ANALYSIS OF A PERTINENT HEALTHCARE ISSUE NURS 6053
Walden University ANALYSIS OF A PERTINENT HEALTHCARE ISSUE NURS 6053-Step-By-Step Guide
This guide will demonstrate how to complete the Walden University ANALYSIS OF A PERTINENT HEALTHCARE ISSUE NURS 6053 assignment based on general principles of academic writing. Here, we will show you the A, B, Cs of completing an academic paper, irrespective of the instructions. After guiding you through what to do, the guide will leave one or two sample essays at the end to highlight the various sections discussed below.
How to Research and Prepare for ANALYSIS OF A PERTINENT HEALTHCARE ISSUE NURS 6053
Whether one passes or fails an academic assignment such as the Walden University ANALYSIS OF A PERTINENT HEALTHCARE ISSUE NURS 6053 depends on the preparation done beforehand. The first thing to do once you receive an assignment is to quickly skim through the requirements. Once that is done, start going through the instructions one by one to clearly understand what the instructor wants. The most important thing here is to understand the required format—whether it is APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.
After understanding the requirements of the paper, the next phase is to gather relevant materials. The first place to start the research process is the weekly resources. Go through the resources provided in the instructions to determine which ones fit the assignment. After reviewing the provided resources, use the university library to search for additional resources. After gathering sufficient and necessary resources, you are now ready to start drafting your paper.
How to Write the Introduction for ANALYSIS OF A PERTINENT HEALTHCARE ISSUE NURS 6053
The introduction for the Walden University ANALYSIS OF A PERTINENT HEALTHCARE ISSUE NURS 6053 is where you tell the instructor what your paper will encompass. In three to four statements, highlight the important points that will form the basis of your paper. Here, you can include statistics to show the importance of the topic you will be discussing. At the end of the introduction, write a clear purpose statement outlining what exactly will be contained in the paper. This statement will start with “The purpose of this paper…” and then proceed to outline the various sections of the instructions.

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How to Write the Body for ANALYSIS OF A PERTINENT HEALTHCARE ISSUE NURS 6053
After the introduction, move into the main part of the ANALYSIS OF A PERTINENT HEALTHCARE ISSUE NURS 6053 assignment, which is the body. Given that the paper you will be writing is not experimental, the way you organize the headings and subheadings of your paper is critically important. In some cases, you might have to use more subheadings to properly organize the assignment. The organization will depend on the rubric provided. Carefully examine the rubric, as it will contain all the detailed requirements of the assignment. Sometimes, the rubric will have information that the normal instructions lack.
Another important factor to consider at this point is how to do citations. In-text citations are fundamental as they support the arguments and points you make in the paper. At this point, the resources gathered at the beginning will come in handy. Integrating the ideas of the authors with your own will ensure that you produce a comprehensive paper. Also, follow the given citation format. In most cases, APA 7 is the preferred format for nursing assignments.
How to Write the Conclusion for ANALYSIS OF A PERTINENT HEALTHCARE ISSUE NURS 6053
After completing the main sections, write the conclusion of your paper. The conclusion is a summary of the main points you made in your paper. However, you need to rewrite the points and not simply copy and paste them. By restating the points from each subheading, you will provide a nuanced overview of the assignment to the reader.
How to Format the References List for ANALYSIS OF A PERTINENT HEALTHCARE ISSUE NURS 6053
The very last part of your paper involves listing the sources used in your paper. These sources should be listed in alphabetical order and double-spaced. Additionally, use a hanging indent for each source that appears in this list. Lastly, only the sources cited within the body of the paper should appear here.
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ANALYSIS OF A PERTINENT HEALTHCARE ISSUE NURS 6053
ANALYSIS OF A PERTINENT HEALTHCARE ISSUE NURS 6053
Nurses should always work in safe and adequately-resourced healthcare settings. Failure to meet these fundamental requirements makes healthcare organizations stressful and threatens nurses’ comfort and ability to provide quality care. Although healthcare organizations strive to provide safe workplaces for healthcare professionals while supporting them in various ways, workplace stressors widespread in the United States are a huge setback. One such stressors is the nursing shortage, which has crippled patient care in many organizations. The purpose of this paper is to inform the management how the nursing shortage affects the work setting and appropriate intervention strategies as applied in other organizations.
