Challenges of Nursing And Health Care Essay

This is a Collaborative Learning Community (CLC) assignment.

The purpose of this assignment is to assess leadership styles, traits, and practices as a nursing professional, establish the importance of effective interprofessional communication as a leader in nursing, and to explore the role of servant leadership in nursing practice.Challenges of Nursing And Health Care Essay

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Read the study materials on leadership and complete the topic quiz activities to better understand your leadership qualities.

Upon completion, summarize and share with your group what you learned about your specific leadership qualities, so you can become familiar with how you are similar and different from your peers when it comes to being a leader.

As a group, review the study materials related to servant leadership. Using what you have learned about the tenets of servant leadership and traits and practices of successful leaders, create a 10-12 slide PowerPoint presentation with speaker notes. Add an additional slide for references at the end of your presentation.Challenges of Nursing And Health Care Essay

Include the following in your presentation:

1. Each group member: Create a slide that summarizes your leadership style, traits, and practices.

4. Discuss what leadership traits and styles are necessary to be an effective communicator. Explain the importance of leaders adapting communication approaches when working interprofessionally (across ancillary departments, vendors, community members).

6. Discuss how leaders who practice servant leadership and have a strong understanding of their personal leadership traits can successfully lead others and navigate the unique challenges that are part of nursing and health care. Provide two examples that illustrate your main ideas.Challenges of Nursing And Health Care Essay

REFERENCES

https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/leadership-style-quiz.htm

https://testyourself.psychtests.com/testid/2152

https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/ei-quiz.htm

http://people.uncw.edu/nottinghamj/documents/slides6/Northouse6e%20Ch2%20Trait%20Survey.pdf

THIS IS A TEAM WORK I HAVE TO ANSWER QUESTION #1,4,6 NO MORE THAN 6 SLIhttps://blog.mindvalley.com/transactional-leadership/?utm_source=googleDE

Nursing is often portrayed as a glamorous job and a career that many aspire to pursue. Like any other profession, a career in nursing has rewards and challenges. Nurses have the opportunity every day to make a difference in people’s lives, to connect on a personal level with another human being, and to be part of a profession that has stood the test of time throughout the ages. Nursing is currently facing a crisis of a shortage of trained nurses. Hospitals and medical facilities must address the issues of nurse retention and increasing job satisfaction in order to overcome this crisis.Challenges of Nursing And Health Care Essay

Many professions claim to make a difference in people’s lives. However, there is no guarantee what extent that difference will be. The opportunity to truly make a difference in someone’s life is one of the many rewards of nursing. A typical day of a nurse is filled with long hours of physical, mental, and emotional work. The role of a nurse varies from providing wellness education to healthy individuals to caring for sick or hurt individuals to caring for clients at the end of their lives. A nurse must constantly be at the top of their game intellectually, ready to meet the challenges of client care and make life and death decisions in a split second. This is not an easy job and can leave one exhausted and drained at the end of the day. One nurse stated, “It feels great to go home so tired but knowing you’ve made a true difference in someone else’s life” (“Nursing’s top”, 2000, p. 42). Through long hours of hard work, nurses are able to go home at the end of the day knowing that their caring touch and compassionate service truly impacted the clients with whom they interacted.Challenges of Nursing And Health Care Essay

Nursing is a hands-on profession, and the ability to relate to and connect with another human being on a personal, intimate level is rewarding. It is a sign of trust and respect from the clients being cared for. Clients are vulnerable and often in situations that are uncomfortable and awkward. In order to provide quality client care, nurses must interact and connect with their clients on a personal level and show they truly care for their well-being. According to Riley (2008), caring is essential for an effective nurse-client relationship and guides the way for developing a level of hope and trust between the nurse and client. Nurses show they care not only by tending to physical needs but by spending time with the client and taking time to understand their needs and the wishes and desires of the client and their family. For many nurses “this human connection” (“Nursing’s top”, 2000, p. 42) is the main reason they have chosen a career in nursing.Challenges of Nursing And Health Care Essay

