Introduction
Contemporary healthcare organizations face nursing shortages, challenging administrators to retain experienced ones. Shah et al. (2021) assert that burnout and turnover rates are significantly high due to long shifts, which take more than 40 hours per week, inadequate staffing, personal obligations, and a hostile work environment. There are disparate strategies to mitigate burnout and turnover to retain nurses.
Main body
The hospital can balance patient-to-nurse ratios to reduce burnout and turnover. Addressing many clients increases the levels of emotional exhaustion (Shah et al., 2021). Therefore, assigning caregivers a manageable number of patients is crucial to reducing burnout. This strategy also mitigates turnover and low client satisfaction. The hospital’s administrators can transform workplace features to address burnout as well. This step involves promoting positive nurse-doctor relationships, supporting educational programs, and fostering autonomy (Shah et al., 2021). Encouraging satisfactory collaborations and discoursing bullying ensures personal safety and genuine respect. Further, burnout can be mitigated by involving nurses in policy discussions regarding their work. Developing shared managerial programs is necessary to allow nurses to participate in work scheduling and workflow management. These strategies can help to promote a culture that recognizes a job-life balance.
From my perspective, the best strategy is to balance the nurse-to-patient ratio. It will reduce the chances of working overtime to allow nurses to have time for recreation and personal obligations. All professionals seek work-life balance; therefore, hospitals should offer overtime voluntarily (Shah et al., 2021). Working beyond the regular shifts increases stress levels, apart from limiting physical exercise and family relationships. In the end, the nurse experiences low work satisfaction, leading to a turnover.
Conclusion
Conclusively, burnout and turnover are the major problems affecting hospital organizations. The leading causes include inadequate staffing, hostile working environments, and long shifts. Some of the ultimate strategies to mitigate the issue include overtime elimination, fostering graduate and mentorship programs, promoting after-work relaxation, and establishing a pleasant nursing environment. The best strategy that the hospital can utilize is to balance the nurse-patient ratio. It will help caregivers to find time for personal responsibilities and recreation. Thus, hospitals should not use long shift hours to compensate for inadequate staffing.
Reference
Shah, M. K., Gandrakota, N., Cimiotti, J. P., Ghose, N., Moore, M., & Ali, M. K. (2021). Prevalence of and factors associated with nurse burnout in the US.Journal of American Medical Association Network Open, 4(2), e2036469. Web.