Stressor’s Description and Impacts
The nursing shortage is a multidimensional problem in the United States affecting how and when patient care is offered. Its defining element is a supply that cannot match the current demand for nurses. Worse, the national demand for nurses is projected to rise progressively up to 2024, when the demand for registered nurses will rise by 16% (Weaver et al., 2018). Potential causes for this inevitable increment include an aging workforce, workplace stress triggering turnover, and nurses continuously leaving the practice to join other professions.
The impacts are sweeping and regrettable since the quality of care is inversely proportional to the nurse-to-patient ratio. A high nurse-patient ratio increases the nurse workload leading to burnout. The same problem is witnessed in the current setting since burnout stemming from the nursing shortage triggers as high as 30% of turnover in the facility. Other impacts include increased susceptibility to committing medical errors, unhealthy workplace relationships, and lack of time for self-care.
Research Addressing the Nursing Shortage
The criticality of the nursing shortage in the United States has attracted a lot of attention from researchers, healthcare stakeholders, and policymakers. One of the articles from outside resources that have explored the nursing shortage in-depth is by Shah et al. (2018) on the prevalence and factors associated with nurse burnout in the United States. In this article, Shah et al. (2018) analyzed the damaging effects of nurse burnout as a leading consequence of the nursing shortage hampers patient care and professional relationships. The authors further outline the various interventions magnet hospitals use to cope with workplace stressors that can be applied in the current organization.
The second article is by Ten Hoeve et al. (2020) on nurse turnover prevention. The article’s primary theme is that a nursing shortage hampers professional commitment and collegial support is instrumental in enabling nurses to cope with the detrimental effects of a nursing shortage in healthcare organizations. Generally, the articles underscore the importance of transformational leadership in nursing, whose role is changing culture to achieve better patient outcomes (Broome & Marshall, 2021). They demonstrate the need to embrace change and engage the workforce in transforming health practices to optimize patient outcomes.
Summary of the Strategies Used to Address the Nursing Shortage
The articles provide various strategies for addressing the nursing shortage in magnet hospitals and other organizations. Shah et al. (2018) underlined the importance of adequate nurse staffing and reducing workload by limiting the length of shifts. Since hiring adequate staff is usually an enormous administrative and financial challenge, magnet hospitals should maximally focus should be limiting the number of hours per shift. Doing so would give nurses ample time to engage in self-care and other activities that increase commitment.
This approach coincides with the suggestion that improving employee well-being, as witnessed in Anne Arundel Medical Center, increases employee engagement hence reducing turnover (Jacobs et al., 2018). Collegial support helps nurses to overcome negative experiences in the workplace. It is achieved by leaders and supervisors increasing their commitment to improving the work environment to ensure that it is free from adverse events. Nurses should also be supported through professional growth opportunities and a work routine that promotes a positive work-life balance.
Impact on the Organization
The strategies suggested in the research articles may impact the organization both positively and negatively. From a positive dimension, reducing the lengths of shifts, promoting employee well-being, and providing growth opportunities have the potential to increase commitment to work. A highly committed workforce is less susceptible to nurse burnout hence low turnover. However, most of these alternatives require employee training and continuous support with educational resources. As a result, they would be financially burdening. Hiring new staff is equally a huge burden. However, healthcare leaders should increase their reliance of non-physician clinicians since the quality of care does not differ with what physicians provide (Auerbach et al., 2018). The only thing needed is supervision and continuous support.
Conclusion
Healthcare delivery faces many challenges that impede patient outcomes. The nursing shortage is a significant nursing stressor that hampers patients’ outcomes, workplace productivity, and relationships. The problem is prevalent in the current organization, and leaders should implement creative and lasting measures to mitigate its damage. Some of the most effective strategies, as proposed in the explored articles, include manageable workloads, promoting well-being, and providing growth and development opportunities. As highlighted, these practices have both positive and negative consequences, and leaders should adequately analyze them before making a choice.
