Healthcare Management
First Student
A healthy population is often associated with a country's economic prosperity. As such, governments have often been in the forefront of supporting the healthcare sector through staffing and funding medical research. Patient safety is a vital component of quality nursing care. It has been shown that hospitals with low nurse staffing levels tend to have higher rates of poor patient outcomes such as shock, urinary tract infections, cardiac arrest, and pneumonia. This indicates that staffing levels often affect the quality of care accorded to patients. Proper staffing and physician levels can ensure the provision of quality health care in many ways.
First, it reduces the work overload. Groff and Terhaar (2010) posit that nurses are often dissatisfied with their work due to work-related stress such as staff shortages, tight work schedules, and poor-physician-nurse engagements. Therefore, employing adequate nursing staff and physician will reduce the ratio between the physician and the patients thus reducing the workload. In addition, increasing physician levels will also lead to quality in the sense that many physicians will exchange ideas and knowledge on how to treat a certain patient. This will in turn improve the quality of care accorded to patients. On the other hand, appropriate staffing and increasing physician levels will allow the staff draw from diverse disciplines to collaborate. This will in turn improve their work environment, thus improve the quality of care.
Staffing also entails...
The use of numerous technologies such as telehealth technologies that entail combinations of audio, data, and video transmission through electronic communication will help to improve the quality of health care (Buckley et al., 2004). Enhancing the physician's quality reporting method and feedback program will also improve the quality of care provided to patients. In addition, staffing a health care center with qualified and techno-savvy staff will enable electronic patient communication and education possible (Weaver et al., 2012). As such, patients will receive quality care by communicating with medical practitioners using e-mail, electronic health records, and social media.
Thirdly, proper staffing and physician levels also improve the quality of care as it allows co-production. According to Leone et al. (2000), co-production involves the interaction and joint participation of both patients and health care providers (nurses and physicians) in ensuring that the services are satisfactory. For instance, patients and nurses may collaborate to co-produce patient-centered health regiment aimed at fostering service delivery. This in turn results in improved quality health care. Concisely, proper staffing and physician levels will go a long way in ensuring quality care in the health sector.
References
Buckley, K., Tran, B., & Prandoni, C. (2004). "Receptiveness, Use, and Acceptance of Telehealth by Caregivers of Stroke Patients in the Home." Online Journal of Issues in Nursing. Vol. 9…