From Florence Nightingale to the battlefield nurses of World War II, the profession of nursing has stood the test of time and will continue to do so as long as there is pain and suffering in the world. This everlasting nature of the service nurses provide is rewarding to those who continue the legacy of providing compassionate care and nurturing through pain and suffering (“Nursing’s top”, 2000). There is no end in sight for the need of additional nurses. Zurmehly’s research (2008) projects a 29% increase in the demand for nurses between 2000 and 2020. As the population continues to grow and the number of senior adults continues to rise, so does the need for more nurses (Buerhaus, Staiger, & Auerbach, 2003). The profession of nursing has changed throughout the years to meet the needs of the culture and the increasing demand for new nurses continues to carve out the legacy of the future of nursing.Challenges of Nursing And Health Care Essay

In any rewarding career, there are also challenges to overcome. Nursing is no exception. The 21st century is facing a nursing crisis that is not new to the profession: a shortage of qualified nurses. The current nursing shortage has roots in the late 1990s (Buerhaus et al., 2003). Much research has been directed at identifying the cause of the nursing shortage and how to fix the problem. As the general population continues to age, so does the population of nurses. In 2002, it was estimated that nearly one-third of working nurses were over the age of 50 (Atencio, Cohen, & Gorenberg, 2003). This trend continues today and is a major contributor to the nursing shortage as more nurses are retiring and fewer nurses are entering the workforce. Factors such as job-related stress, physical demands, administrative responsibilities taking away from client care, high nurse-to-client ratios, insufficient monetary compensation, and lack of continuing education are making it harder to keep and retain qualified nurses (Albaugh, 2003).Challenges of Nursing And Health Care Essay

In order to maintain the highest level of client care, addressing the shortage of qualified nursing personnel must be a priority. Retention of nurses is key in reducing the current shortage. With the rise in median age of nurses over recent years, hospitals are challenged to find ways to keep older, more experienced nurses and ways to attract and recruit new, younger nurses. Physical demands of the job are often to blame for nurses choosing to leave the profession. Facilities must make changes to decrease the physical demands placed on the nursing staff. Tampa General Hospital implemented a program in 2002 that created a lift team. These specially trained personnel were on-call specifically for the purpose of lifting and moving clients. This initiative reduced the physical demands on the nursing staff and allowed them more time to provide quality care to their clients (Runy, 2006). Inadequate compensation also affects retention of nurses. Nurses want to be compensated appropriately for the work they perform and also to receive incentives to remain, including monetary recognition, retirement and benefit packages, and longevity compensation (Zurmehly, 2008). A hospital in Texas has attempted to retain veteran nurses by offering longevity bonuses bi-weekly beginning after 10 years of service (Runy, 2006). Nurses, particularly older nurses and working parents, often find themselves trying to juggle work and home responsibilities. Runy (2006) describes how flexible and creative scheduling allows nurses to work around their schedule and maintain some balance between career and personal activities, which leads to improved job satisfaction and retention.Challenges of Nursing And Health Care Essay