References
Auerbach, D. I., Straiger, D. O., & Buerhaus, P. I. (2018). Growing ranks of advanced practice clinicians-implications for the physician workforce. The New England Journal of Medicine, 378(25), 2358-2360. doi: 10.1056/NEJMp1801869
Broome, M., & Marshall, E. S. (2021). Transformational leadership in nursing: From expert clinician to influential leader (3rd ed.). Springer.
Jacobs, B., McGovern, J., Heinmiller, J., & Drenkard, K. (2018). Engaging employees in well-being: Moving from the Triple Aim to the Quadruple Aim. Nursing Administration Quarterly, 42(3), 231-245. https://doi.org/10.1097/naq.0000000000000303
Shah, M. K., Gandrakota, N., Cimiotti, J. P., Ghose, N., Moore, M., & Ali, M. K. (2021). Prevalence of and factors associated with nurse burnout in the US. JAMA Network Open, 4(2), e2036469-e2036469.
Ten Hoeve, Y., Brouwer, J., & Kunnen, S. (2020). Turnover prevention: The direct and indirect association between organizational job stressors, negative emotions and professional commitment in novice nurses. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 76(3), 836–845. https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.14281
Weaver, M. S., Wichman, B., Bace, S., Schroeder, D., Vail, C., Wichman, C., & Macfadyen, A. (2018). Measuring the Impact of the home health nursing shortage on family caregivers of children receiving palliative care. Journal of Hospice and Palliative Nursing: JHPN : The Official Journal of the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association, 20(3), 260–265. https://doi.org/10.1097/NJH.0000000000000436
Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue
From a general perspective, healthcare provision involves identifying health problems affecting the populace and developing practical intervention measures. As this happens, policies are made to streamline care delivery as healthcare providers keep learning to improve outcomes. The overall mandate of care providers is to enhance patient safety while striving to optimize quality always. However, everything does not occur smoothly as envisioned since many healthcare stressors affect care delivery and prevent healthcare providers from meeting the set goals. This paper assesses the impacts of nursing shortage as a pertinent healthcare issue at the organizational level and summarizes evidence-based interventions applied by other organizations.
The Nursing Shortage Problem
In practice, healthcare providers should be kept free from exhaustion. The care providers to patient ratio should be manageable such that healthcare providers are not physically and mentally drained. Nursing shortage occurs when the number of patients is high to the extent that care providers cannot provide satisfactory services. The problem creates an environment where care providers are highly dissatisfied and ready to leave (Chang et al., 2017). In response, it has been the cause of 25% nurse turnover in the organization, with 10% of the care providers leaving the profession entirely. This data shows a lack of motivation to continue offering healthcare services irrespective of other measures such as rewards the organization applies to inspire employees.
Undeniably, this proportion of turnover is high and implies two things. Firstly, the organization will continue using massive resources to replace the lost workforce. Doing so leads to a scenario where some areas are underserved since resources are used wrongly. Secondly, turnover increases the healthcare burden to the employees left serving. Since the ones left behind are overworked, they are easily frustrated and can quit too. Eventually, a cycle where patients are underserved and dissatisfied ensues. Such instances reduce the overall quality of care and make it challenging to achieve the set objectives.
Summary of Articles
Nursing shortage causes dissatisfaction, which increases the turnover rate. In this case, nurses are overwhelmed, and the reasons to remain in practice decrease progressively. In response, different organizations apply varying and sometimes interrelated strategies to increase healthcare workers’ satisfaction. The primary role of the strategies used is to inspire healthcare providers and give them more reasons to serve. Indeed, motivation makes them embrace crucial healthcare principles, such as empathy and compassion. It is right to deduce that nursing outcomes can improve if such methods were used universally.
The first article I reviewed examines the relationship between career development and healthcare outcomes. According to Price and Reichert (2017), providing healthcare workers with meaningful training and developmental opportunities make them more engaged. The main reason for investing in development is to reduce the cost associated with recruiting a new workforce. Some of the costs that training and development help to avoid include interviewing, onboarding, and orientation costs. Moreover, if given a chance to attain the highest education possible, healthcare providers feel more satisfied and can stay within the organization for a long time.
