Educational Opportunities for Staff: Rationale for Change, Quality Improvement, or Innovation (Essay Sample)

Educational Opportunities for Staff
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Educational opportunities for staff
Introduction:
Nursing education is significant in the everyday life of nurses since it helps in the provision of better healthcare services. Without updated education and training, nurses can have a challenging moment while providing effective healthcare services to their patients (National Institutes of Health, 2014). Although most nurses are already qualified with diplomas and degrees, provision of up to date education opportunities at work can enhance their everyday services. There are many opportunities for registered nurses and provision of additional education in the workplace can improve their skills significantly. It is essential to note that nurses make up the largest percent of medical professionals, and improving their skills can be an added advantage to the medical world.
Problem Identification
Lack of structured education for staff has affected nurses’ ability to provide better health care in a changing world. Every day, a new problem emergencies or new equipment are launched into the market. Hence, without sufficient knowledge, it becomes difficult for nurses to serve their patients adequately. Many things are changing in terms of patients care, and this calls for structured learning opportunities at work to improve nurses’ patients care skills (Choo, 2013). Nonetheless, despite the significance of nurses in the medical world, very little is often done to improve their skills. For example, there are many lifestyle diseases in the 21st century and nurses need to be well equipped on how to handle such cases. Cancer is one of the fast growing diseases, and there are many types of cancer. Without the right knowledge on how to handle such cases, a nurse cannot be in a position to provide the best patients care. Therefore, providing structured education at the workplace can help nurses learn more about current health issues and provide their patients with improved healthcare. Educating nurses on communication, psychology, anatomy, physiology, and microbiology among others can give nurses a sharp eye on how to handle cases; in return, this can improve patients care (Choo, 2013). Patients care is the ultimate goal for medical practitioners and provision of structured education in the workplace can improve patients care significantly (Aiken, 2011).
Rationale for Change, Quality Improvement, or Innovation
Change is inevitable in life, and how things were done 20 years ago is different to how things are done today. Although some people dread change, some change is positive and seeks to improve life. The introduction of nursing education opportunities at the workplace can be one of the many positive changes in the medical world (Aiken, 2011). The essence of any change is to improve how things are done to maximize product or service delivery. Thus, introducing education opportunities for staff in a hospital or nursing home can impact positively on the lives on both nurses, and patients positively (Aiken, 2011). For instance, there are some nurses who graduated 20 years ago, and their approach to problems might differ from a nurse who graduated one year ago.
Each of these nurses is from a different education background and time. Every year, a few things change or are modified to suit the current needs. Likewise, nursing education should be availed to nursing staff to provide them with current medical changes, and approaches to patients care. Hence, introducing structured education opportunist among working nursing will give them a new and current approach to handling diseases. Also, this will provide nurses with personalized -patients care to their diverse patients. For example, there are many lifestyle diseases as a result of our eating habits. A nurse can give patients advice on healthy living, but if he or she is not informed, it can be difficult for the nurse to advise patients. Consequently, there are many challenging behaviors from some patients. Thus, if nurses lack the know-how to address such matters, they cannot be in a position to offer better patients care. Therefore, nurses should be educated on how to cope with such behavioral patterns and reduce dementia impact (Hazelhof, et al, 2014).
Causes of the Problem
The primary cause of this problem is that nurses are often too busy, and they fail to learn relevant current issues, which are fundamental to nursing. In most nations, nurses have long shifts, and they are overworked because the ratio of patients to nurses is not balanced. For example, although America has a significant number of nurses, a study shows that 96 out of 100 nurses are often fatigued at the beginning of their shift (American Nurses Association, 2015). More so, one or two nurses are reported to having insufficient time with patients, 77 percent of nurses’ works in a 12- hour shift. Also, 43 percent have increased over time, and 54 percent have an excessive workload (American Nurses Association, 2015). Besides, about two-third of nurses in Britain are too busy to talk to their patients while 80 percent of nurses admit to rationing patients care (Hope, 2013). Thus, following the busy schedules and heavy workload, nurses fail to keep track of up to date changes in the medicine and the nursing world.
Identification of Stakeholders
Healthcare has many stakeholders who must be accounted for the daily nursing activities to ensure that patients care is upheld. One of the primary stakeholders is the nursing staff (Shore & Kupferberg, 2011). Nursing staffs play a critical role in patients care since they are in charge of admitting and discharging patients. Since the primary role of a nurse to take care of patients, a nursing staff ensures that he or she assist and instruct patients on how to take care of themselves. To the patients who are too weak to do anything for themselves, a nurse staff helps in bathing, removing urine pots or bed pans, feeding and regularly checking patient pressure points. Thus, following their huge role in patients care, nursing staff needs should be considered when creating a structured education to improve their service delivery (Shore & Kupferberg, 2011).
Nursing /middle/upper management
Every management seeks to hire qualified staffs to improve service or product delivery. Human resource managers ensure that their staffs receive additional training while at work to assimilate change in their daily routines. Hence, lack of a structured educational project at hospitals and nursing home makes it challenging for nursing management to align nurses with day to day changes in the nursing world. One of the interests of this stakeholder is that the introduction of an educational opportunity for nurses will help nursing management maximizes training and productivity (Shore & Kupferberg, 2011).
As the hiring or governing body, nursing management has power over the nature of education opportunities that a health institution can embrace. Human resource managers conduct thorough research of what their staffs need, and tailor off –the –job or on-the –job training and educational opportunities. For instance, if nurses are having problems with providing patients care due to lack of information, the management can structure education or training projects that will help nurses understand more about diseases in an in-depth manner. Besides, this group of stakeholder has power over the project since management handles financial aspects of nurses. The introduction of educational opportunities should be within the budget to guarantee success (Shore & Kupferberg, 2011).
Patients
These are the central people who will benefit from nursing education project at the workplace (Shore & Kupferberg, 2011). Often, nurses are tired and overworked, and they fail to follow current trends on how to serve patients adequately. In return, patients suffer from neglect and this affect a hospitals reputation. Therefore, the introduction of this educational opportunity for nursing staff at the workplace will highlight key issues that patients require. For instance, this group of stakeholder has the power to influence the nature of education provided since they are the determinant factor. Hence, a project manager should first assess the needs of patients to educate nurses on how to maximize patients care and plan personalized care for every patient. Also, this stakeholder can influence the educational opportunity at work because patients care has led to the introduction of many machines. Hence, nurses must strive to keep up to date with such innovation to provide better -personalized patients care to all patients (Shore & Kupferberg, 2011).
Physicians
  Doctors play a crucial role in patients care since they are in charge of diagnosing and treating patients. Doctors’ establishes patients’ relationship to improve patients care by collaborating with patients, nurses, and other doctors. Thus, the lack of structured education for staff affects the relationship between nurses and physicians in the provision of better health care services. For instance, if the nurse is not up to date, it can be a challenge for doctors to provide the right healthcare services to their patients (Shore & Kupferberg, 2011). This group of stakeholders has power over the nature of education provided to nurses since the provision of wrong training or education might not improve their working relation.
Purpose of Project
Change is a gradual process that cannot be evaded forever. Today, there are a lot of positive changes that should be embraced to make nursing career successful. The purpose of introducing educational opportunities for nursing staff is to keep all nurses updated about current issues that re...