Healthcare Issue
It is a national issue that the medical field is experiencing a shortage of nurses, which has been worsening. However, more people are demanding health care due to the rise in population, especially among older adults, and the growth in cases of chronic illnesses. Nonetheless, insufficient numbers of qualified nurses satisfy this rising demand, resulting in overworked personnel.
Consequently, organizations have had to subject existing nursing teams to heavier workloads, which causes fatigue, a drop in motivation, and finally affects patient support quality. For instance, one can see how the problem impacts such data from within the establishment, which shows nursing shortages growing across six Mayo Clinic sites (Rinehart, 2022). In addition, this increases staff workload, preventing them from fully implementing their roles.
Summary
In order to recruit and retain nurses, innovative strategies have been proposed by many scientists, including competitive salary levels, flexible schedules, and professional development. To address these issues successfully discussed by other researchers working for leading healthcare organizations facing similar nursing shortages, there are effective interventions identified by Shamsi and Peyravi (2020). One such intervention includes starting a nurse residency program to anticipate future shortages through partnerships with nursing schools (Turale & Nantsupawat, 2021). This can enhance nursing education pipelines and the use of technology to streamline workflows.
There is a nationwide shortage of nursing staff at Mayo Clinic, similar to many healthcare organizations. As demand for health care services continues to rise, the strain on current nursing personnel also rises (Rinehart, 2022). Because of this scarcity, the workforce is overworked and burnt out, and Mayo Clinic has trouble maintaining its reputation for high-quality patient care. Being proactive in addressing the nursing shortage is what needs to be done, exemplified by the development of a comprehensive nurse residence program to support newly recruited staff (Rinehart, 2022). Besides, to solve this, Mayo Clinic has partnered with local nursing schools to ensure that it always has a stream of qualified applicants.
Strategies
National organizations have a range of approaches to effectively address the organizational impact of these national healthcare issues and stressors. Under this, nurse residency programs are often implemented to give new nurses structured support and mentorship. Such programs have helped ease the transition of new employees into work and develop their skills, leading to low employee turnover rates.
Collaborating with educational institutions is another central approach that involves partnerships with nursing schools to build a continuum of well-qualified nurses (Broome & Marshall, 2021). This ensures enough skilled professionals come from academia as the need for patient care grows in these organizations. Moreover, technology integration has been instrumental in improving workflows and reducing the workload on healthcare providers. Electronic health records and communication tools streamline processes, thus helping institutions adapt to increased workloads.
One way to improve staff morale is by introducing a nurse residency program that provides new employees with structured support and mentorship. This means that if people had a mentorship model similar to that of an organization like the Mayo Clinic, it would help create a sense of community as well as professional growth. It is through this collaboration with educational institutions that there will be a continuous supply of competent nursing professionals.
In this regard, this strategy has positive impacts on patient care (Amalberti et al., 2019). For instance, we can enter into partnerships with local nursing schools so as to develop internship programs designed to produce skilled new graduates. On the other hand, the system has some shortcomings, namely that it requires a lot of financial investment while implementing nurse residency programs and working with educational institutions (Dixon-Woods et al., 2012). The organization’s budget will be burdened, though this is just short-term, as its future benefits are also numerous.
References
Amalberti, R., Vincent, C., Nicklin, W., & Braithwaite, J. (2019). Coping with more people with more illness: Part 1: The nature of the challenge and the implications for safety and quality. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 31(2), 154–158.
Broome, M., & Marshall, E. S. (2021). Transformational leadership in nursing: From expert clinician to influential leader (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Springer.
Dixon-Woods, M., McNicol, S., & Martin, G. (2012). Ten challenges in improving quality in healthcare: Lessons from the Health Foundation’s programme evaluations and relevant literature. BMJ Quality & Safety, 21(10), 876-884.
Rinehart, J. (2022). Nurses demand Mayo Clinic Health System address staff shortages, sacrifices. KEYC.
Shamsi, A., & Peyravi, H. (2020). Nursing shortage, a different challenge in Iran: A systematic review. Medical journal of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 34, 1-9.
Turale, S., & Nantsupawat, A. (2021). Clinician mental health, nursing shortages and the COVID‐19 pandemic: Crises within crises. International nursing review, 68(1), 12-14.