Burnout in the ICU – A Critical Healthcare Issue
Burnout among Intensive Care Unit (ICU) personnel greatly undermines the Quadruple Aim’s goal of enhancing the work-life balance of healthcare professionals. The present study investigates the profound consequences of burnout on ICU workers and proposes comprehensive approaches to alleviate its influence within our business.
National Healthcare Issue/Stressor
Healthcare personnel in the ICU experience burnout, a state of depression characterized by emotional weariness, depersonalization, and a decline in personal sense of achievement. Systems of this nature pose immediate risks to healthcare personnel’s well-being and safety, jeopardize patient treatment standards, and significantly increase employee turnover rates. Carter and Busby (2023) showed statistics indicate a 20% rise in burnout among ICU staff over the past five years, a 15% increase in patient recovery time, and a 10% rise in clinical errors. These findings imply negative impacts on both organizational performance and service quality. At the hospital where I currently work, there’s a high rate of burnout in our ICU, with employee turnover exceeding the state average, particularly during the night shift. This causes staff shortages and a delay in patient care.
Summary of External Articles
Two seminal studies illuminated the strategic modifications implemented in healthcare organizations to tackle burnout. Nilsen et al. (2020) conducted a study that examines the effective change models implemented in healthcare organizations. According to the authors, leadership support and staff involvement in decision-making are crucial elements in effectively managing occupational stress and burnout. Zayas-Cabán, Okubo, and Posnack (2022) explore the expedited implementation of workflow automation within the healthcare sector in a separate paper. The authors contend that the implementation of automated solutions can greatly facilitate the reduction of the manual workload on personnel, thereby mitigating burnout and enhancing overall workforce satisfaction.
Strategies
An analysis of academic literature indicates many viable approaches for reducing burnout. Firstly, implementing strategies such as a flexible work schedule and extended intervals of rest between shifts can significantly reduce the physical and emotional fatigue experienced by ICU personnel, therefore fostering a more efficient equilibrium between work and personal life. This level of adaptability allows employees to manage their home and work responsibilities more efficiently, resulting in enhanced job satisfaction and loyalty. Granting schedule autonomy contributes to employees’ self-organizational abilities to manage their work, which is critical for promoting mental well-being and retention rates. Furthermore, the implementation of comprehensive mental health support and counseling services provides staff with the essential resources to effectively handle stress. Furthermore, the implementation of advanced technologies such as electronic health records and automated patient monitoring systems can reduce the workload of repeated duties, thereby improving staff morale and organizational effectiveness.
Impacts on Our Organization
The company anticipates a multitude of advantages from implementing these approaches. Firstly, by improving job satisfaction by addressing the underlying causes of burnout, the company expects a future decrease in staff turnover rates of up to 30%. The implementation of this strategic reduction serves to stabilize our staff, safeguard institutional knowledge, and reduce recruitment and training expenses, thereby increasing the resilience of our healthcare delivery system. Furthermore, the maintenance of a content and stable workforce cultivates a culture of continuity and expertise that is essential for providing consistent and high-quality patient care (Gjellebaek et al., 2020).
Furthermore, we expect the reduction of staff burnout to positively impact the quality of patient treatment, as evidenced by decreased errors and increased patient satisfaction. Nevertheless, these efforts may also have disadvantages, such as the substantial upfront financial investments required to sustain technological implementations and employee resistance stemming from the adoption of traditional work methods.
Conclusion
The management of burnout in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) is of utmost importance in safeguarding the welfare, efficiency, and competence of healthcare personnel while also enhancing the standard of service provision. The analysis clearly demonstrates that implementing the specified steps intentionally facilitates the development of a work culture that is both supportive and productive. These programs align with the Quadruple Aim agenda because they prioritize both the sustainability of our healthcare delivery models and the health outcomes of patients in an ever-changing healthcare environment.
Developing Organizational Policies and Practices
In the context of ICU burnout, two prominent competing needs include the requirement to maintain high-quality patient care and the necessity of ensuring the workforce’s well-being. These needs often clash in practice due to limited resources, leading to increased stress and burnout among healthcare professionals. For example, the pressure to ensure adequate staffing for critical patient care often results in mandatory overtime or increased workloads, exacerbating burnout among staff. Conversely, reducing staff hours or mandating longer rest periods may lead to understaffing, compromising patient safety and care standards.
