Essay On Nurse Management

The Management Problem

Nurse management in healthcare organizations can be a difficult task due to the many scenarios that must be addressed for the entire system to run smoothly. There are many parts to the system but none more important than the people that work each shift to give quality patient care: nurses and nursing assistants. A major problem for nurse management occurs when the operation runs on short staffing. Inadequate staffing, whether it occurs due to nurse shortages, hiring freezes, or call-outs, can be a difficult hurdle for nurse managers to overcome due to the increased stress occurring in nurses that must perform with a heavy workload. Possible causes for this problem include difficult working conditions and negative attitudes toward the organization--problems that could be caused by short staffing, in turn creating a snowball effect. The problem occurs on a healthcare unit managed by a nurse supervisor who guides nurses (LPN and RN) and certified nursing assistants (CNA) while completing patient care on a shift by shift bases. The problem is happening due to the ability to call out of work using sick time, the inability for managers to fix the cause of a short staffing problem, or the inability of the organization to recruit new employees and retain current employees.

In an ideal situation there are multiple events that should be happening for a healthy nursing and nurse assistant population, but in short-staffing situations these areas need to be improved. The recruitment process needs to improve efficiency because it is the most important link in a successful healthcare operation which involves finding the most positive, motivated, and talented workers available. Management needs to create a positive, team ...

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...ment. Nurse burnout leading to turnover is a major contributor to the short staffing problem, which is a an issue that can be addressed by nursing management. Management training should be provided to help nurse supervisors deal with issues on a healthcare unit by alleviating nursing and nursing-aide stress through fair and unbiased treatment and creation of a positive team-building atmosphere that employees desire.

Using a management framework to work through management problems is a helpful tool to understand the problem through research and develop a way to solve the problem using research. Working step-by-step through the framework is also a good way to develop original ideas. Formulating new ideas and problem solving using a framework tool outlines information so that it is easy to access and present to other colleagues that might find the information useful.