course material

1. Discussion: Organizational Policies and Practices to Support Healthcare
Issues
Competing needs, such as the workforce, resources, and patients' needs, impact policy
development. In developing nursing policies, competing needs must align with the proposed
agenda that the policy seeks to advocate. For example, a policy addressing adequate nurse
staffing should meet the patient and workforce needs while minimizing financial
costs. Nurses are frontline caregivers who provide care to patients in a cost-effective
manner. The quality of care provided to a large extent is dependent on various factors, one
of which is the care delivery model and care environment. The needs of the
workforce/nursing need to be addressed adequately. However, sometimes the required
resources to meet those needs are not enough to enable policy development, and therein
lies the problem.According to Clarke and Donaldson (2008), Nursing is a critical factor in
determining the quality of care in hospitals and the nature of patient outcomes. Policies
developed can positively impact patients while negatively impacting the workforce; hence,
all stakeholders must be actively engaged in the policy development process to address
needs. Stakeholders can influence system change initiatives (O'Rourke, Higuchi, and Hogg,
2016).Specific competing needs that may impact the national nursing shortage are the
failure to organize and utilize the workforce effectively; this inability or failure may lead to a
shortage or excess supply of clinical staff. An oversupply of nurses leads to increased costs
to the healthcare organization and economic inefficiencies coupled with misallocated and
mismanaged resources under the pretext of adequate staffing. The shortage of staff in
healthcare organizations has adverse effects, including low quality of care, unsafe care,
possible adverse effects, and negative outcomes.Furthermore, nurses are overloaded and
overworked because there are fewer resources, leading to burnout, call-offs, and eventually
compromising patient safety due to inadequate staffing/nursing shortage. According to
Scruth et al. (2018), it is critical to maintaining a balanced workload to ensure that nurses
do not experience fatigue and stress.A policy can address these competing needs by
providing an ideal nurse to patient ratio that can improve nurse staffing in healthcare
organizations and improve care and positive patient outcomes, putting the patient as the
central focus of care. According to Jarrar et al. (2018), patient‐centeredness helps mitigate
the nursing shortage's negative impact on care outcomes. A policy can create a framework
that ensures an excellent nurse to patient ratio depending on the healthcare organization's
care setting. For example, the nurse to patient ratio for an acute surgical unit or acute psych

2. ward can be 5: 1, meaning one nurse will be assigned to five patients at the most, which is
the practice at current employment.ReferenceClarke, S. P., & Donaldson, N. E. (2008). Nurse
staffing and patient care quality and safety. In Patient safety and quality: An evidence-based
handbook for nurses. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (US).Jarrar, M. T.,
Rahman, H. A., Minai, M. S., AbuMadini, M. S., & Larbi, M. (2018). The function of patient‐
centered care in mitigating the effect of nursing shortage on the outcomes of care. The
International journal of health planning and management, 33(2), e464-e473. O'Rourke, T.,
Higuchi, K. S., & Hogg, W. (2016). Stakeholder participation in system change: A new
conceptual model. Worldviews on Evidence‐Based Nursing, 13(4), 261-269.Scruth, A. E.,
Sabrina , G., & Liesel , B. (2018). Work Life Quality, Healthy Work Environments, and Nurse
Retention. Clinical Nurse Specialist, 32(3), 111-113.
doi:10.1097/NUR.0000000000000376Discussion: Organizational Policies and Practices to
Support Healthcare IssuesQuite often, nurse leaders are faced with ethical dilemmas, such
as those associated with choices between competing needs and limited resources.
Resources are finite, and competition for those resources occurs daily in all
organizations.For example, the use of 12-hour shifts has been a strategy to retain nurses.
However, evidence suggests that as nurses work more hours in a shift, they commit more
errors. How do effective leaders find a balance between the needs of the organization and
the needs of ensuring quality, effective, and safe patient care?In this Discussion, you will
reflect on a national healthcare issue and examine how competing needs may impact the
development of polices to address that issue.To Prepare:Review the Resources and think
about the national healthcare issue/stressor you previously selected for study in Module
1.Reflect on the competing needs in healthcare delivery as they pertain to the national
healthcare issue/stressor you previously examined.By Day 3 of Week 3Post an explanation
of how competing needs, such as the needs of the workforce, resources, and patients, may
impact the development of policy. Then, describe any specific competing needs that may
impact the national healthcare issue/stressor you selected. What are the impacts, and how
might policy address these competing needs? Be specific and provide examples.By Day 6 of
Week 3Respond to at least two of your colleagues on two different days by providing
additional thoughts about competing needs that may impact your colleagues’ selected
issues, or additional ideas for applying policy to address the impacts
described.responseYour post is quite informative of the nature of the work environment
and the policies negatively impacting nursing practice. These policies facilitating competing
needs such as workforce can be seen in the denial of the full authority to practice for the
Nurse Practitioners (NPs) in some states. Full authority to practice is State practice and
licensure law that allows all nurse practitioners to evaluate patients, diagnose, order and
interpret diagnostic tests, initiate and manage treatments, including prescribe medications,
under the exclusive licensure authority of the state board of nursing (American Nurses
Association, AANP, 2016).Currently, 22 states and the District of Columbia, or 44%, have
adopted full practice authority licensure and practice laws for NPs (AANP, 2016). The move
to grant full practice authourity to NPs cushions the effect of lack of primary
healthcare providers and reduces the healthcare burden for remote and
underserved populations. However, the cost of healthcare is also made affordable by

3. allowing NPs full practice authourity. Most states still have policies and regulations that
restrict NPs from practicing, hence increasing the workload burden for the few available
providers ReferencesAmerican Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP). State practice
environment. 2016 Retrieved from https://www.aanp.org/legislation-regulation/state-
legislation/state-practice-environmentPeterson M. E. (2017). Barriers to Practice and the
Impact on Health Care: A Nurse Practitioner Focus. Journal of the advanced practitioner in
oncology, 8(1), 74–81.