Inefficient Staffing and Working Practices in Healthcare

Improper execution of staffing and working practices can result in wasteful work and negative patient outcomes. Key solutions include training nurses on electronic health record usage and improving patient flow through improvised discharges and admissions. A communication plan is also necessary to educate staff on challenges and solutions.

Running head: INEFFICIENT STAFFING AND WORKING PRACTICES
INEFFICIENT STAFFING AND WORKING PRACTICES
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

2INEFFICIENT STAFFING AND WORKING PRACTICES
Abstract
For the provision of optimum health care and quality treatments, the concerned clinical and
healthcare organization must engage in sufficient staffing and working practices. However,
improper execution of the same can result in an emergence of wasteful work further leading to
disruption in the activities of the clinical setup further resulting in negative patient feedback and
detrimental health outcomes. Significant wasteful work has been recognized in the fields of
documentation as well activities concerned with the admission, discharge and transfer of patients
within wards. Incorporation of an effective response and communication plan, addressing
training of nurses for adequate electronic health record usage and improvement of patient flow
through improvised discharges and admission, form as key solutions to the above mentioned
wasteful work.

3INEFFICIENT STAFFING AND WORKING PRACTICES
Response to Question 1
Wasteful work can be identified is the functioning concerned with hospital admission,
discharge and transfer activities. A recent experience with patient overcrowding has led to poor
flow of patients as a major wasteful work resulting in delayed admissions. Past experiences
concerned with delaying of patient discharges is a major wasteful work. Lack of adequate
communication between workforce of various wards disrupted transfer of patients (Saghafian,
Austin & Traub, 2015). Another area of wasteful work includes documentation, as observed in
nurses experiencing confusion and difficulties during electronic health record usage, resulting in
reduced patient-practitioner communication and negative customer feedback (Adler-Milstein et
al., 2015).
Response to Question 2
Training nurses on optimum electronic health record (EHR) usage along with assigning a
stipulated time for conducting patient communication would be a key strategy included in the
plan to eliminate wasteful work (Lewis & Jacobson, 2017). Strategies to be included in the plan
to improve admission, discharge and transfer activities are establishment of a critical team in the
emergency department assigned to handle diagnosis, treatment and patient handoff formulation,
distribution of surgical appointments throughout the week, conducting early morning discharge
and usage of software meant for recording patient flow details to reduce one-to-one interactions
(Mathews & Long, 2015).

4INEFFICIENT STAFFING AND WORKING PRACTICES
Response Plan (As designed by the Author)
Tasks 1st to 3rd week 4th to 10th
week
11th to 13th
week
14th to 17th
week
Training nurses on
HER usage   
Scheduling fixed time
for patient-
practitioner
communication
 
Installation of patient
flow software 
Training Staff on
software usage    
Development of
Critical Emergency
Team
  
Distribution of
Surgical
Appointments
throughout week
  
Conductance of Early
Discharge   
Response to Question 3
Concerning the nurse’s usage of electronic health records, the key challenges would
include: prevalence of distress, anxiety and fear amongst the workforce while performing
activities with a novel method such as an EHR, resulting in significant documentation delays and
the resulting avoidance of patient communication. EHR documentation maintenance also
requires regular information filling which may be missed due to burnout and work stress
resulting in inadequate diagnosis posing as a major challenge (Driscoll & Gurka, 2015).
Reluctance towards software installation may be another challenge concerned with
improving patient flow. Incorporating the above response plan successfully will require

5INEFFICIENT STAFFING AND WORKING PRACTICES
considerable time resulting in delay of management of patients who are in a critical or
emergency situation. Formulation of a new emergency team will require reallocation of
workforce resulting in delays as a major challenge as staff members will require time to adjust to
the new responsibilities and working methods (Huang, Carmeli & Mandelbaum, 2015).
Response to Question 4
For the provision of optimum treatment, training and disseminating information to
hospital staff concerning the various challenges associated with wasteful work is of utmost
importance. The following communication plan, aims to communicate these challenges through
usage of appropriate audiovisual, demonstrative and kinesthetic techniques along with didactic
sessions, and will be conducted prior to the response plan mentioned above (Fujimori et al.,
2014).
Communication Plan (As designed by the Author)
Tasks 1st to 3rd
week
4th to
10th
week
11th to
13th
week
14th to
17th
week
18th to
21st week
22nd to
23rd
week
24th
week
One-to-one
didactic
sessions on
present
wasteful work
challenges

Provision of
written
information
booklet for
further staff
reading
 
Conductance
of group
discussion
amongst staff
 

6INEFFICIENT STAFFING AND WORKING PRACTICES
members to
initiate
brainstorming
Education on
solution for
challenges
through
audiovisual
techniques
 
Education
and training
on
overcoming
challenges
through
demonstration
 
Training and
staff
performance
evaluation
through
kinesthetic
techniques
 
Feedback
conductance
for staff
reflection,
brainstorming
and
performance
evaluation

Draft
Formation of
Response
plan
 
Executing of
response plan 

7INEFFICIENT STAFFING AND WORKING PRACTICES
References
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Jha, A. K. (2015). Electronic health record adoption in US hospitals: progress continues,
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Fujimori, M., Shirai, Y., Asai, M., Kubota, K., Katsumata, N., & Uchitomi, Y. (2014). Effect of
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Huang, J., Carmeli, B., & Mandelbaum, A. (2015). Control of patient flow in emergency
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Lewis, L. A., & Jacobson, A. F. (2017). Electronic health record documentation of nursing care
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Network, 36(6), 348-358.
Mathews, K. S., & Long, E. F. (2015). A conceptual framework for improving critical care
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8INEFFICIENT STAFFING AND WORKING PRACTICES
Porter-O’Grady, T., & Malloch, K. (2013). Leadership in Nursing Practice. United States: Jones
& Bartlett Publishers.
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