Introduction
Human resource issues play an important role in healthcare organizations. They not only influence the quality of healthcare provided to patients but also the cost-effectiveness and profitability of the organizations (Gelinas and Loh, 2004). As an operating room technician at the U.S. Army, I have experienced a number of human resource challenges that seem to affect majority of the healthcare organizations. These human resource challenges include: employee turnover, employee competency, utilization of temporary personnel, employee fatigue and lack of teamwork.
Human resources challenges faced at the U.S. Army and other healthcare organizations
Employee retention is a major concern for all organizations. When organizations are able to retain their employees, they not only benefit from the lack of the need to continuously train new employees but the employees are also able to establish healthy relationships with the organizations’ clients thereby enhancing the quality of care provided to them (Gelinas and Bohlen, 2002). In the U.S. Army, a high annual turnover rate of healthcare workers forces the organization to employ and train new workers.
This affects the quality of care provided to the patients because the patients have to be taken care of by new healthcare providers every time. Consequently, patients are not able to establish any long-lasting relationships with their healthcare providers and this in turn affect their recovery process and satisfaction level.
The high turnover rate is also closely linked to lack of teamwork in the healthcare organization. The establishment of teamwork is a long process that requires heavy investments of time and efforts from all the parties concerned. The high turnover rate of employees at the organization means that the remaining employees are not able to establish long-term relationships with their fellow employees. As new employees are brought in to replace those who are leaving, the existing employees are forced to start the whole process of becoming acquainted with them as well as establishing teamwork if possible (Gelinas and Loh, 2004).
This is one challenge that I have experienced working as an operating room technician. The job requires cooperation and a team spirit from all the workers who are concerned with the operation process. However, when one or two employees with whom I had established cooperative relationships leave, my ability to provide quality services to my clients is compromised because I am forced to start the whole process again with the new employees.
Use of temporary personnel is also a common human resource challenge in many healthcare organizations. This results when there is a consistent and high employee turnover rate. In such situations, the organization is forced to bring in some inexperienced personnel to hold the vacant positions on a temporary basis until experienced employees are hired. The hiring of temporary and inexperienced personnel has an adverse effect on the quality of care provided to patients (Redman, 2007). It also affects the productivity of the experienced employees because they have to keep on assisting the temporary employees. This robs them of the time they are supposed to spend on their work and therefore the progress of their work is negatively affected.
Conclusion
In addition to working with temporary and inexperienced employees, healthcare professionals also suffer from employee fatigue especially if there is a shortage of workers (Gelinas and Loh, 2004). Employee fatigue results from the need of employees to take on more responsibilities and additional case loads. For instance, as an operating room technician, I have been forced many times to work as a physician assistant and even to provide nursing care to patients due to lack of adequate employees.
Reference List
Gelinas, L., & Bohlen, C. (2002). The business case for retention. Journal of Clinical Systems Management, 4(78), 14-16.
Gelinas, L., & Loh, D.Y. (2004). The effect of workforce issues on patient safety. Nursing Economics, 22(5), 266-273.
Redman, R. (2007). Research challenges in examining nurses as a resource. Research and Theory for Nursing Practice, 21(2), 80-82.