Job satisfaction plays a role in the nursing shortage crisis. Dissatisfied nurses are leaving the client care setting or are choosing to leave the profession altogether. The solution to increasing job satisfaction, which is directly related to increased retention, can be accomplished by improving work conditions for nurses (Atencio et al., 2003). On-the-job stress leads to physical problems and decreased work performance. Clients today are older, sicker, and have multiple medical problems compared to in the past. These changes contribute significantly to work-related stress. Nurses often feel that they must constantly rush from one task to the next due to unrealistic workloads and high nurse-to-client ratios (Riley, 2008). Hospitals must address the concerns of working conditions and implement change to develop places nurses want to work. The best place to start in addressing working conditions is with nurses. Nurses are on the front lines day in and day out and are the experts on working conditions and what must be done to improve them. Nurses want to work in places that enable them to provide quality care to clients and want to have a say in the processes that directly affect their job (Runy, 2006). Job satisfaction is increased as nurses receive training in multiple disciplines. With clients presenting with multiple comorbidities and diagnoses, it is essential that nurses have the knowledge and the skills to provide care to these clients. Continuing education should be available and all nurses should be encouraged to learn new skills and keep up-to-date with current trends and changes in technology and medical care. Finally, job satisfaction among nurses increases when they work in an environment where they feel part of a team, validated, and receive real-time feedback relating to the care they provide. Management involvement in the day-to-day work environment builds unity and motivates the nursing staff and is an essential component of job satisfaction and retention (Albaugh, 2003).Challenges of Nursing And Health Care Essay

Although nursing is demanding, physically challenging, and requires a lot of hard work, nurses are rewarded by making a difference in the lives of their clients, developing trusting relationships with other people through connecting and caring, and being part of a professional legacy that has stood the test of time. The profession is in the midst of a crisis due to the shortage of qualified nurses. To overcome this crisis, medical facilities must address the issues of nurse retention and job satisfaction in order to provide quality client care and continue the legacy of nursing that was set in motion so many years ago.

The strength of our nation’s health care system depends heavily on the quality and quantity of its health care workforce. Nearly a quarter of a century ago The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) set out to improve access to medical care by increasing and upgrading the nation’s health care workforce. The foundation has allocated $492 million—nearly 25 percent of the $2.1 billion it has awarded—to programs designed to expand or improve the health care workforce. 1 This essay examines the problems confronting the health care workforce, analyzes the foundation’s efforts to overcome them, and draws lessons that can help to guide workforce policy in the future.Challenges of Nursing And Health Care Essay

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THE HEALTH CARE WORKFORCE
Today’s health care workforce, about eleven million strong, constitutes the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. labor market and employs one of every eleven workers. 2 Yet this workforce, while massive, is poorly distributed. More than 2,700 “health professional shortage areas” exist today— areas that do not have even one physician for 3,500 persons (the national average is one physician per 387 persons). 3 Forty-eight million persons— almost a fifth of the nation—live in these shortage areas, two-thirds of which are rural. Nor are urban areas unscathed. A study of health services in poor neighborhoods in Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, and New York City found as few as one physician per 10,000 to 15,000 persons. Challenges of Nursing And Health Care Essay

These problems are not new. From its earliest days, RWJF recognized that many of the nation’s most vulnerable citizens do not have decent access to medical care. The foundation identified a number of root causes: (1) The nation produces too few generalist physicians and too many specialists; (2) other health professionals such as primary care nurse practitioners and physician assistants are not trained in sufficient numbers or are prohibited by law from providing needed services, and nursing suffers from periodic shortages; and (3) too few members of minority groups, who tend to serve others in their minority group, are trained as health professionals. In addition, RWJF recognized the need to develop a cadre of health professionals—physicians in particular—who could play leadership roles in health policy and systems development. As a major component of its strategy to improve access to care, the foundation developed programs that address each of these issues Challenges of Nursing And Health Care Essay

