Now more than ever before, healthcare leaders are struggling with the provision of safe and competent care while utilizing fewer resources. This effort has resulted in an undesired consequence in which nurses are feeling overworked and under-appreciated. Both patients and nurses agree that the lack of resources without eliminating waste or improving efficiencies is one of the more important issues affecting medical care. (Brackett, Comer, & & Whichello, 2013)
Indiana University Health Ball Memorial Hospital (IUHBMH) utilizes Lean principles to improve processes and eliminate waste. In an effort to improve patient outcomes, many healthcare organizations are turning to Lean in an effort to increase efficiency and add value to the patient
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We all work on projects in our everyday work life. We do not always recognize them as projects because they rarely have a distinct beginning and never end. The goal of Lean project management is to complete the project on-time, on-budget and within the planned scope. At IUHBMH, we prefer to do Rapid Improvement Events (RIE) as opposed to projects. Projects are much more complex and often fail. Projects fail for many reasons especially in healthcare. This industry is very complex, and projects usually take a long time to complete without clearly defined goals, objectives and timelines. Data collection is difficult, communication among leadership and staff is complicated and most often not timely. Above all, most hospitals are resistant to change. However, by implementing Lean prinicples with project management tools failures can be reduced. (Bove, …show more content…
All employees at IUHBMH have received training and education in Lean. When chosing a project to work on for this program there were many to choose from. As the Administrative Director (AD) of Critical Patient Services, two units are actively participating in Value Streams that report up to my service line. These two units are the Emergency Department and the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit. As the leader of both of these units, I have been the process owner, participant or team leader of many rapid improvement events and projects over the past two years. The decision to work on the Nursing Orientation Team was made in collaboration with my preceptor to broaden my scope and experiences. This was a project idea that I have no experience with in turn would grow my knowledge base. The premise of this project was to improve nurse retention, reduce the length of orienation, standardize unit orientation throughout the organization, create 8 hour orientation shifts, and ready new nurses for the transition from graduate to
SGH has been plagued with patient quality issues, therefore SGH finds itself in a situation which is inherently antithetical to the mission of the hospital. The costs of healthcare continue to rise at an alarming rate, and hospital boards are experiencing increased scrutiny in their ability, and role, in ensuring patient quality (Millar, Freeman, & Mannion, 2015). Many internal actors are involved in patient quality, from the physicians, nurses, pharmacists and IT administrators, creating a complex internal system. When IT projects, such as the CPOE initiative fail, the project team members, and the organization as a whole, may experience negative emotions that impede the ability to learn from the experience (Shepherd, Patzelt, & Wolfe, 2011). The SGH executive management team must refocus the organization on the primary goal of patient
Often time, nurses has been viewed by patients, their family members and the medical team as basic emotional care givers, pill crushers or cart pullers and not as healthcare professionals who are more interesting in health promotion, disease prevention and better patient outcomes. They also often forget the emotional, physical, mental, and caring part that is involved with the profession. And to make matters worse, nurses are continued to be viewed as a threat by doctors more than ever before especially with the opening of Nurse Practitioners programs.
Nurses have long been known for their attention to patient care. The reason many nurses have entered this profession is due to their desire to care for people. The overwhelming responsibilities of documentation, chart reviews, verifying orders and medications, monitoring lab results, among others, leaves the direct care of the patient to another, possibly unqualified, staff member. Bolton, Gassert, and Cipriano (2008) estimate that a mere 23-30% of a nurse’s day is spent providing care to a patient. This leaves the greater part of a 12-hour shift performing some kind of paperwork. In fact, the inability to provide more patient care has been cited as a reason many nurses leave their job, and the profession altogether (Bolton et al., 2008).
Many health care professionals are wondering why shortage transpired when managed care cost initiatives, implemented throughout the country, are dramatically decreasing the length of patient stays (Upenieks, 2003). In fact, such a situation should be resulting in a nursing oversupply. As the nursing shortage ensues, the need for recruiting and retaining highly skilled nurses committed to the organization will become necessary to maintain high-quality patient care. The recent national nurse shortage has resulted in higher nurse workloads; fewer support resources, greater nursing dissatisfaction, and burnout, making it more difficult to provide optimal patient care (Upenieks, 2003). The primary role of nursing is to provide the best possible care to patients.
