW:

You’ve already found a newspaper article from the past year on the topic of Human Resources in Healthcare. About any current event in the news that deals with a topic covered somewhere in the textbook. With the newspaper article you’ve drawn connections between the article and information covered in the textbook. You’ve explained WHY this information is important and HOW it is related to the material covered in this class. You explained which chapter covers the topic you are talking about and how that material relates to your news article. You explained what is “Best Practice” in this area? you supported your Initial Post with information from at least 3 peer reviewed journal articles. (Note that the references must be from peer reviewed journals and provided in APA format.)

• INSTRUCTIONS: FEEDBACK Posts! You must provide FOUR Feedback posts to the uploaded 4 student post below which is numbered student 1,2,3,4. Which means you need to write at least one long paragraph (At least 8 sentences) for EACH of the student’s posts. Each of your response statements must be supported with a different reference for each student from only a peer reviewed journal article in APA format.

IMPORTANT NOTES: I am looking for detailed and well thought out responses. With a response of “I agree” without any follow-up justification are not considered to be appropriate interaction and no credit will be received for these responses. Additionally, please do NOT state in your Feedback, “That was a great post.” This does not add any relevant information to our discussion. Your grade will depend on the quality of your interaction and responses to the postings made by other students. Read messages posted by other students. Ask questions if you are unclear about someone’s response. If you disagree with someone’s post, feel free to explain your position and support your statement with references.

Student 1) https://www.hr-brew.com/stories/2023/06/22/how-one-hospital-holds-onto-employees-amid-burnout-in-the-healthcare-industryLinks to an external site.

-This article was published this year and brings attention to what I believe is a significant issue plaguing the healthcare industry, which is hospital burnout. The pandemic was incredibly devastating to the healthcare industry and put serious strain on their resources. Not only was it financially dependent on it but from a mental health standpoint, it caused many issues with workers. The pandemic created significant mental health issues among its workers (Spoorthy et al., 2020). Today we have a shortage of healthcare workers in many positions and the stress of the pandemic is one of those reasons for many healthcare workers becoming stressed out to the point where they left the industry. This article specifically interviews Janel Allen the Executive Vice President and people officer at the Children’s Hospital & Medical Center located in Omaha. Janel understands these issues the healthcare industry is facing, which is why she is allocating significant resources to improving the mental health of healthcare workers that feel over stressed and burned out. Some of the symptoms caused by burnout by healthcare workers have led to significant issues including depression, anxiety, insomnia, memory loss and back pain (Peterson et al., 2008).

-Mental health is incredibly important for people these days and can cause serious issues/ The healthcare industry is already a stressful environment but with increased people requiring healthcare, it creates an increased demand. The healthcare industry can be considered so stressful that workers have been diagnosed with the same psychological anguish experienced by soldiers in the way called moral injuries (Greenberg et al., 2020). This is a truly relevant article to a major issue affecting the healthcare industry and it is nice to know that people in senior positions understand the problem and are willing to act on it. Janel Allen essentially allocated significant resources to providing mental health improvements to healthcare workers under her command, so they do not feel overstressed or burned out from the tedious daily tasks they do. A strong mental health policy is important to deliver consistent best practice daily to people who require healthcare. The text constantly offers ways to improve healthcare delivery, but it all starts with a strong mental game. It is impossible to deliver quality healthcare if mental health is poor, which is why this study is relevant to course material.

-Best practice as described by the textbook involved consistently delivering the best methods, interventions, procedures, or techniques that are backed by scientific evidence to deliver the best patient care and medical outcomes. Scientific research highlights ways to improve practice, but the most demanding thing is applying that research into the healthcare environment, which requires significant education and training (Nutbeam, 1996). The reason this article is relevant to delivering best practice is because it is important to retain workers that have been educated and trained. The way you do this is avoid stress and burnout, which is easier said than done. A strong response to achieving this goal would be to improve the mental health of workers so they do not feel burned out. That is exactly what Janel Allen is trying to do with this new policy. You are unable to deliver the best practice for a patient if healthcare workers are constantly leaving, forcing you to educate and train another.

References:

Greenberg, N., Docherty, M., Gnanapragasam, S., & Wessely, S. (2020). Managing mental health challenges faced by healthcare workers during covid-19 pandemic. BMJ, m1211. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m1211Links to an external site.