Nursing industry is large and ranges from patients and other institutions from businesses to government. There are several issues, especially financial, confronted by the nurses creating shortage of nurses and decreasing patient-nurse ratio. Moreover, the working conditions in which they work are not considered satisfactory contributing to the phenomenon of shortfall. These problems should be resolved by the private businesses and also at the governmental level that should include fixing funding/problem. Many nurses today are not able to benefit from the retirement benefit plans including bonus. Furthermore, several compensation issues are being confronted by the nurses that also impede the quality of work. Compared with other fields, the wage-rate of nurses is not competitive. The annual increase-rate of wages is also comparatively low for nurses. Reasons for low-wage rate include the current global recession being faced by most of the companies increasing cost of businesses. Compensation for nurses is a phenomenon contributing to the gravity of nursing shortage. Set of compensations for nurses include their salaries but also room, transportation, laundry etc. It means that compensation not only includes money but also different other tangible as well as intangible benefits. (Gatford 101) The low-wage rate, high stress in job, unattractive end-service benefits like pensions, and unsatisfactory working conditions are creating dissatisfaction among nurses. Pension schemes offered by the institutions focus on providing affordable as well as sustainable incomes to the people after retirement. It is pertinent to highlight that pension plans and different other health benefits offered by the institutions are not satisfactory and has become one of the major concerns for the nurses. Furthermore, the mobility of nurses from one organization to other also reduces the chances of getting considerable benefits from one employer. Therefore compensation issues along with retirement benefits such as pension are creating shortage of nurses, increasing high rate of turnover and mobility to other professions impacting quality and quantity of healthcare services. (Barnett 113)Challenges of Nursing And Health Care Essay

Shortage of Nurses and Unsatisfactory Working Conditions
As discussed above, compensation, bonus, and different other benefit issues have become the major reasons for the shortfall of nurses affecting quality of healthcare. United States is facing an acute shortage of nurses and this problem is expected to increase in the future. Hospitals and other medical organizations term it as a huge staffing crisis faced by the industry. Besides reasons mentioned above, other significant reason for the shortage of nurses is inadequate working conditions. Health organizations are compromising the nurse-to-patient- ratio affecting quality. Therefore, nurses are entering other occupations as they do not consider job of nursing as feasible and are not financially attracted. Studies have shown the fact that hospitals and private clinics facing shortage of nurses have high rate of poor patient outcomes affecting quality of healthcare services and increased chances of different medical complications including cardiac arrest and pneumonia etc. Furthermore, a huge gap exists between qualified, trained, skilled nurses and the overall demand or available positions. Although, shortage of nurses is not a new phenomenon, yet the problem has increased significantly for the last few years. The aging workforce with most of the baby boomers reaching old age, increase in population, and increased demand for healthcare services are not matched with the number of nurses entering the occupation increasing the rate of shortage. Unsafe environment and dangerous working conditions have created a grave concern among nurses. Nurses normally work long hours yet receive less benefits compared to other professions creating a high level of dissatisfaction. Many nurses are reaching age of retirement while a huge number had already retired. With few nurses choosing it a career the gap between demand and supply is increasing. Several nurses are also leaving the profession due to lucrative jobs being offered in other professions as they also prefer working in pleasant working environment with low stress.Challenges of Nursing And Health Care Essay

Possible Solutions to the Problems
The issues discussed above creating shortage of nurses and affecting quality of healthcare services can be addressed by providing temporary and long-term solutions. Level of compensation for the nurses should be improved that include high wage-rate and providing of different tangible as well as intangible benefits. End-service benefits including pension should be compatible with other professions. (Brooker 349)For this purpose a comprehensive compensation plan specifically for the nurses should be designed and implemented catering to the needs of nurses and increasing level of satisfaction. Nursing profession can become more attractive and competitive by providing different intangible benefits including granting loans payable in easy installments, giving scholarships, chalking out a career plan, and allowing grants for nursing faculty. Working conditions for the nurses should be improved. This could be done by strengthening human resource policies aiming at solving issues like working long-hours, and receive a sustained pension income after retirement. Level of stress should be reduced as in other professions to improve the quality of services being offered. A short-term solution to address the issue of shortage is pulling nurses from other countries. Nurses from the developing countries having surplus in the pool of nursing workforce can be attracted in the country. Nurses in the developing and poor nations prefer to migrate mainly due to fulfilling the economic needs. Although, overall wage-rate in nursing profession is comparatively low, yet it is still competitive and lucrative for the people in other parts of the world. Therefore, pulling nurses from other countries- although a short-term solution- can address the problem of nurse-shortage.Challenges of Nursing And Health Care Essay