Inefficient Staffing and Working Practices in Healthcare

Running head: INEFFICIENT STAFFING AND WORKING PRACTICES
INEFFICIENT STAFFING AND WORKING PRACTICES
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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).