Respond to the following post by providing additional thoughts about competing needs that may impact your colleagues’ selected issues (nurse retention) or additional ideas for applying policy to address the impacts described.
Write an explanation on Nursing policy is developed and implemented based upon a number of factors. Allocation of funds, shifting and availability of staff, and patient population all contribute to policy development. In addition to these elements, nursing policy is not typically created by nurses serving direct patient care although it impacts them the most. Many inpatient nurses are overworked and overburdened which simply does not leave enough time for involvement in policy development (Kelly & Porr, 2018).
For the healthcare stressor I selected, resources and cost are a large impeding cause to nurse retention and compensation. Approximately 70% of health care costs are associated with healthcare workers compensation and to raise pay to an appropriate amount would further increase such costs (Crettenden et al., 2014). Nurses continue to have more tasks assigned to them without any regard to the already exorbitant list of tasks to complete. Furthermore, there is no federally mandated nurse to patient ratio law leaving exhausted nurses no choice but to leave the bedside altogether (Perry et al., 2018). Competing needs include both patient load and lack of resources such as short staffing. Both of these contribute to nurse retention. Additionally, nurses are pursuing more contract and travel positions due to competitive wages and less commitment to an organization.
Policy can address these issues by first mandating a safe nurse to patient ratio that meets both safety and quality care standards. Policy development for short staffing can be implemented by establishing work programs that distribute certain types of care across the medical force to meet patient needs (Crettenden et al., 2014). By implementing certain policies, organizations can help retain their expert nurses or better continuity of care.