Nutbeam, D. (1996). Achieving ‘best practice’ in health promotion: Improving the fit between research and Practice. Health Education Research, 11(3), 317–326. https://doi.org/10.1093/her/11.3.317

Peterson, U., Demerouti, E., Bergström, G., Samuelsson, M., Åsberg, M., & Nygren, Å. (2008). Burnout and physical and mental health among Swedish Healthcare Workers. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 62(1), 84–95. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2648.2007.04580.xLinks to an external site.

Spoorthy, M. S., Pratapa, S. K., & Mahant, S. (2020b). Mental health problems faced by healthcare workers due to the COVID-19 pandemic–A Review. Asian Journal of Psychiatry, 51, 102119. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajp.2020.102119

Student 2) https://web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=88&sid=777833f8-01b1-4c0f-a16e-73e20f600413%40redisLinks to an external site.

-This article was published in the New York Amsterdam News in January of 2023, and covers the nursing union workers strike. The NY State Nurses Association (NYSA) were in contract negotiations with New York based Health Care Organizations for increased wages, and most importantly, improved staffing. If agreements were not made by all hospitals by the deadline of January 8th, nurses at the remaining facilities were to walk out and go on strike. Two hospitals were left on that Sunday night where no agreement was reached, Mount Sinai and Montefiore Medical Center, and the nurses walked out on their shifts. NYSA union members stressed that the strike and contract negotiations were primarily over enforcing the nursing staffing requirements that the 2021 Safe Staffing for Quality Care Act mandated for all medical facilities set appropriate nurse to patient ratios that will ensure the best quality patient care, which NY hospitals were not adhering to (Carillo, 2023).

-The New York Amsterdam News article is connected to the text in chapter 7 of the course textbook. Chapter 7 covers nursing and what is required for nurses to deliver excellent care, which includes planning and scheduling nursing staff to support patient care, and ensuring an adequate supply of nurses from promoting healthy work environments. NYSA members were dissatisfied with the nurse to patient ratio because in the Mount Sinai Intensive Care Unit (ICU) the ratio was 3-4 patients per nurse when the appropriate ratio is no more than 2 patients per nurse in the ICU (Carillo, 2023). Chapter 7 discusses how nurses maintain quality care through staffing decisions that establish the number of care providers for each nursing unit. When there are not enough nurses on staff, this quality care measure is jeopardized, which places importance on involving nurses in the decision making process of developing staffing approaches (White & Griffith, 2019). Chapter 7 reviews how sustaining the nurse supply to prevent future nursing shortages. Nursing shortages pertain to the newspaper article because nurses who are dissatisfied with their working conditions will leave the industry, creating a shortage of nursing providers. The text explains how excellent HCOs will work to reduce nursing turnover to under 10% by increasing engagement, empowerment, continuous improvement, and work satisfaction (White & Griffith, 2019).

– The best practices in nursing staffing to prevent such a situation as was reported in the New York Amsterdam News is to implement strategies to support retention in the workforce. A major indicator of nursing turnover that leads to staffing shortages is chronic burnout. A best practice strategy for staff retention and to prevent burnout is to fill staffing gaps with float employees and tele-health providers, rather than overwork permanent nursing staff and disrupt their work-life balance (Franzosa et al., 2022). Telehealth is a solution to provide high quality care to monitor patients, such as in the ICU, that lends to improved patient care outcomes. The use of Telehealth during the Covid pandemic proved to support nursing teams along with providing bedside support to patients, regardless of the provider’s location (Gibson et al., 2021). Retention strategies that focus on improving work-life balance and stress reduction should have consistent support by leadership. These retention strategies should include supporting nationally mandated staffing ratios, empowerment of nurses by allowing them to be heard in decision making processes, and offering opportunities for professional development, education, and promotion (Brown et al., 2023).

References

Brown, J. S., Gomez, N., Harper, M., & Olivares, R. (2023). Combating the nursing shortage: Recruitment and retention of Nephrology Nurses. Nephrology Nursing Journal, 50(1), 49. https://doi.org/10.37526/1526-744x.2023.50.1.49

Carillo, K. J. (2023, January 12). NYC nurses strike, push for staffing changes. The New York Amsterdam News, p. 10.

