Nurses are a key part of the functioning healthcare system and provide a wide variety of services to patients all over the world. But do all of them directly partake in healthcare reengineering? This post argues that yes, at least in an indirect way, as nursing staff often constitutes the majority among the employees of a healthcare institution. Healthcare provision is undergoing a process of reengineering through the implementation of big data and data analysis into daily procedures (Kuan Lai et al., 2019). As the majority of the hospital staff, nurses are essentially responsible for the human factor of the transformation. The human factor is a crucial part of the reengineering process, as it ensures that the patients’ needs do not get lost amongst the new technology (Santos, 2020). Therefore, perhaps indirectly, every nurse is involved in applying the newest advancements to everyday medicine.
The enormous workload nurses have to face on a daily basis is one of the main challenges of the modern healthcare system. As technological advancement speeds up the services, many hospitals opt for decreasing the staff numbers to increase the profit. To ensure that the patients’ safety remains preserved, the hospitals must monitor the status of the nursing programs and implement the development programs as needed (Yanchus et al., 2017). In the current state of widespread understaffing of the healthcare system, teamwork and high-level communication are more crucial than ever. Yet, it is important for healthcare institutions to address their hiring policies and the potential mistreatments associated with work overload (Metcalf, Wang & Habermann, 2018). When the working process is exceptionally high-paced, and the nurses themselves are systematically overworked, the healthcare quality is bound to decrease.
References
Kuan Lai, P. et al. (2020). Healthcare Big Data Analytics: Re-engineering Healthcare Delivery through Innovation. IRDI Public Health Policy Dialogue Series No.3, pp. 10-13. Web.
Metcalf, A.Y., Wang, Y. and Habermann, M. (2018), Hospital unit understaffing and missed treatments: primary evidence,Management Decision, Vol. 56 No. 10, pp. 2273-2286. Web.
Santos, R. (2020). Reengineer healthcare: a human factors and ergonomics framework to improve the socio-technical system.International Journal For Quality In Health Care, 33(Supplement_1), 19-24. Web.
Yanchus, N. J. et al. (2017). ‘You just can’t do it all: a secondary analysis of nurses’ perceptions of teamwork, staffing and workload. Journal of Research in Nursing, 22(4), 313–325. Web.