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The other article that I reviewed examined the connection between healthcare workers’ engagement and health outcomes. As Bokhour et al. (2018) posited, healthcare organizations should always align employee and organizational goals. This consideration is based on the premise that healthcare workers are passionate about helping others when they join the practice, but their mindsets change depending on how healthcare organizations treat them. Given this, as Bokhour et al. (2018) insisted, healthcare workers should be set up for success by providing them with the necessary resources and skill development opportunities. Organizations should always recognize the role of workers and consider their personal goals as they develop their goals.
Strategies to Address Organizational Impact
A high turnover rate is detrimental to the achievement of healthcare goals. Situations prompting

turnover at whichever level should be avoided by all means. According to Ayanwale (2019), reward systems can be integrated into healthcare practice to reduce turnover. Like other employees, healthcare providers should be highly motivated to work by recognizing their efforts where they excel. For instance, they should be given off days if they meet their weekly targets. Opportunities for promotion should be fair and based on effort. If such practices are persistent, healthcare workers will remain satisfied and remain committed to serving in an organization. Although reward systems are positively impacting, it is crucial to be careful about their sustenance since they can be expensive.
The other way of preventing turnover is by involving healthcare workers in policymaking. Here, as Safari et al. (2020) suggested, organizations must consider employees’ input when making decisions. The main advantage of recognizing employees’ input is that organizational leaders can know where they might be falling short. The feedback they receive from employees helps them to adapt and deliver better results. Eventually, the entire practice makes employees feel valued and wanted. Such a culture prevents turnover as the level of satisfaction is high, but it can be disastrous since healthcare workers may feel entitled to contribute to everything.
In conclusion, nursing shortage is a real problem in healthcare provision. It hampers the delivery of quality care and risks patients’ safety since patients are underserved. As discussed, the problem can be addressed by addressing issues that cause employee turnover. Such strategies include career development plans for healthcare providers, reward systems, and involving healthcare workers in policymaking.
The Quadruple Aim provides broad categories of goals to pursue to maintain and improve healthcare. Within each goal are many issues that, if addressed successfully, may have a positive impact on outcomes. For example, healthcare leaders are being tasked to shift from an emphasis on disease management often provided in an acute care setting to health promotion and disease prevention delivered in primary care settings. Efforts in this area can have significant positive impacts by reducing the need for primary healthcare and by reducing the stress on the healthcare system.
Changes in the industry only serve to stress what has always been true; namely, that the healthcare field has always faced significant challenges, and that goals to improve healthcare will always involve multiple stakeholders. This should not seem surprising given the circumstances. Indeed, when a growing population needs care, there are factors involved such as the demands of providing that care and the rising costs associated with healthcare. Generally, it is not surprising that the field of healthcare is an industry facing multifaceted issues that evolve over time.
In this module’s Discussion, you reviewed some healthcare issues/stressors and selected one for further review. For this Assignment, you will consider in more detail the healthcare issue/stressor you selected. You will also review research that addresses the issue/stressor and write a white paper to your organization’s leadership that addresses the issue/stressor you selected.
Resources
Be sure to review the Learning Resources before completing this activity.
Click the weekly resources link to access the resources.
WEEKLY RESOURCES
To Prepare:
- Review the national healthcare issues/stressors presented in the Resources and reflect on the national healthcare issue/stressor you selected for study.
- Reflect on the feedback you received from your colleagues on your Discussion post for the national healthcare issue/stressor you selected.
- Identify and review two additional scholarly resources (not included in the Resources for this module) that focus on change strategies implemented by healthcare organizations to address your selected national healthcare issue/stressor.
The Assignment (2-3 Pages):
Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue
Develop a 2 to 3 page paper, written to your organization’s leadership team, addressing your selected national healthcare issue/stressor and how it is impacting your work setting. Be sure to address the following:
- Describe the national healthcare issue/stressor you selected and its impact on your organization. Use organizational data to quantify the impact (if necessary, seek assistance from leadership or appropriate stakeholders in your organization).
