Discuss the Finding

Introduction

Staffing is an issue in correcting the problems that are experienced in the Northwest Community Healthcare Hospital. Some of the problems that need to be corrected is higher working hours than expected. Minimum working hours expected as per the international labor organization guidelines is 40 hours per month which translate to 8 hours per day for five days in a week. As from the statistics from Northwest Community Healthcare Hospital, the total working hours for the registered nurses is 11.37 hours per hour per patient.  This higher working hours that goes the ceiling of 40 hours per month. With adequate staffing in the hospital, Nelson (2016) posits that the working hours cannot be exceeded. The protracted working hours is also caused by the fewer contractual nurses that are at 0.16 percent of the working force. The problem can temporarily be redressed by increasing the number of contractual nurses in order to assist the registered nurses working hours’ reduction. The effect of increased working hours is poor rating by patient and poor nursing outcomes that leads to readmission and mortality cases.

The second problem that is experience that could be emanating from the staffing deficit is the high turnover of nurses. High turnover of employees according to Duffield and Roche (2017).is caused by working-life imbalance among many other causes. Due to increased working hours Northwest Community Healthcare Hospital at an average of 11 hours, there is an imbalance that is likely to be causing the turnover rate of 11.43 percent. Other problems include the lower patient satisfaction due to inadequate time with patients.

In feature staffing, several steps will be taken in tailoring the staffing process in achieving staff development, cost-benefit planning, and adding value to service provision. One of the step is making adequate recruitment that meet the needs of the patients. This will ensure that working hours are within the normal hours that are acceptable and do not cause fatigue and burn out. More so, in recruitment, nurses with different skills will be targeted in order to provide quality service without delays or service referrals. In order to reduce the nurse turnover, staff will undergo development such as in training program to add on their skills, exchange program and workshops that will ensure nurses provide quality service which in turn will increase sense of satisfaction (Duffield and Roche, 2017). Finally, while staffing, the cost benefit planning will be taken into account. The strength and weakness of the alternative staffing will be considered. Weighing the benefit of having permanent staff against the contractual staff will be determined. Most of the contractual nurses are through agencies who are expensive. It will be therefore cost effective and beneficial to increase percentage working hours of registered nurses beyond 70 percent and further reduce the percentage working hours of contractual nurses.

The highest priority is improving the patient satisfaction rate and the outcome of the patients. This can be achieved by ensuring that the hospital has a robust recruiting team that will reduce the turnover of nurses and improve the passion with which the services are provided. As observed by Duffield and Roche (2017), improving the outcome of the patient is by ensuring the services that are provided are satisfactory to the patients. Better nursing outcome will mean that the readmission is reduced while the mortality rates are also reduced. Recruitment therefore need to be detailed and tailored in getting candidate that are passionate for the job (Collins and Jones, 2016). The recruited nurses need to be provided with support to continue with education and specialize into providing intricate services to the patients. This will improve the satisfaction score by patients while reducing the disease burden such as of pneumonia in the community through better nursing implementation outcome.