Franzosa, E., Mak, W., R. Burack, O., Hokenstad, A., Wiggins, F., Boockvar, K. S., & Reinhardt, J. P. (2022). Perspectives of Certified Nursing Assistants and administrators on staffing the nursing home frontline during the COVID?19 pandemic. HealthServices Research, 57(4), 905–913. https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6773.13954Links to an external site

Gibson, N. A., Arends, R., & Hendrickx, L. (2021). Tele-U to tele-ICU: Telehealth nursing education. Critical Care Nurse, 41(5), 34–39. https://doi.org/10.4037/ccn2021109

White, K. R., & Griffith, J. R. (2019). The well-managed healthcare organization. Health Administration Press.

Student 3) LINK: https://www.proquest.com/docview/2814140459?pq-origsite=primoLinks to an external site.

-SUMMARIZE the article. This article discusses how we should address the current and future challenges we face in healthcare. Focusing on how prevention can help improve population health and hospital costs. In Ireland, there has been an increase in average life expectancy by two years, with women reaching the age of 84 and men reaching the average age of 81. They are seeing an increasing aging population, correlating with an increasing prevalence of preventable chronic disease. The author explains that these issues are happening not just in Ireland but worldwide. Some challenges include a shortage of healthcare workers, the rising cost of services, and the public needing to be more demanding of the care they receive and where they receive it. The article explains that we need to help prevent and address these challenges. The article goes on to project that in 2035, the healthcare system will increase its focus on preventing people’s health and well-being. With earlier intervention, it will result in better outcomes for patients and cost reductions. If diseases are caught earlier, the cost of services for the patient will decrease, and they will not need services again later on. As more new technology emerges, we will be better able to support prevention in hospitals. One of the shifts to improved prevention is improving the number of workers; they do this by implementing new care programs, like virtual healthcare, bringing in new staffing, and increasing access to increased prevention rates.

-CONNECTION TO TEXT: This article connects to Chapter 9, Population Health, as the chapter goes on to explain how prevention and intervention are essential in the healthcare industry. The textbook goes on to state some intervention and prevention opportunities, such as supporting care-providing teams, establishing a community health mission, improving access, and using the epidemiologic panning model, can help with predicting the demand based on the population. “Preventable and chronic disease is an important avenue to reducing the cost of healthcare.” (White & Griffith, 2016). The other importance of this information is that we can forecast different methods by which we can prevent many different challenges that are to come. The healthcare industry can use these methods to be ahead of the employee shortages and diseases that are to come. Both the textbook and the article explain how there needs to be prevention plans in place to help with challenges that are to go or be predicted.

– BEST PRACTICE: What is “Best Practice” in this area? The best practice is for the healthcare industry to have plans in place in case a challenge is predicted, whether it is staffing shortages and forecasting any diseases or chronic diseases that are to come. “Because it reduces risk, prevention appears to be a useful tool for insurers.” (Gauchon et al., 2020). There are many different ways that prevention programs can be implemented. For example, Gallo et al., (2022) article talks about how they integrated a distal educational intervention program during the COVID-19 pandemic for hygienic practices such as washing hands and using gloves could hinder this skin. They concluded that these educational interventions saw changes in individuals’ behavior, not excessively washing or wearing gloves for prolonged periods of time. Participants also found these intervention and prevention programs to be useful and applied the advice that they received to prevent any skin issues during this time when COVID-19 was happening. Prevention plans can also help with burnout if the organization adequately implements them. “Coinciding with this heightened awareness and appreciation for infection prevention specialists were Herculean demands that have contributed to burnout and infection prevention workforce erosion.” (Stevens et al., 2022). As we can see, using prevention methods can reduce and overall improve the healthcare industry with their workers, turnover rates, population health, and decrease the cost.

Reference

Gallo, R., Guarneri, F., Gasparini, G., Oddenino, G., Carmisciano, L., Rovini, E., & Parodi, A. (2022). Implementation of a distance learning hand eczema prevention program for healthcare workers during the COVID?19 pandemic. Contact Dermatitis, 87(3), 297–300. https://doi.org/10.1111/cod.14159

Gauchon, R., Loisel, S., & Rullière, J.-L. (2020). Health policyholder clustering using medical consumption. European Actuarial Journal, 10(2), 599–626. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13385-020-00244-z

Irish Times. (2023, May 17). The future of healthcare is bright and patient-focused: healthcare systems are transitioning to focus more on prevention and the preservation of health and wellbeing. advancements in technology will deliver more patient centred care, says yvonne mowlds, healthcare lead at pwc. Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/docview/2814140459?pq-origsite=primoLinks to an external site..