- Provide a brief summary of the two articles you reviewed from outside resources on the national healthcare issue/stressor. Explain how the healthcare issue/stressor is being addressed in other organizations.
- Summarize the strategies used to address the organizational impact of national healthcare issues/stressors presented in the scholarly resources you selected. Explain how they may impact your organization both positively and negatively. Be specific and provide examples.
Looking Ahead
The paper you develop in Module 1 will be revisited and revised in Module 2. Review the Assignment instructions for Module 2 to prepare for your revised paper.
By Day 7 of Week 2
Submit your paper.
Submission information
Before submitting your final assignment, you can check your draft for authenticity. To check your draft, access the Turnitin Drafts from the Start Here area.
- To submit your completed assignment, save your Assignment as WK2Assgn_LastName_Firstinitial
- Then, click on Start Assignment near the top of the page.
- Next, click on Upload File and select Submit Assignment for review.
Patient safety and quality care delivery are essential in improving patient outcomes and meeting regulatory requirements advanced by policies like the Affordable Care Act and value-based purchases (Slonim, 2023). However, organizations grapple with different health issues, key among them hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) like catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) (Caparro et al., 2020). The purpose of this paper is to discuss HAIs as a pertinent healthcare issue that impacts healthcare organizations and providers.
Hospital or Healthcare Associated Infections (HAIs)
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) asserts that healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) are among the most prevalent complications in healthcare facilities. On its part, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (2019) says that one in every 31 hospitalized patients gets HAI implying that close to 633,000 get infected each year in the U.S. healthcare system. These infections cause morbidities and, in some cases, mortality that can be mitigated. The implication is that over a million infections occur in the U.S. leading to the loss of billions of dollars, lives, and other resources that could be channeled elsewhere.
In our organization, the rate of infections, especially CAUTIs and ventilator-associated ones has been rising with the recent data showing that close to 100 infections occurred over the last year. This is an increase from 60 infections recorded over the same period two years back. As such, the organization asserts that it is critical to address the rising rate of infections to ensure patient safety and quality of care as well as get reimbursed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CDC, 2019). These infections should be contained in both the short and long term to attain value-based care for the patients and their families.
Summary of Reviewed Articles
The first article is by Caparro et al. (2020) who propose effective interventions to reduce HAI rates in healthcare settings. Through their focus on adult geriatric patients, the authors assert that infection control practices like strategic methodologies to lower the risk of HAIs are essential. The authors suggest having an effective reporting system and evidence-based practice interventions that include a non-blame culture but focus on the root cause of such incidences as the best way to lower such events.
The sentiments shared in the above article are supported by Bearman et al. (2019) who assert that HAIs are preventable when providers and organizations focus on the tenet of “no harm”, which will allow them to develop prevention programs and interventions that are not only reliable but also sustainable and practical. The article also implores providers and organizations to develop and use evidence-based practice strategies that focus on creating a patient safety environment as the primary tool for excellent care delivery. These articles demonstrate that effective strategies must emanate from providers and organizational safety and quality care policies to reduce the rates of infections.
Organizations across the healthcare industry are addressing infections through effective strategies founded on evidence-based practices and need to meet the value-based purchase requirements by the CMS. As such, these organizations have safety and quality policies and organizational cultures that focus on reporting systems and collaborative efforts to reduce infections and other adverse events like medication errors (AHRQ, 2019). These entities prioritize nurse-led interventions like reporting, feedback, better shift handover as well an organizational safety culture that holistically focuses on patients and providers.
Summary of Strategies and Impact on Organization
Addressing healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) entails using evidence-based approaches as demonstrated by the resources used in this paper. These include having a safety culture and reporting policy, using EBP interventions focused on developing prevention programs to meet patient and health population needs, and increased adherence to regulatory requirements based on the Quadruple Aim framework (Puro et al., 2022). Further, providers must work collaboratively to implement strategies that align with the overall quality expectations in the organization for nurses and patients as well as their families.
These strategies may affect our organization positively as they will lead to better care delivery increased patient satisfaction and improved experience. On the flip side, these policies require increased investment in surveillance and resources as well as not pinpointing anyone which may not be practical in any setting (Bearman et al., 2022). As such, the strategies focus on the positive aspects but ignore the possible and critical unintended consequences that may arise from their implementation.