Organizational Policy Influencing Burnout
One pertinent policy in my organization is the mandatory overtime policy that caters to patient care needs during surge periods. However, it serves its purpose of sufficiently staffing the ICU at the cost of exacerbating the burnout among the staff. The ethical consideration is whether quality patient care should be prioritized at the expense of healthcare worker health. According to the Code of Ethics by the American Nurses Association, the same as in the previous case, it is crucial to support nurses’ health to be able to provide ethical and high-quality care. Excessive working hours erode this principle since it emphasizes patients’ interests at employees’ expense (Chiu et al., 2021).
However, one appreciable organizational strength of this policy is that it provides a short-term solution to a common understaffing problem, especially in emergencies where considerate care services are required. However, its major drawback is the part that concerns the long-term implications on the staff’s mental and physical well-being, inspiring attrition and creating a vicious cycle where the reduced workforce increases burnout rates even further.
Ethical Considerations of the Policy
The mandatory overtime policy has several ethical issues concerning the employees’ welfare. Although patient-centered, it does this at the cost of employees’ welfare, contrary to the ethical nursing practice. According to the American Nurses Association Code of Ethics regarding healthcare, healthcare organizations must guard both the patient and staff (Haddad & Geiger, 2023). In this regard, mandatory overtime undermines the ethical principle of nonmaleficence, resulting in stress and physical harm to the staff. As a result, the quantity of care offered may be affected; thus, it becomes an ethical and a real problem.
Recommended Policy Changes to Address Competing Needs
Implementing a flexible scheduling policy and additional mental health support is recommended to better balance these competing needs. This policy would allow employees to have control over the shift timings fairly, reducing their work-related stress while simultaneously delivering quality patient care services (Flaubert et al., 2021). Moreover, the organization could also provide a policy of services related to mental health and provide sufficient breaks between shifts for the employees of the workforce.
These changes would go a long way in balancing the competing needs of resources, workers, and patients more ethically. For example, a flexible working schedule can reduce staff stress by offering workers more choices regarding working hours and shifts. At the same time, mental health amenities are crucial as a way of assisting workers to recover emotionally or psychologically. Studies such as Nilsen et al. (2020) have shown that employee involvement in decision-making, combined with leadership support, is crucial in mitigating stress and burnout, further supporting the viability of these policy changes.
With such policies in place, the organization will not only be averting cases of burnout but also encouraging staff health and sustainability to improve patient care outcomes and workers’ morale.
References
Carter, M. W., & Busby, C. R. (2023). How can operational research make a real difference in healthcare? Challenges of implementation. European Journal of Operational Research, 306(3), 1059–1068. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2022.04.022
Chiu, P., Cummings, G. G., Thorne, S., & Makaroff, K. S. (2021). Policy advocacy and nursing organizations: A scoping review. Policy, Politics, & Nursing Practice, 22(4), 276–296. https://doi.org/10.1177/15271544211050611
Flaubert, J. L., Menestrel, S. L., Williams, D. R., & Wakefield, M. K. (2021). Supporting the health and professional well-being of nurses. In www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. National Academies Press. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK573902/
Gjellebæk, C., Svensson, A., Bjørkquist, C., Fladeby, N., & Grundén, K. (2020). Management challenges for future digitalization of healthcare services. Futures, 124, 102636. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2020.102636
Haddad, L. M., & Geiger, R. A. (2023, August 14). Nursing ethical considerations. National Library of Medicine; StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK526054/
Nilsen, P., Seing, I., Ericsson, C., Birken, S. A., & Schildmeijer, K. (2020). Characteristics of successful changes in health care organizations: an interview study with physicians, registered nurses and assistant nurses. BMC Health Services Research, 20(147), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-020-4999-8
Nilsen, P., Seing, I., Ericsson, C., Birken, S. A., & Schildmeijer, K. (2020). Characteristics of successful changes in health care organizations: An interview study with physicians, registered nurses and assistant nurses. BMC Health Services Research, 20(147), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-020-4999-8
Zayas-Cabán, T., Okubo, T. H., & Posnack, S. (2022). Priorities to accelerate workflow automation in health care. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 30(1). https://doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocac197
ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE
We’ll write everything from scratch
Question
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.
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 (1-2 pages):
Burnout in the ICU – A Critical Healthcare Issue
Developing Organizational Policies and Practices
Add a section to the 2-3 page paper you submitted in Module 1. The new section should address the following in 1-2 pages:
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. 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.
Due to the nature of this assignment, your instructor may require more than 7 days to provide you with quality feedback.
*** Two additional sources need, can use current one again***
*** Criteria***
-Add a section to the 2-3 page paper you submitted in Module 1. For this assignment, in 1-2 pages, 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. Be specific and provide examples.