Out Patient Clinic Stakeholders and Power

Stakeholders' interest, power, and influence

Outpatient unit administration has a principal reputational and financial interest in any alteration made within a healthcare setting. This comes from having the authority and power to carry out or reject suggested proposals. Several key players or stakeholders, have interest in how policy and problems like nursing shortages affect their performance output.

Nurses have personal, direct-effect interest in the proposed changes for obvious reasons. For example, they stay directly affected by the number of hours they work in relation to the patient ratio they meet, seeking to offer quality healthcare services. When nurses endure a heavy work load due to nursing shortages, this has an impact on job satisfaction as well as quality of healthcare delivery. Nurses must address numerous daily responsibilities and are responsible for the lives of each patient under their care. From medication dispensing, to prescription filling, to collecting patient history, nurses have a wide-range of duties that must be executed correctly and with high accuracy.

Nurses have power when it comes to patient interactions. Their informational power is what influences patient outcomes. This is because patients need to interact with health professionals. The ones that receive the most face time with the are nurses. They collect the health data that then gets transferred to physicians.

Speaking of physicians, they are another group of important stakeholders in the project. They are responsible (indirectly), for dealing with adverse problems that arise from possible mistakes and errors made by nurses. For instance, a medication dispensed in error means physicians are the people who deal with the consequences. They must not only make the right adjustment, but assess whether the error had any adverse effects on the patient.

A physician's power is both expert and legitimate power. They gained their medical license and degrees in order to gain the position of doctor. They are also assigned power from the medical facility or out-patient clinic that employs them. Their decisions influence nurses, patients, and the place the work in on a daily basis. If they choose to put a patient under a certain treatment, that choice affects what happens to the patient and what the nurse must do to assist.

Another important stakeholder is the patient directly influenced by the issue of understaffing of the nurses as their safety becomes a risk. Patients put themselves at risk each time they go for medical care. If a nursing shortage causes an increase an errors by doctors and nurses, this effects the quality of care a patient receives and may lead to significant, long-lasting negative consequences.

These negative consequences come in the form of potential lawsuits and patients no longer going to these medical facilities/out-patient clinics. Patients influence the budget of an out-patient clinic. This in a way is reward power. If patients say they receive high quality care where they are treated, the out-patient clinic then receives increased business, and additional funding sources. Patients also pay to be treated either out-of-pocket or via health insurance. Should they receive poor service, they may not agree to pay for the medical services rendered.