Conclusion
National health stressors like hospital-acquired or associated infections are safety concerns that require effective interventions. As demonstrated, organizations continue devising strategies to help them deal with this stressor and reduce its overall negative effects. As such, implementing evidence-based best practices will help healthcare entities to deal with the stressor in both the short and long-term.
References
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) (2019). Health Care – Associated
Infections. https://psnet.ahrq.gov/primer/health-care-associated-infections
Bearman, G., Doll, M., Cooper, K., & Stevens, M. P. (2019). Hospital infection prevention: how
much can we prevent and how hard should we try? Current Infectious Disease Reports, 21, 1-7. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11908-019-0660-2
Caparros, A. C., & Wyckoff, M. (2020). Infection Control Interventions to Improve Hospital-
Acquired Infection Rates in Adult-Geriatric Patients. Journal Of Prevention and Infection Control, 6(2). DOI: 10.36648/2471-9668.6.1.01
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (2019). Healthcare-Associated Infections
(HAIs). https://www.cdc.gov/hai/patientsafety/patient-safety.html
Puro, V., Coppola, N., Frasca, A., Gentile, I., Luzzaro, F., Peghetti, A., & Sganga, G. (2022).
Pillars for prevention and control of healthcare-associated infections: an Italian expert opinion statement. Antimicrobial Resistance & Infection Control, 11(1), 1-13.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13756-022-01125-8
Slonim, A. (2023). Top challenges facing healthcare: Back to basics. Physician Leadership
Journal, 10(2), 12–14. https://doi.org/10.55834/plj.2064149664
Rubric
Criteria | Ratings | Pts | ||||
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Develop a 2-3 page paper, written to your organization’s leadership team, addressing the selected national healthcare issue/stressor and how it is impacting your work setting. Be sure to address the following: · Describe the national healthcare issue/stressor you selected and its impact on your organization. · Use organizational data to quantify the impact (if necessary, seek assistance from leadership or appropriate stakeholders in your organization).
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· Provide a summary of the two articles you reviewed from outside resources, on the national healthcare issue/stressor. · Explain how the healthcare issue/stressor is being addressed in other organizations.
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· Summarize the strategies used to address the organizational impact of national healthcare issues/stressors presented in the scholarly resources you selected. · Explain how the strategies may impact your organization both positively and negatively. Be specific and provide examples.
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Resource Synthesis
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Written Expression and Formatting—Paragraph Development and Organization:Paragraphs make clear points that support well-developed ideas, flow logically, and demonstrate continuity of ideas. Sentences are carefully focused—neither long and rambling nor short and lacking substance. A clear and comprehensive purpose statement and introduction is provided, which delineates all required criteria.
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Written Expression and Formatting—English Writing Standards: Correct grammar, mechanics, and proper punctuation.
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Written Expression and Formatting: The paper follows correct APA format for title page, headings, font, spacing, margins, indentations, page numbers, running head, parenthetical/in-text citations, and reference list.
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Total Points: 100
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Sample Answer for ANALYSIS OF A PERTINENT HEALTHCARE ISSUE NURS 6053
Patient safety and quality care delivery are essential in improving patient outcomes and meeting regulatory requirements advanced by policies like the Affordable Care Act and value-based purchases (Slonim, 2023). However, organizations grapple with different health issues, key among them hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) like catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) (Caparro et al., 2020). The purpose of this paper is to discuss HAIs as a pertinent healthcare issue that impacts healthcare organizations and providers.
Hospital or Healthcare Associated Infections (HAIs)
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) asserts that healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) are among the most prevalent complications in healthcare facilities. On its part, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (2019) says that one in every 31 hospitalized patients gets HAI implying that close to 633,000 get infected each year in the U.S. healthcare system. These infections cause morbidities and, in some cases, mortality that can be mitigated. The implication is that over a million infections occur in the U.S. leading to the loss of billions of dollars, lives, and other resources that could be channeled elsewhere.
