Developing Organizational Policies and Practices sample essay
NURS 6053 week 3 Assignment, Topic: Assignment: Developing Organizational Policies and Practices
Assignment: Developing Organizational Policies and Practices
Competing needs arise within any organization as employees seek to meet their targets and leaders seek to meet company goals. As a leader, successful management of these goals requires establishing priorities and allocating resources accordingly.
Within a healthcare setting, the needs of the workforce, resources, and patients are often in conflict. Mandatory overtime, implementation of staffing ratios, use of unlicensed assisting personnel, and employer reductions of education benefits are examples of practices that might lead to conflicting needs in practice Developing Organizational Policies and Practices sample essay.
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Leaders can contribute to both the problem and the solution through policies, action, and inaction. In this Assignment, you will further develop the white paper you began work on in Module 1 by addressing competing needs within your organization.
To Prepare:
Review the national healthcare issue/stressor you examined in your Assignment for Module 1, and review the analysis of the healthcare issue/stressor you selected. Developing Organizational Policies and Practices sample essay.
Identify and review two evidence-based scholarly resources that focus on proposed policies/practices to apply to your selected healthcare issue/stressor.
Reflect on the feedback you received from your colleagues on your Discussion post regarding competing needs.
The Assignment (4-5 pages):
Developing Organizational Policies and Practices
Add a section to the paper you submitted in Module 1. The new section should address the following:
Identify and describe at least two competing needs impacting your selected healthcare issue/stressor.
Describe a relevant policy or practice in your organization that may influence your selected healthcare issue/stressor.
Critique the policy for ethical considerations, and explain the policy’s strengths and challenges in promoting ethics.
Recommend one or more policy or practice changes designed to balance the competing needs of resources, workers, and patients, while addressing any ethical shortcomings of the existing policies Developing Organizational Policies and Practices sample essay. Be specific and provide examples.
Cite evidence that informs the healthcare issue/stressor and/or the policies, and provide two scholarly resources in support of your policy or practice recommendations.
Competing Organizational Resource Needs, Worker’s Needs, and Patients’ Needs: The Impact of Upskilling as a Healthcare Stressor in the Face of Technological Innovations in Healthcare
Healthcare organizations are business entities that must operate as a going concern, with the exception of government-sponsored taxpayer-funded public healthcare institutions. Because of this, the matter of resources for the implementation of various policies within the organization has to be carefully handled to make sure the organization remains afloat v. As such, there are always competing interests in that the organization looks to make a profit, the workers expect fair pay and continuous professional development or training, and the patients expect the best quality healthcare incorporating the latest in medical advancements. This paper looks at these competing interests and the policies within my healthcare organization with regard to upskilling as a healthcare stressor.
Two Competing Needs that Impact Upskilling in My Organization
The first competing need that is impacting the issue of upskilling in my organization is that patients require the latest affordable state-of-the-art healthcare services for better outcomes. As the main stakeholders in the organization, they expect no less than the best. For them, they are not concerned with how the organization will procure the latest technology or recruit the most qualified staff. Once in the facility, they expect to be attended to by qualified and knowledgeable nurses, doctors, pharmacists, therapists, and other healthcare workers. For instance, cancer patients will expect to access the latest cutting age nanotherapy for cancer chemotherapy, such as use of the Food and Drug Administration-approved Doxil for breast cancer treatment (Pillai, 2014). Of course, the nurses offering this treatment will require upskilling in order to give the treatment safely. But that is not the concern of the patients. Developing Organizational Policies and Practices sample essay.
The second competing need that impacts upskilling in my organization is the organizational need to cut on expenses and improve on the facility’s bottom line in its income statements. As stated above in the introduction, being a private entity the organization must make profits in its operations if it is to remain in existence. Spending money on upskilling is an expense that must therefore be weighed against the risks of retaining staff that are not up-to-date with current evidence-based medical and nursing practices Developing Organizational Policies and Practices sample essay.
A Relevant Policy in My Organization Influencing Upskilling
In my organization’s strategic plan for the next five years, there is a policy provision that sets aside some funds for educational scholarships and tuition reimbursement for long-serving employees (Enoch, 2017). This is however subject to availability of funds in any given fiscal year. The other condition is that the beneficiaries must have worked for the organization for five years or more. This policy is positively influencing upskilling in my organization in that staff that qualify and get their applications approved are able to be facilitated to acquire new skills. In the last five years, a graduate nurse has benefited by being trained as the nurse informaticist after installation of the organization’s new electronic health records (EHR) system Developing Organizational Policies and Practices sample essay. Two intensive care dialysis nurses have also recently benefited from the program by being trained on the use of the new Fresenius CRRT (continuous renal replacement therapy) machine in the intensive care unit (ICU).
