How Competing Needs Impact the Development of Policy. Essay Sample

Policies are frequently developed in the nursing field, particularly to enhance patient care services, distribute workload to every nurse within the healthcare facility, and improve the revenue realized by the health organization. However, the various competing needs must complement the intended functions of the policies being formulated and implemented (Labrague et al., 2018). For example, a nursing facility can assume that every issue is elaborately covered and may, therefore, proceed with implementing their new policies but halfway into the course realize that critical resources like proper training of the staff and adequate data to back up the new policies may be missing (Dekker, 2019). As such, the policies may positively impact the patients while causing crucial drawbacks to the existing workforce.

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It is critical for healthcare facilities to develop concrete solutions to address the policies and other vital documents to enhance efficiency and productivity. Nonetheless, the process will ensure that the organization is not in violation of any set rules and regulations of the health sector (Dekker, 2019). While developing the solutions, the organization must understand how competing needs to influence policy development. For instance, patients may like the necessary transportation to adapt to the newly set policies. Also, possessing an updated technology that allows patients’ concerns to be addressed promptly may be a challenge to the organization.

In most cases, overworking the available workforce due to staff shortage within the health facility might lead to failure of policies. Regardless of the various limiting factors to the nursing profession's practical influence on policies, it is vivid that nurses are a critical component to both the implementation and development process of health care policies (Labrague et al., 2018). The policies have the potential of addressing the challenge of competing needs by seeking the engagement of stakeholders mapping process. Consequently, every stakeholder's varying level of power and influence is determined, and policies that appeal to all of them are created. The presence of nurses during the making of policies is vital since teamwork is necessary to ensure that the policies meet the patient's needs, and the drawbacks of implementing the policies are outweighed by the benefits (Labrague et al., 2018).

How Limited Psychiatric Impact the Mental Health Care within the Organization

One common competing need that is significantly affecting the mental healthcare issue is the lack of adequate well-trained workforce. Mental health care is a relatively complex field in nursing that requires a thoroughly trained workforce to realize success. However, the shortage in mental health care providers has been on a sharp rise leading to it being both a domestic and a global challenge (Costa & Olfson, 2016). Moreover, there is an excellent misdistribution and uneven access to mental health care services to multiple people all over the globe. This impact cuts across all the income levels since an inadequate workforce causes the problem within the sector.

According to a recent report by the World Health Organization, approximately half of the globe’s population is unable to access proper mental healthcare services. This is primarily because most countries worldwide have a ratio of less than one psychiatrist for every 100 000 individuals (Costa & Olfson, 2016). In countries considered to have low-incomes of about $1,045 per capita income or less, and countries with average revenue of approximately $12.746 per capita the World Health Organization notes that there is only one mental health expert for every 100,000 people. The ration significantly improves in high-income countries, where every 2 000 individuals have unlimited access to one mental health worker (Costa & Olfson, 2016).

The shortage of mental health workforce in more developed nations in the world like the United States health facilities has been dramatically contributed to by factors such as rapid aging of the few available psychiatrists and maldistribution of the psychiatry specialty. The American Medical Association's data illustrates that nearly 59 percent of the existing mental health workforce in the United States is 55 years old (Dekker, 2019). Nonetheless, almost 48 percent of the 30 088 available mental health workers are either 60 years or older, thus left with only five years of service before retiring (Dekker, 2019).

Impacts of Competing Needs and How Policies Address Them

Competing needs in nursing, like patients, resources, and workforce, always have multiple impacts on any given healthcare facility. For instance, a lack of an adequate workforce to look after the patients within the healthcare facility means that the organization is forced to overwork the available team. In the process, the patients may end up not getting the quality care they are entitled due to the low health worker-to-patient ratio (Costa & Olfson, 2016). Moreover, overworking of the low workforce might translate to increased instances of medication errors by the nurses, resulting in undesirable side effects to the patients and generally tainting the organization's name.

Some competing needs like resources within the health care facility may leave the organization highly vulnerable to competition by its rivals. A healthcare facility inevitably has to be well endowed, particularly with resources to ensure that all its operations are smoothly run. Resources are critical in meeting employees' wages and improving the care services delivered to the patients (Labrague et al., 2018). However, the potential impacts of competing needs can be mitigated through the implementation of policies. In most cases, policies ensure that workload is evenly distributed within the organization, the patients' needs comprehensively taken care of and that proper mechanisms are put in place to handle the organization's resources.

References

Costa, C., & Olfson, M. (2016). Shortage Of Mental Health Professionals/Providing Mental Health Care: The Author Replies. Health Affairs, 35(10), 1934. https://search.proquest.com

Dekker, N. L. (2019). Competing goods and fallacies of care: Moral deliberations at the end of life in the nursing home. Journal of aging studies, 51, 100798. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaging.2019.100798

Labrague, L. J., McEnroePetitte, D. M., Al Amri, M., Fronda, D. C., & Obeidat, A. A. (2018). An integrative review on coping skills in nursing students: implications for policymaking. International nursing review, 65(2), 279-291. https://doi.org/10.1111/inr.12393