Impact Report to Senior Leadership Assignment

Nursing Challenges

The healthcare industry provides a significant amount of services in any economy by ensuring the well-being of the population that improves the general output in the other parts of the economy. The industry requires proper attention and investment since it directly deals with human life. Therefore, for any economy to succeed, it should first ensure that much of its investments take place in the healthcare sector to help improve patient safety, timely treatment and eradication of disease-causing factors in the environment. However, during the daily struggle to ensure the protection of the society, nurses and other medical practitioners face a lot of challenges that interfere with their abilities to offer perfect medication to patients. The problems do not just impact the patients’ life negatively but also go to the extent of exposing the physicians to harm (Sujan, 2015). The healthcare issues can arise because of patient confidentiality violation, managing conflict, and nursing workforce shortage. The paper intends to primarily analyze nursing challenges, majorly patient and staff safety and using SWOT analysis try to identify a possible solution to the problem.

Patient and Staff Safety Issues

Most medical practices expose their healthcare providers to factors that can affect their wellbeing as they provide treatment to their patients. Physicians work in poor environmental conditions, make use of low-quality equipment, high patient population, and inadequate information systems. Poor working conditions expose the physicians to the contraction of diseases from their patients. Poor sanitation and improper cleaning of the treatment environment also creates situations where patients are infected with secondary illnesses which worsens their health status (Schwappach & Gehring, 2015). Applying the use of low-quality equipment in medication also forces the medical practitioners to manipulate the tools to fit the present health challenge. Equipment manipulation in healthcare practice is dangerous since it creates a platform for medication errors.

Medical practitioners are also affected physically and psychologically by the patient population ration. When physicians are forced to tend to a large number of patients in limited period cases of unsafe treatment are likely to arise. A small nurse workforce with a large patient population means that the nurses will have to work for long hours without enough rest. They are therefore likely to cause mistakes because of fatigue affecting both their patients and their wellbeing. Lastly, low wages and poor living conditions also change the health quality status of nurses (Sujan, 2015). They are forced to handle large volumes of work in healthcare practices but are rewarded a small number of wages, not enough to meet all their basic needs. They are therefore unable to afford proper lifestyles and diet which exposes them to poor health.

An organizations statement explains the purpose it intends to serve the society, overall goals, and the kind of services it provides, geographical region and market. The primary purpose of most healthcare organizations is to provide medical services and ensure the wellbeing of a society. Therefore, any disease-causing factors and cases in the community are evidenced enough of a health facility failure. Patient and staff safety issue affect the ability of healthcare organizations to meet its intended goals (Schwappach & Gehring, 2015). The mission statement of better health provision cannot be if the level of healthcare practice is not quality enough to eradicate the disease factor from the population and give medical practitioners an opportunity for better health.

SWOT Analysis To Identify Organizational Factors That Impact Patient/staff safety

STRENGTHS Proper government investment Availability of well-educated graduates from the medical schools Advancement in technology Diversity in healthcare	WEAKNESSES Continuous modification of diseases High patient population Improper working environments Lack of staff development
OPPORTUNITIES Globalization of the healthcare industry The invention of advanced information systems Development of mentorship programs Creation of family planning methods to help limit population growth	THREATS High unemployment rates Increased rates of chronic diseases Changes in disease patterns while the curriculum in medical schools remain the same Increase in illness causing factors

According to the swot analysis, the possible factors that provide an opportunity for the emergence of patient and nurse safety issues are a continuous modification of illnesses making the available medical equipment and procedures irrelevant. High patient population ration creates a situation where a physician overworks and strains both mentally and physically. Improper working environments also create a platform for infections to spread and therefore medical practitioners can contract their patients’ illness (Schwappach & Gehring, 2015). However, the hospitals can solve the problem by concentrating on the available strengths such as proper government investments, availability of healthcare employees, advanced technology, and healthcare diversity. They will help in quality and quantity improvement in the healthcare workforce hence reducing medical errors that lead to safety issues.

Change in trends and lifestyles lead to the emergence of new threats to the measures created in the healthcare industry to try and solve safety issues. High unemployment rates, change in disease patterns and increased environmental factors that can cause illnesses and create more complications in the healthcare field. The increased levels of chronic diseases are one of the expected significant blows in the healthcare industry that demands maximum medical attention and a quality number of medical practitioners, a step that is currently a challenge (Steven et al., 2014). However, improvement opportunities are also presented by the advancement in technology, globalization of the industry, mentorship program development, and invention of family planning methods. When the outlined opportunities are adequately utilized chances of solving the safety issues are improved.

Leadership Skills, Knowledge, And Abilities Required To Solve The Issue

A leader plays the most significant role in the success of any organization. Therefore, it is necessary that someone with the most relevant skills, knowledge and abilities is put in charge of the process to solve the health issues in the medical industry. A leader in this situation must be motivated to encourage the team of the nurse to give their maximum output for the betterment of patients’ health. He should also have the ability to understand the teams’ grievances and integrate collaboration in practice. Involvement of the team in decision making encourages them to feel responsible and therefore ensure they perform right (Bishop & Macdonald, 2017). Creativity is also important to come up with effective procedures that can handle new health problems without errors.

The new nurse leader position will help improve the general outcome of patients’ treatment. Nurses will have a platform to share their challenges with someone who can offer or advocate for their grievances. With the position, assessment of the nurses working process is also improved which helps in the identification of challenges, and opportunities to improve the situations. Change is effective if it is implemented using the right procedures (Sujan, 2015). Therefore, the creation of the nursing leadership position creates an effective channel for change implementation, work progress assessment, and observation of the patients’ treatment outcomes.

References

Bishop, A. C., & Macdonald, M. (2017). Patient involvement in patient safety: a qualitative study of nursing staff and patient perceptions. Journal of patient safety, 13(2), 82-87.

Schwappach, D. L., & Gehring, K. (2015). Frequency of and predictors for withholding patient safety concerns among oncology staff: a survey study. European journal of cancer care, 24(3), 395-403.

Steven, A., Magnusson, C., Smith, P., & Pearson, P. H. (2014). Patient safety in nursing education: contexts, tensions and feeling safe to learn. Nurse Education Today, 34(2), 277-284.

Sujan, M. (2015). An organisation without a memory: a qualitative study of hospital staff perceptions on reporting and organisational learning for patient safety. Reliability engineering & system safety, 144, 45-52.