Policy Critique
There is no doubt that this is a good policy put in place by the organization for the benefit of its healthcare employees in terms of gaining new skills and remaining competitive in their jobs. The organization is also definitely benefiting because it is having a competitive advantage over other healthcare institutions that do not have such skilled nurses and other healthcare workers. The only downside is that in a year that the organization has not done well financially, the fund is suspended. Ethically, there is also no justice for employees who have not worked for the organization for the required five years. This is because they also need to upgrade their skills sooner rather than later. Making them wait for five years is neither fair nor proper for both the organization and the employee. In any case, if it happens that an employee tasked with implementing a new treatment protocol has served the organization for less than five years, the management will be in a dilemma as to how they are going to train him or her. Of course asking them to pay for the upskilling themselves will not be fair at all Developing Organizational Policies and Practices sample essay.
The strength of this policy, however, is that it confers much benefit to both the healthcare employee and the patients. The employee gets to acquire new skills without having to spend their own funds, and the patients get to be treated using the latest and safest quality evidence-based interventions. The net effect is that employees are happy and motivated and patients are satisfied with the services offered by the institution. As a result, the staff turnover will go down. This will save the organization a lot of resources spent on recruiting and hiring new talent that may also be difficult to get. The satisfied patients will also give a higher rating to the organization and better reviews. This is not to mention the positive word of mouth publicity that will benefit the organization by bringing in more patients requiring quality healthcare services.
On the challenges of this policy, the most significant is the availability of funds. As stated above, the success of the program is dependent on the profitability of the organization in a given year. This in itself is a complex challenge because one may wonder; just how profitable is profitable? The ambiguity in this situation obviously allows the management to at times deny potential beneficiaries the opportunity to upskill on the pretext that the organization has not been profitable. In the end, the question as to whether funds are set aside or not in a given year will depend on the goodwill of the top management of the organization Developing Organizational Policies and Practices sample essay. The decision will inevitably have to be made in the boardroom after considering all the other competing interests.
Policy Recommendations for Balancing the Competing Needs of Resources, Workers, and Patients
- On-the-job Training
It is obviously clear that when the organization sends its employee away for training to upskill, it has to incur additional expenses to fill the void left by the employee who has gone for training (Enoch, 2017). One of the policies that could help address this is the requirement that as much as is feasible, training for upskilling should be done within the organization’s premises. This will ensure that the employee can still provide services even as they are trained to acquire other skills (Business Insight, n.d.).
- Partnerships with Foundations and Philanthropists
The other policy recommendation is seeking partnerships with Foundations and philanthropists with a view to providing funding and scholarships to outstanding staff. This will take the pressure off the resources of the organization that can then be put to other use. For instance, in the period beginning 2013-2017, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gave more than 72% of health-related funding (OECD netFWD, 2019).
On the ethical shortcomings of existing policies, there is usually no pay when one has taken a study leave from work in my organization. This is injustice and the action does not conform to the bioethical principle of nonmaleficence (not causing harm), as it causes financial stress to the employee. This is despite the fact that the requirement for upskilling is a function of not only technological advancements, but also the organization’s own initiative to reorganise and re-strategise in a rapidly changing healthcare market (Piva et al., 2005) Developing Organizational Policies and Practices sample essay.
References
Business Insight Ltd. (n.d.). The importance of training and development in the workplace. Retrieved 8 March 2020 from https://2020projectmanagement.com/resources/project-management-training-and-qualifications/the-importance-of-training-and-development-in-the-workplace
Enoch, J. (2017). Healthcare leaders recognize 11 providers for developing frontline workers. National Fund for Workforce Solutions. Retrieved 8 March 2020 from https://nationalfund.org/news_post/healthcare-leaders-recognize-11-providers-for-developing-frontline-workers/
OECD netFWD (2019). Health and philanthropy, harnessing novel approaches for improved access to quality healthcare. OECD Development Centre, Paris. Retrieved 8 March 2020 from http://www.oecd.org/development/networks/2019_Health_policy_note.pdf
Pillai, Gopalakrishna. (2014). Nanomedicines for cancer therapy: An update of FDA approved and those under various stages of development. SOJ Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences, 1. Doi: 10.15226/2374-6866/1/2/00109.
Piva, M., Santarelli, E., & Vivarelli, M. (2005). The skill bias effect of technological and organisational change: Evidence and policy implications. Research Policy, 34(2), 141–157. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2004.11.005 Developing Organizational Policies and Practices sample essay