Management in Nursing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4500 words

Management in Nursing - Essay Example Absenteeism and turnover negatively impacts on the healthcare organization’s bottom line in several ways, which include reduced quality of patient care, enhanced contingent staff costs, enhanced staffing costs, loss of patients, and enhanced accident rates. Costs may stem from replacement costs associated with the turnover. Turnover will require hiring replacement staff, which incorporates recruitment costs ranging from advertisement placement, and costs flowing from payments to employment agencies. Absenteeism may as well have an indirect cost implication as the new recruits will require training in the facility’s policies and work procedures. The higher the turnover level, the more training  required, and subsequently the higher the training costs that the organization incurs. Similarly, the recruits’ unfamiliarity with the organization’s policies and procedures may render them less efficient and less productive (Rowland and Rowland 1997, p.533). Furth ermore, high rates of absenteeism and turnover may yield extensive periods of understaffing; the â€Å"short† staffing conditions may force the existing staff to work overtime, which is comparatively more expensive. High absenteeism and turnover rates could be detrimental to patient’s health and wellbeing owing to disruption in continuity of care and personal relationships between nurses and patients. While it may be essential to highlight that low levels of turnover may be beneficial as they mirror the adjustment of an organization to its workforce and vice versa, extensive absenteeism and turnover is costly, as well as disruptive to the organization’s functioning. # 2 Providing privacy for patients is an important consideration for health service planner and providers. What factors should be considered in regard to privacy when providing nursing care? Medical privacy is an essential consideration for health service providers as it influences practice. Individu als may avoid treatment in case they are not confident that the information about them will remain confidential. Similarly, patients who seek treatment may withhold critical information out of concern for privacy. Patients have reportedly engaged in behaviors fashioned at protecting their privacy such as avoiding their regular doctor, requesting the healthcare personnel not to record their health information, or â€Å"fudging† diagnosis (paying out of pocket in order not to file insurance). This may be detrimental as it may prevent patients from receiving full and appropriate treatment (Douglas, et al. 2009, p.257). Guaranteeing privacy may remedy these concerns, besides promoting effective communication between physicians and patients, enhancing autonomy, and averting economic harm, discrimination, and embarrassment. In an institutional setting, healthcare professionals (in this case nurses) may be anxious on matters regarding privacy and confidentiality as they have an obli gation (moral) to protect the rights of patients entrusted to their care. This duty heralds patient-nurse relationship as one of the supporting factors that should be considered. There are a several factors that apply with regard to privacy when availing nursing care such as individuality and diversity, as individuals have their own distinct values, attitudes, beliefs and preferences. The most significant factors supporting privacy hinge on social