In our organization, the rate of infections, especially CAUTIs and ventilator-associated ones has been rising with the recent data showing that close to 100 infections occurred over the last year. This is an increase from 60 infections recorded over the same period two years back. As such, the organization asserts that it is critical to address the rising rate of infections to ensure patient safety and quality of care as well as get reimbursed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CDC, 2019). These infections should be contained in both the short and long term to attain value-based care for the patients and their families.
Summary of Reviewed Articles
The first article is by Caparro et al. (2020) who propose effective interventions to reduce HAI rates in healthcare settings. Through their focus on adult geriatric patients, the authors assert that infection control practices like strategic methodologies to lower the risk of HAIs are essential. The authors suggest having an effective reporting system and evidence-based practice interventions that include a non-blame culture but focus on the root cause of such incidences as the best way to lower such events.
The sentiments shared in the above article are supported by Bearman et al. (2019) who assert that HAIs are preventable when providers and organizations focus on the tenet of “no harm”, which will allow them to develop prevention programs and interventions that are not only reliable but also sustainable and practical. The article also implores providers and organizations to develop and use evidence-based practice strategies that focus on creating a patient safety environment as the primary tool for excellent care delivery. These articles demonstrate that effective strategies must emanate from providers and organizational safety and quality care policies to reduce the rates of infections.
Organizations across the healthcare industry are addressing infections through effective strategies founded on evidence-based practices and need to meet the value-based purchase requirements by the CMS. As such, these organizations have safety and quality policies and organizational cultures that focus on reporting systems and collaborative efforts to reduce infections and other adverse events like medication errors (AHRQ, 2019). These entities prioritize nurse-led interventions like reporting, feedback, better shift handover as well an organizational safety culture that holistically focuses on patients and providers.
Summary of Strategies and Impact on Organization
Addressing healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) entails using evidence-based approaches as demonstrated by the resources used in this paper. These include having a safety culture and reporting policy, using EBP interventions focused on developing prevention programs to meet patient and health population needs, and increased adherence to regulatory requirements based on the Quadruple Aim framework (Puro et al., 2022). Further, providers must work collaboratively to implement strategies that align with the overall quality expectations in the organization for nurses and patients as well as their families.
These strategies may affect our organization positively as they will lead to better care delivery increased patient satisfaction and improved experience. On the flip side, these policies require increased investment in surveillance and resources as well as not pinpointing anyone which may not be practical in any setting (Bearman et al., 2022). As such, the strategies focus on the positive aspects but ignore the possible and critical unintended consequences that may arise from their implementation.
Conclusion
National health stressors like hospital-acquired or associated infections are safety concerns that require effective interventions. As demonstrated, organizations continue devising strategies to help them deal with this stressor and reduce its overall negative effects. As such, implementing evidence-based best practices will help healthcare entities to deal with the stressor in both the short and long-term.
References
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) (2019). Health Care – Associated
Infections. https://psnet.ahrq.gov/primer/health-care-associated-infections
Bearman, G., Doll, M., Cooper, K., & Stevens, M. P. (2019). Hospital infection prevention: how
much can we prevent and how hard should we try? Current Infectious Disease Reports, 21, 1-7. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11908-019-0660-2
Caparros, A. C., & Wyckoff, M. (2020). Infection Control Interventions to Improve Hospital-
Acquired Infection Rates in Adult-Geriatric Patients. Journal Of Prevention and Infection Control, 6(2). DOI: 10.36648/2471-9668.6.1.01
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (2019). Healthcare-Associated Infections
(HAIs). https://www.cdc.gov/hai/patientsafety/patient-safety.html
Puro, V., Coppola, N., Frasca, A., Gentile, I., Luzzaro, F., Peghetti, A., & Sganga, G. (2022).
Pillars for prevention and control of healthcare-associated infections: an Italian expert opinion statement. Antimicrobial Resistance & Infection Control, 11(1), 1-13.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13756-022-01125-8
Slonim, A. (2023). Top challenges facing healthcare: Back to basics. Physician Leadership
Journal, 10(2), 12–14. https://doi.org/10.55834/plj.2064149664

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