Healthcare organizations nationwide launch initiatives to improve the quality of their services, increase personnel performance, and positively impact patient outcomes. Aside from solving practical issues directly, executives and responsible teams develop programs to address broader aspects, such as staff productivity and stress management. For instance, lack of sleep may worsen performance, and intervention will be necessary to help employees combat the problem. The appropriate instrument for outlining a workable strategy is Total Quality Management (TQM), principles of which are applicable for making long-term, efficient change (Reid & Sanders, 2020). According to TQM, the key concepts are all personnel’s involvement in managing conditions in an organization, focusing on durable positive outcomes, and creating a system of material and moral incentives for employees. This quality improvement report aims to apply TQM principles to address the problem of the lack of sleep among healthcare facilities’ staff.
Staff Education
Lack of sleep is a common issue among healthcare providers; thus, they tend to perceive it as an inevitable condition they cannot influence. It is crucial to educate the staff about the severe consequences of sleep problems and encourage them to take action is solving them. Furthermore, TQM principles suggest that every team member’s involvement is necessary for long-term benefits (Reid & Sanders, 2020). For instance, healthcare providers may use collaborative brainstorming, which entails teams coming together to generate new ideas and thoughts on how they can solve the problem (LaNoue et al., 2019). It is a workable strategy to educate and train staff in addressing the quality of sleep issue because it is based on process improvement theory, where analysis and actions are combined.
Another aspect of increasing employees’ awareness about the severe outcomes of lack of sleep and encouraging them to address it is presenting visual information that can be easily accessed and reviewed. Indeed, developing concise and useful graphics would increase staff interest and engagement crucial for the TQM-based strategy implementation (Ansari, 2022). For example, simple diagrams, timelines, Pareto, or control plots about lack of sleep and methods to successfully implement a lifestyle change may be crafted and given to the team. Collaborative brainstorming and providing healthcare personnel with visual information are essential to educate and train them to find workable solutions for eliminating the adverse outcomes of sleep deprivation.
Schedule Optimization
Healthcare providers build their lifestyle habits around their work planning which frequently includes long night shifts or extra hours. According to the TQM principle of fact-based solutions selection, schedule optimization is a direct approach to addressing the lack of sleep among personnel (Reid & Sanders, 2020). Various techniques are available for adjusting the timetable, such as scheduling based on a circadian rhythm based on scientific evidence on how the physiological and behavioral daily activities occur within the twenty-four-hour cycle (Farhud & Aryan, 2018). Staff should be assigned to explore their rhythms and collaboratively change the current schedule to minimize the lack of sleep.
Furthermore, healthcare providers have individual work-life balance necessities, and awareness of their sleep patterns is crucial for optimizing the schedule. Staff members who perform better and night might prioritize the late shifts, while their colleagues who work more efficiently in the morning may select the early hours (Farhud & Aryan, 2018). Schedule optimization for large teams might not address everyone’s needs; however, exploring behavioral and physiological characteristics and preferences is a strategy to influence the lack of sleep problem deliberately.
Quality of Teamwork Optimization
The initiative to address the lack of sleep among employees and consequently improve their performance and the quality of services requires teamwork optimization. Positive outcomes of employees’ education, training, and schedule updates will be maximized if intercommunication and collaboration are involved at every stage. Furthermore, social interactions at the workplace, such as casual conversations between practitioners and physicians and group activities, help the team sustain wakefulness. Also, the lack of sleep significantly influences an individual’s productivity and quality of socialization (Pilcher & Morris, 2020). When operating as a team, staff members develop a supportive environment and address the TQM principles of systematic improvement and communication.
The quality of teamwork needs optimization to help encourage staff to offer initiatives and establish awarding practices for positive change advocation. Healthcare providers might lack the motivation to work as they have to stay awake for an extended period; yet, if incentivized, they will have a certain goal in mind and work toward it (Manzoor et al., 2021). Groups where different projects are created and supported operate more efficiently and are more willing to address sleep issues.
Conclusion
The problem of sleep deprivation severely influences the productivity of healthcare workers, the quality of services they provide, and overall patient outcomes. Based on the TQM principles, strategies to resolve the issue must include employees’ education and training to increase their awareness of the negative consequences of continuous lack of sleep. Schedule optimization may be applied considering scientific sleep management and individual preferences related to productivity and sleeping patterns. Team building events and intercommunication are crucial to maintaining staff’s involvement to develop long-lasting results and timely address the challenges.
References
Ansari, M. S. A. (2022). TQM framework for healthcare sectors: Barriers to implementation. Quality Innovation Prosperity, 26(1), 1-23.
Farhud, D., & Aryan, Z. (2018). Circadian rhythm, lifestyle and health: A narrative review. Iranian Journal of Public Health, 47(8), 1068-1076.
LaNoue, M., Gentsch, A., Cunningham, A., Mills, G., Doty, A. M., Hollander, J. E., Carr, B. G., Loebell, L., Weingarten, G., & Rising, K. (2019). Eliciting patient-important outcomes through group brainstorming: When is saturation reached?Journal of Patient-Reported Outcomes, 3(9).
Manzoor, F., Wei, L., & Asif, M. (2021). Intrinsic rewards and employee’s performance with the mediating mechanism of employee’s motivation.Frontiers in Psychology, 12.
Pilcher, J. J., & Morris, D. M. (2020). Sleep and organizational behavior: Implications for workplace productivity and safety.Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 45.
Reid, R., D., & Sanders, N. R. (2020). Operations management: An integrated approach (7th ed.). Wiley Global Education.