Quality is an important part of any business rather from a customer’s perspective or a producer’s perspective. Quality from a customer’s perspective is they “want value and quality has become a major factor in the value of products and service” (Russell & Taylor, 2013, pg. 53). “The customer is the most important part of the production line” (Russell & Taylor, 2013, pg. 53). This can be referred to as quality of design meaning “involves designing quality characteristics into a product or service” (Russell & Taylor, 2013, pg. 54). Now let’s look at the quality from a producer’s perspective. This can be referred to a quality of conformance meaning “making sure the product or service is produced according to design” (Russell & Taylor, 2013,
In most aspects of life the saying “less is always more” may ring true; however when it comes to providing quality care to patients, less only creates problems which can lead to a decrease in patient’s quality of life as well as nurse’s satisfaction with their jobs. The massive shortage of nurses throughout the United States has gotten attention from some of the most prestigious schools, news media and political leaders. Nurses are being burnt out from their jobs, they are being overworked and overlooked. New nurses are not being properly trained, and old nurses are on their way to retirement. All the while the rate of patient admissions is on the rise. Nurses are reporting lower satisfaction in their job positions and hospital retention rates are at an all-time low, conversely this is affecting all patients’ quality of care. As stated in the article Addressing The Nurse Shortage To Improve The Quality Of Patient Care “According to an Institute of Medicine report, Nurses are the largest group of health care professionals providing direct patient care in hospitals, and the quality of care for hospital patients is strongly linked to the performance of nursing staff”.
These articles have many similarities when discussing the issue of staffing shortages. For patients, their loved ones and the general population, they don’t understand the ramifications and strain that staffing shortages have on nurses. People expect and deserve complete, competent and safe care when they are patients. These articles bring to light all the struggles that nurses have to deal with. Nurses are fearful that they will make mistakes, will harm patients, and will harm themselves. (Bae, 2012; Erlen, 2001; Martin, 2015) Overtime can be overwhelming and exhausting, which can lead to errors being made. (Bae, 2012; Erlen, 2001) These articles perceive that it may be beneficial for nurses, patients, and healthcare facilities to decrease the nurse-to-patient ratio, however, this option is not always
Films are created to tell a story, to tell an effective story a broad range of techniques needs to be used in a successful way (Brown, 2012.) The ‘Two Pills’ scene from the film The Matrix (1999) uses these techniques in a way that creates a strong representation of the characters and storyline. The techniques used include cinematography, the soundtrack and the editing. In addition, mise-en-scéne is used to enhance the narrative through dialogue, costume, setting and lighting to create a highly emotional reaction from the audience.
Thousands of nurses throughout the nation are exhausted and overwhelmed due to their heavy workload. The administrators do not staff the units properly; therefore, they give each nurse more patients to care for to compensate for the lack of staff. There are several reasons to why
Vest, J.R., & Gamm, L.D., (2009) A critical review of the research literature on Six Sigma, Lean and StuderGroup's Hardwiring Excellence in the United States: the need to demonstrate and communicate the effectiveness of transformation strategies in healthcare. Implement Sci. 2009 Jul 1;4:35.
Several other causes have been attributed to the nursing shortage. An increase in the number of nurses is needed. Sadly, there is little increase in compensation for nurses. In addition to no growth in pay, the level of stress, responsibility, and demand nurses is increasing. Unfortunately, patients are the ones who suffer. When a hospital does not have the proper nursing staff to care for patients, it results in poor patient safety and patient outcomes (Buerhaus, Donelan, Ulrich, Norman, DesRoches, & Dittus, 2007). Nursing salaries compared to other professions has remained stagnant. For example, a registered
Understaffing is one of the prominent problems that hospitals and healthcare facilities are facing. Hospitals and healthcare facilities argue that they do not have enough budget to hire nurses to care for patients. While some say that there are not enough nurses here in the United States to hire. Also, hospital administrators think that hiring extra workers is not economically right. However, nurses and staffs disagree. When facilities do not have enough staff, it is the workers, especially the nurses that are having a hard time. They are the one that are suffering from overworking and pressure which leads to mistakes that will affect the hospital’s reputation and patient’s health. Nurses are here to care and nurture a patient and therefore
Using numerous studies, the article reviews nurse under-staffing in hospitals and how it not only impacts the care the patient receives, but also the nurse’s well-being. This article supports that staffing has a direct impact on patient care and safety, and that improved staffing improves patient outcomes. Curtain (2016) discusses the ethics of safe staffing. If management can apply a caring approach to administration, they will see the benefits of nurses spending more time with patients.
Nurses play a huge role in the health care system. A nurse is a bridge between doctor and patient. s/he is a compassionate, understanding and nonjudgmental yet firm and grounded. S/he is probably one of the most important yet least appreciated person in a patient’s life. When many think of a nurse they probably recognize them by a white hat and uniform. Today those white uniforms have been replaced with vividly colored scrubs worn by both male and female nurses, and many other employees in healthcare. Nurses are not just the people that are limited to bedside care and drug administration; they are highly skilled and well-educated nursing professionals.
Project management involves all activities that encompass scheduling, planning, and controlling projects. A successful project manager ensure that an organization’s resources are being used both efficiently and effectively. Most projects need to be uniquely developed require a sense of customization and the ability to adapt to any posed challenges. The scope of effective project management includes defining what the project is and what is being expected to be accomplished. Projects are imposed to fulfill a certain need and project managers must have the ability to create the proper definition. Goals and the means used to attain those goals have to be clearly stated. Project Managers must also have the ability to plan