Wellness Program in the Healthcare Setting to Motivate Nurses

Nurses are consistently required to work for longer hours each day. Mostly it is because of inadequate staffing or a management that attempts to cut down on expenditure. Regardless of the reasons, most nurses work longer than they can manage at most times in most setting which predisposes them to risk factors. Firstly, it would compromise the quality of care they deliver and expose them to diseases and stressing factors (Ansley, Houchins & Varjas, 2016). When they provide services for long hours, they mostly do not have enough rest to rejuvenate. Take, for instance, nurses can experience chronic issues resulting from repetitive strains, and pain in the back, legs, and joints. In adverse, cases some develop long-term medical complications such as cardiovascular illnesses. In the area clinic, it is noticed that nurses call in sick quite often because they require time to rest from the extended hours of work. For the nurses at the clinic, establishing a wellness program as well as a motivational approach to improve their participation would enhance their esteem and reduce stress and disease (Hunsaker, Chen, Maughan & Heaston, 2015).

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Impact of a Wellness Program on Nurses

The setting in which the problem can be encountered is in the clinic as well as nursing homes. Working for long hours without engaging in exercise activities can bring forth personal and professional issues. If a health setting is short-staffed, nurses are pushed to the limit since they have to handle a large workload. Nurses in the nursing home feel that their social life is compromised which hinders their happiness (Wei et al., 2015). Short-staffing is a primary reason that leads to burnout during nursing hours (McKinley, Boland & Mahan, 2017).

Being well in a nursing setting is more than just feeling healthy and averting injury and illness. A healthy nursing setting is one which emphasizes proactively on establishing and sustaining a balance of spiritual, intellectual, professional and physical wellbeing. A health setting that addresses various elements of health causes a great impact. Every wellness program should enhance not only workplace welfare but also physical health of nurses by eliminating health hazards, averting lateral violence and promoting team collaboration (Ammendolia et al., 2016).

Significance

Wellness program would improve employee satisfaction and engagement. The nurses invest quite a lot of their time in their work. To make it a pleasurable experience, a wellness program should focus on making every aspect of it enjoyable (Bolin, 2015). It is essential to note that healthcare practitioners report higher satisfaction and some even engage in a competition to work for extended periods which in the long run creates more connections among the workers (Liu, Aungsuroch & Yunibhand, 2015). A wellness program also lowers health care costs for the institution. Undoubtedly, healthy employees reduce insurance costs and are always present to handle the duties assigned to them. A wellbeing program is quite significant as it can save many nurses and employers several resources from every individual who quits smoking, begins to work out regularly. A physically active lifestyle lowers the risk of obesity, cardiovascular diseases, and presenting these kinds of information to the local health clinic would aid in facilitating and convincing administrators that a worksite wellness program will be beneficial to both the institution and nurses (Wein, 2015).

Proposed Solution

The health facility lacks a health care wellness program, as such, a strategic wellness program would be established to motivate workers and promote work satisfaction. The wellness program will incorporate the community and the healthcare facility through primary events such as healthy heart walk, meditation, and yoga, employ and community field day, 30-day gratitude challenge, wellness feedback channel to promote employees' job satisfaction and personal life enhancement.

References

Ammendolia, C., Cote, P., Cancelliere, C., Cassidy, J. D., Hartvigsen, J., Boyle, E., & ... Amick III, B. (2016). Healthy and productive workers: Using intervention mapping to design a workplace health promotion and wellness program to improve presenteeism. BMC Public Health, 16(1), 1-18. doi:10.1186/s12889-016-3843-x

Ansley, B. M., Houchins, D., & Varjas, K. (2016). Optimizing special educator wellness and job performance through stress management. Teaching Exceptional Children, 48(4), 176-185.

Bolin, J. N., Bellamy, G. R., Ferdinand, A. O., Vuong, A. M., Kash, B. A., Schulze, A., & Helduser, J. W. (2015). Rural healthy people 2020: New decade, same challenges. The Journal of Rural Health, 31(3), 326-333.

Hunsaker, S., Chen, H., Maughan, D., & Heaston, S. (2015). Factors that influence the development of compassion fatigue, burnout, and compassion satisfaction in emergency department nurses. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 47(2), 186-194. doi: 10.1111/jnu.12122

Liu, Y., Aungsuroch, Y., & Yunibhand, J. (2015). Job satisfaction in nursing: a concept analysis study. International Nursing Review, 63(1), 84-91. doi: 10.1111/inr.12215

McKinley, T. F., Boland, K. A., & Mahan, J. D. (2017). Review: Burnout and interventions in pediatric residency: A literature review. Burnout Research, 69-17. doi:10.1016/j.burn.2017.02.003

Wei, Y., Li, H., Chen, P., Li, J., Chen, H., & Chen, L. (2015). Original article: Working experiences of nursing aides in nursing homes: A qualitative study. International Journal of Nursing Sciences, 2371-377. doi:10.1016/j.ijnss.2015.10.006

Wein, D. (2015). Worksite wellness programs offer valuable benefits to both employers and employees. Employment Relations Today (Wiley), 41(4), 35-43. doi:10.1002/ert.21472