Stevens, M. P., Wright, S. B., Kaye, K. S., Zuckerman, J. M., Passaretti, C. L., Martinello, R. A., Babcock, H. M., Edmond, M. B., & Snyder, G. M. (2022). At the vanguard: Leaders’ perspectives on establishing healthcare system infection prevention programs. Antimicrobial Stewardship & Healthcare Epidemiology, 2(1). https://doi.org/10.1017/ash.2022.334

White, K. R., & Griffith, J. R. (2016). The well-managed healthcare organization. Griffith and White, Health Administration Press.

Student 4) Link: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/health-care/article259064333.htmlLinks to an external site.

-Summary The article discusses the apparent shortage of physicians which while it is being witnessed in many states in the US, Florida is particularly taking a big hit. As a result, in a city where the aging population is on a steep rise, access to healthcare is restricted which endangers the lives of these older citizens. The correspondent argues that while most countries have recovered from the onslaught of the Covid pandemic, the United States is still not in its better state, considering the loss of physicians to the pandemic and the added number of transfers to the worst-hit states. The aftermath of this situation is that Florida is largely understaffed which means that the state is largely unprepared to deal with a healthcare crisis such as an outbreak. Therefore, it is critical to reinvest in medical school infrastructure while revisiting physician compensation.

-Connection to Text There are various ways the article connects with the text such as the focus on ways of ensuring continuous improvement in the healthcare workforce. According to chapter six of the text, it is critical for the physician organization in any healthcare setting to realize its central position in ensuring better healthcare (White & Griffith, 2016). As such, the newspaper article shows there has been neglect on the part of the Florida Health Department responsible for ensuring that physicians are available, qualified and adequately compensated. Moreover, the text interlocks with the article by mentioning the primary role of the physician organization in ensuring that staffing is adequate (Kirch & Petelle, 2017). The primary goal is to promote access to quality care for all people while also ensuring that physicians are compensated well for their efforts. Lastly, it is critical to be prepared for emergencies as a healthcare department to avoid repeating the current issues in Florida.

-Best Practices The human resource agency serves various roles in physician management but most importantly, the physician organization plays a critical role. Best practices mean that HR is responsible for ensuring that physicians have better conditions to ensure they provide quality services to the populace (Dunphy et al., 2020). For instance, Florida has to revamp its medical school because while it is possible to hire doctors from abroad, the stiff competition for residents means that there will be a perpetual shortage (Figueiredo et al., 2023). Cost and limited access to proper treatments, outside policies, and accessible resources were the most commonly mentioned obstacles. In addition, it is essential to review the staffing ratio because while the hospitals in Florida may be compensating their physicians well, the excess strain could be causing burnout and possibly a higher turnover rate (Varley et al.,2019).

References

Dunphy, J. N., Weinberger, M., & Silberman, P. (2020). Strategies for implementing best practices in independent physician associations. The American Journal of Managed Care, 26(6), 262-266.

Figueiredo, A. M. D., Labry Lima, A. O. D., Figueiredo, D. C. M. M. D., Neto, A. J. D. M., Rocha, E. M. S., & Azevedo, G. D. D. (2023). Educational Strategies to Reduce Physician Shortages in Underserved Areas: A Systematic Review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(11), 5983.

Kirch, D. G., & Petelle, K. (2017). Addressing the physician shortage: the peril of ignoring demography. Jama, 317(19), 1947-1948.

Laviolette, J. L. (2022, March 21). Can’t find a doctor? Florida facing physician shortage amid growth, aging population. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/health-care/article259064333.htmlLinks to an external site.

Varley, A. L., Lappan, S. N., Jackson, J., Goodin, B. R., Cherrington, A., Copes, H., & Hendricks, P. S. (2019). Understanding barriers and facilitators to the uptake of best practices for the treatment of Co-Occurring chronic pain and opioid use disorder. Journal of Dual Diagnosis, 16(2), 239–249. https://doi.org/10.1080/15504263.2019.1675920Links to an external site.

White, K. R., & Griffith, J. R. (2016). The well-managed healthcare organization. Griffith and White, Health Administration Press.