Nursing Discussion

Addressing Workarounds in Nursing

Nursing workarounds refer to strategies that circumvent existing protocols, policies, or safety procedures to resolve difficulties or overcome perceived obstacles in healthcare settings. While these actions may enhance efficiency or maintain workflow, they can generate substantial ethical problems. As defined by McCord et al. (2022), the workaround is likely to be entrenched where healthcare professionals are confronted with system barriers like limited staffing, antiquated technology, or inflexible institutional policies that thwart the delivery of optimal patient care. As much as these circumventions are expedient in the short term, they jeopardize patient safety and the quality of care by undermining professional standards and ethical principles: Nursing Discussion.

Notably, a workaround example is nurses bypassing the recommended double-checking procedure of patient identification. Nurses working in high-pressure, understaffed units will skip this vital step to speed up the medication administration process with the hope that it will avoid delays in patient care, according to Roberts et al. (2023). While this practice may accelerate activities, it badly adds to medication errors, which have harmful effects on patients, ranging from dosing mistakes and drug interactions to death.

Besides, the ethical dilemma that is created by such workarounds is severe. Nurses must choose between the efficiency and the safety of the patient. In cutting corners, nurses can breach ethical principles like beneficence (doing what is best for the patient), non-maleficence (doing no harm), and justice (promoting fairness and equity in care). Not only is the quality of care undermined, but nurses are also put in a state of moral distress, whereby they are torn about what they are doing.

Further, workarounds become habitual practices that can become systemic problems that compromise the quality of care in general and create a culture where safety procedures are devalued, as McCord et al. (2022) noted. Organizations must tackle the underlying causes of workarounds by employing more personnel, providing better support mechanisms, and creating a safety culture to enhance these ethical issues and promote patient well-being.

References

McCord, J. L., Lippincott, C. R., Abreu, E., & Schmer, C. (2022). A Systematic Review of Nursing Practice Workarounds. Dimensions of Critical Care Nursing, 41(6), 347–356. https://doi.org/10.1097/DCC.0000000000000549

Roberts, H. I., Kinlay, M., Debono, D., Burke, R., Jones, A., & Baysari, M. T. (2023). Nurses’ Medication Administration Workarounds when Using Electronic Systems: An Analysis of Safety Incident Reports. Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, 34(2). https://doi.org/10.3233/shti230369

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In preparation for this discussion, review the Module 3 section of the LibGuide

For the 22st year, nursing remains the most trusted profession in the United States. However, the distribution of resources within health care organizations is a paradox leading to many ethical dilemmas. For this discussion, you will need to discuss:

1. the concept of workarounds in nursing
2. and share an example of one workaround that you have witnessed or researched.
3. and the ethical dilemma workarounds may pose

Please be mindful to not include any identifying information, such as location, name of hospital, etc. Make sure to provide scholarly sources that support your writings.

Nursing Discussion

Reminder: For each of the discussions, you have a discussion board rubric that identifies how your work will be graded. To view this Rubric, before submitting your work, simply select the drop box menu (three dots on the top right of this page) and “Show Rubric.”

Scholarly Sources: Only scholarly sources are acceptable for citation and reference in this course. These include peer-reviewed publications, government reports, or sources written by a professional or scholar in the field. For the discussions, reputable internet sources such as websites by government agencies (URL ends in .gov) and respected organizations (often ends in .org) can be counted as scholarly sources.

The best outside scholarly source to use is a peer-reviewed nursing journal. You are encouraged to use the UNA library and search one of the available databases for a peer-reviewed journal article. The following sources should not be used: Wikipedia, Wikis, or blogs.

These websites are not considered scholarly as anyone can add to these. Current outside scholarly sources must be published within the last 5 years. Instructor permission must be obtained BEFORE the assignment is due if using a source that is older than 5 years.