Many factors influence the healthcare industry, impacting the quality of care and leading to particular patient outcomes. Some of those factors primarily have adverse effects on healthcare, such as provider turnover, which is a significant issue for the industry. Provider turnover has many negative consequences for healthcare, affecting patients’ willingness to continue treatment, leading to poorer treatment outcomes, and undermining the relationships between care providers and the community.
One of the negative impacts of provider turnover on healthcare is patients’ readiness to apply for medical services when they have to work with different professionals constantly. Cherba et al. (2019) report that it may be exhausting for patients to repeat their healthcare stories to new providers over and over. Many people might decide not to go to a medical center and see a doctor to continue their treatment due to unwillingness to go through the same conversations and procedures multiple times. Thereby, provider turnover can undermine the treatment process, eliminating the patient’s desire to take action to improve their own health and deal with diseases and medical conditions. Disengagement from treatment can further exacerbate illnesses, leading to adverse health outcomes and additional care burdens for the patient and their family members (Cherba et al., 2019). Thus, provider turnover negatively affects healthcare from the customer’s (patient’s) perspective, decreasing their willingness to continue treatment.
Furthermore, provider turnover significantly impacts the area of prevention programs and various mental health services. When new staff members, including physicians and nurses, arrive in a new working environment (for instance, another hospital), they get some time to familiarize themselves with that environment (Cherba et al., 2019). The new healthcare providers must learn about the patients, their illnesses, previous treatment procedures, and the implemented programs. That process takes some time, and treating mental conditions needs to be continuous. Otherwise, healthcare professionals may miss critical symptoms, which might be crucial for the patient’s condition. In addition, high turnover rates have been associated with medical errors and overlooked symptoms, leading to various issues such as mistakes in medication orders (Cherba et al., 2019). Everything mentioned above can considerably influence the quality of care, affecting the patients’ conditions, particularly those with mental illnesses.
Finally, a crucial aspect of healthcare is establishing respectful relationships between patients and their caregivers. Cherba et al. (2019) state that trusting communication is essential for providing high-quality care, but such a level of relationship is difficult to achieve when physicians and nurses constantly change. Such changes might lead to the depersonalized provision of services, creating a lack of trust in the community and negatively affecting healthcare outcomes. However, a stable provider of healthcare services can gain patients’ trust since they value the opportunity to know their doctors and nurses, which increases their engagement.
Overall, provider turnover negatively affects the healthcare industry since the problem is associated with patients’ unwillingness to continue treatment, poor health outcomes, and issues in terms of patient-provider relationships. Firstly, people may get exhausted by the necessity to have the same conversations with new providers multiple times, which is why they often choose not to continue treatment. Secondly, lack of continuity in treatment may lead to many medical errors and other issues, which is particularly relevant for mental health services. Finally, the adequate provision of healthcare services depends on the level of trust and respect between the patient and their care providers, which cannot be achieved when the latter ones constantly change. Therefore, healthcare providers should address the turnover issue and decrease it to ensure high quality of care.
Reference
Cherba, M., Akearok, G. K. H., & MacDonald, W. A. (2019). Addressing provider turnover to improve health outcomes in Nunavut. CMAJ, 191(13), 361-364.