Assignment Prompt & Instructions
**Respond** to at least **two** of your colleagues **on two different days** who chose a different national healthcare issue/stressor than you selected. Explain how their chosen national healthcare issue/stressor may also impact your work setting and what (if anything) is being done to address the national healthcare issue/stressor.
Main Discussion Post
**Shortage of Healthcare Professionals**
U.S. healthcare suffers from a shortage of doctors, nurses, and specialists. This workforce gap has worsened due to aging seniors, chronic diseases, staff shortages, and COVID-19. The scarcity at my urban hospital forces nurses to care for more patients, lengthens wait times, and dissatisfies patients and staff. Working overtime causes burnout, sick leave, and turnover, thus the problem persists (Greco et al., 2022). Overworked healthcare staff cannot provide personalized, high-quality care in emergencies (Broome & Marshall, 2021). A key aspect of this issue is access to quality health professional education. Many prospective healthcare workers worry about the cost of education and their starting salary. These variables affect the supply of new health workers and lower field representation.
Our healthcare sector is reporting on the measures we are taking to retain and improve our workforce in response to this persistent stressor. We have partnered with local colleges to place healthcare students in rotations and present them with scholarship opportunities. This, in turn, introduces new professionals to the field and simultaneously enables academic institutions and the healthcare system to meet their future healthcare needs. To give our employees more freedom, we are introducing more part-time and independent options. We are also ensuring that we have wellness programs, which include counseling, stress relief, and critical incident processing, thereby reducing burnout (Dixon-Woods et al., 2012). Additionally, we conducted a recent poll among healthcare professionals, which highlighted the need for a mentor program. We have implemented this program for our new nurses, which our experienced nurses run. These programs we have implemented are a result of transformative leadership with strong organizational support, which in turn reduces workforce stress (Greco et al., 2022). Although we have implemented these initiatives, they are issue-specific; For example, rural service and specialty staffing.
Social contexts continue to affect intervention success. Advanced partnerships help, but many underserved students still lack quality, affordable pre-college education. High school students are receiving speeches and workshops from the hospital to spark their interest in healthcare. For many healthcare support staff, including aides, transportation and housing issues make it harder to stay working (Flaherty & Bartels, 2020). Thus, the hospital's HR team is working with local nonprofits to provide staff with affordable housing and shuttles. Social care should be involved in hiring and retention initiatives nationwide (Dixon-Woods et al., 2012). The lack of healthcare experts in organizations and multisectoral cooperative efforts to solve social issues must be addressed.
**References**
Broome, M. E., & Marshall, E. S. (2021). _Transformational leadership in nursing: From expert clinician to influential leader_ (3rd ed.). Springer Publishing Company.
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: Table 1. _BMJ Quality & Safety_, _21_(10), 876–884. [https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2011-000760Links to an external site.](https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2011-000760)
Flaherty, E., & Bartels, S. J. (2019). Addressing the community‐based geriatric healthcare workforce shortage by leveraging the potential of interprofessional teams. _Journal of the American Geriatrics Society_, _67_(S2). [https://doi.org/10.1111/jgs.15924Links to an external site.](https://doi.org/10.1111/jgs.15924)
Greco, E., Graziano, E., Stella, G., Mastrodascio, M., & Cedrone, F. (2022). The impact of leadership on perceived work-related stress in healthcare facilities organisations. _Journal of Organizational Change Management_, _35_(4/5), 734–748. [https://doi.org/10.1108/jocm-07-2021-0201Links to an external site.](https://doi.org/10.1108/jocm-07-2021-0201)
– a year ago