Within a healthcare setting, the needs of the workforce, resources, and patients are often in conflict. Mandatory overtime, implementation of staffing ratios, use of unlicensed assisting personnel, and employer reductions of education benefits are examples of practices that might lead to conflicting needs in practice.

Leaders can contribute to both the problem and the solution through policies, action, and inaction. In this Assignment, you will further develop the white paper you began work on in Module 1 by addressing competing needs within your organization.

To Prepare:

• Review the national healthcare issue/stressor you examined in your Assignment for Module 1, and review the analysis of the healthcare issue/stressor you selected.
• Identify and review two evidence-based scholarly resources that focus on proposed policies/practices to apply to your selected healthcare issue/stressor.
• Reflect on the feedback you received from your colleagues on your Discussion post regarding competing needs. 

The Assignment (5 pages):

Developing Organizational Policies and Practices

Add a section to the paper you submitted in Module 1. The new section should address the following:

• Identify and describe at least two competing needs impacting your selected healthcare issue/stressor. 
• Describe a relevant policy or practice in your organization that may influence your selected healthcare issue/stressor.
• Critique the policy for ethical considerations, and explain the policy’s strengths and challenges in promoting ethics.
• Recommend one or more policy or practice changes designed to balance the competing needs of resources, workers, and patients, while addressing any ethical shortcomings of the existing policies. Be specific and provide examples.
• Cite evidence that informs the healthcare issue/stressor and/or the policies, and provide two scholarly resources in support of your policy or practice recommendations.

Please use proper APA. Indent each main paragraph, number each page, and use proper references. if you have any questions let me know.

*First paper is attached. 

Runninghead:

HEALTHCARE STRESSORS

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HEALTHCARE STRESSORS 3

HEALTHCARE STRESSORS

Name

Institutional affiliation

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Date

A healthy nation is a wealthy nation, the truth of this saying can clearly be seen in various aspects of relationships expressed by countries between their exonomic wellbeing and the health of their people. There is no country that can thrive without a good health. Poor health in a country means that people are spending a lot of resources and also wasting a lot of time in seeking for treatment which probably does not work, on the other hand for a healthy nation, limited time is spent searching for effective medication and this also translates that little’s time is wasted and also apt of resources used in constructive agenda. For instance for when a –person is weighing out to invest resources or getting treatment, it is possible to do all of them at the same time owing to the efficiency that a good healthcare system may create.

Healthcare system however faces a plethora of issues or stressors as identified in this course. These stressors have been deemed to inhibit the desired effectiveness of healthcare in this country in order to compete effectively with other developed nations in offering quality healthcare to the people. According to research, stressors in healthcare have negative impact in the overal rendering of cost effective and efficient healthcare services to the patients. (Judge & Rayman, 2001). However the challenges t times have proved to be hard to deal with and this has prompted the need to have a better understanding of the measures that can be implemented at organizational level to deal with the same, the stressors affecting the healthcare sector usually revolve around internal and external factors. Internal factors basically bring stressors that healthcare providers can try to address while external stressors are usually imposed on healthcare facilities by the external factors hence hard for healthcare providers to deal with.

For this assignment the identified stressor affecting the healthcare in the high cost of accessing the healthcare in the country. According to the research the cost of healthcare in the US is the highest in the world with an individual spending about ten thousand dollars per year. This this is quite high owing to other countries budgets. For many people they would also anticipate that the quality of healthcare in the country also to match the high cost but this is quite opposite. Among the developed countries, US has the lowest quality of healthcare as rejected y other healthcare indicators such as life expectancy, access to healthcare, mental health, mortality rate among others. It is clear that the cost of healthcare is a major issue surrounding the healthcare in the country. However there are various measures that can be taken to address this stressor to quality healthcare among the Americans the ever raising cost of getting treatment has been one of impeding factor to the access of quality healthcare. According to the article, the high cost limits the number of people especially the low income earners from seeking quality healthcare. As a result, people who cannot afford such high costs result from using researched medicine while other stay at home without knowing the dangers of letting the disease to advance (Ceric, 2013). The authors give the case of treating obesity as a major challenge facing the US healthcare sectors. The ever increasing cost of treating obesity in the country has led to many people ignoring their conditions while other result to homemade methods which frequently provide not only to be ineffective bus also a major health hazard as there is no science or certainty behind the home methods used. The article stresses on the need for government and stakeholders interventions to bring the cost of healthcare to be a bit lower and affordable to all.

Orszag (2016) on the other hand explore some healthcare reforms that are crucial in bringing down the cost of healthcare in the country. According to the article, high cost in the treatment and access to healthcare services is attributed to the wasted in the healthcare. Wastages emanates from ineffective system strain of resources as well as negligence and wasteful nature of healthcare facilities. The need to improve on the quality of the healthcare as explained in the article also is an important element that would see the cost significantly come down. Many cases of misdiagnosis as reported in various healthcare facilities have significantly led to the increase in the cost of healthcare as healthcare facilities have to pay for the damages and injuries that patients incur. There is therefore a need to address this challenge with a lot of urgency in order to save the country from looming challenges that have revolved around the provision of this essential services of health.

Organizations have a great impact in dealing with this stressor, this usually comes in form of taking responsibility in offering healthcare at optimum level to avoid unnecessary delays or costs that would overburden the patients seeking for treatment. For instance an organization needs to employ qualified staffs to offer quality health services to reduce the instances of misdiagnosis which has been a major driver of healthcare costs in the country. Highly qualified doctors have a higher chances of offering the best healthcare service to the patients and this can be seen in the areas of early detection of diseases which can be treated at a lesser cost during their early stages instead of waiting for them to reach their advanced stages which are hard and expensive to treat, in when it comes to use of organizational resources, a clear strategy needs to be laid on how they should be used to reduce wastage and hence have the same translated in reducing the cost of offering healthcare service to the people

Dealing with the stressor at organizational level requires implementation of strategies to deal with this problem. For this organization, there is a need to have a scrutiny over the services offered. The main objective of this is to ensure that the cost incurred in the treatment process is matched by the quality of services offered. Through the implementation of total quality control mechanism, it is possible for the organization to keep watch of the services offered. Reviewing of the cost is another important thing that also needs to be implemented in order to make the healthcare affordable to all. Reducing the cost of healthcare is likely to impact the organization both negatively and positively. First, by reducing the cost, it is possible to offer quality and affordable healthcare service. On the other hand, this may lead to attracting many patients to visit the facility which may lead to straining of the resource.

In summary the cost of the healthcare remains to be one of the major stressor in the healthcare of US, there is a need for healthcare providers to devise ways in which this issue can be addressed. Government agencies need to work hand in hand with pirate sector to see that healthcare becomes affordable to all regardless of their income. The strategies recommended above are crucial in the sense that they show what organizations needs to co do to address the problem and also help the government in driving low the cost of healthcare while at the same time improving on the quality of healthcare. Emphasis of disease prevention needs to be prioritized as it helps in reducing the overal costs of treating diseases that have already advanced in stages

References

Biener, A., Cawley, J., & Meyerhoefer, C. (2017). The high and rising costs of obesity to the US health care system.

Ciric, I. S. (2013). US health care: a conundrum and a challenge. World neurosurgery, 80(6), 691-698.

Judge, W. Q., & Ryman, J. A. (2001). The shared leadership challenge in strategic alliances: Lessons from the US healthcare industry. Academy of Management Perspectives, 15(2), 71-79.

Orszag, P. R. (2016). US health care reform: cost containment and improvement in quality. Jama, 316(5), 493-495.