CNA613

PROJECT MANAGEMENT FOR HEALTH PROFESSIONALS

Task 2A

Criterion 1 Project Idea      

You have to propose it on the discussion space

I have decided to work on the project idea of “stress management and coping strategies among nurses in the healthcare setting”.  Nurses are the most highly valued professionals in the society. But, I have seen a disturbing national image of nurses in Australia due to escalating burnout and over-work. The majority of nurses are of the view that their concerns are being ignored by the management and they also have the fear of getting retributed if they speak out (Khamisa, Oldenburg, Peltzer and Ilic, 2015). The national statistics reveal that over 35% of the nurses are considering leaving this profession. This will impact the healthcare system drastically as the healthcare workforce shortage will be of 85,000 by the year 2025 and about 123,000 by the year 2030 (Holland and Tham, 2016). The increasing stress among nurses is taking a heavy toll of patient care. This outcome is occurring to multiple elements such as intense healthcare work environment, lesser flexibility, unfriendly management, over work/burden, excessive administration tasks, inadequate staff levels, and inadequate staff skills mix (Lo, Chien, Hwang, Huang and Chiou, 2018). Therefore, it is the need of the hour to make nurses feel stress free and confident and trained enough to handle their workplace situations with effective coping strategies. Even my several colleagues usually feel stressed on majority of their working days (Opperman, 2016).

Criterion 2

To be asked to fellow students on the group discussion board.

Can anybody help me to acknowledge various risks and related risk management techniques in implementing stress management strategies for nurses in the healthcare setting?

Criterion 3 Response to 3 other Students

To be done in the discussion Board and to be cut and pasted in Criterion 8.

Criterion 4 Justification of Project Idea

To be done on the discussion board

The project idea is clearly justified because stress among nurses is an endemic issue globally which is contributing to health problems in nurses and reducing their performance and efficiency. There is a true need to provide the safety workplace environments with premium quality healthcare services to patients from nursing professionals (Lo et al. 2018). To attain this goal, the most essential step in this ladder is to have effective stress management and coping strategies for nurses (Opperman, 2016). This project is aimed at identifying the key stressors among nurses and to present the most effective strategies for stress management and coping from the combination of literature search and nurse perspectives. The majority of Australian hospitals have reported 30% of nurse turnover on yearly basis (Lo et al. 2018). The acute nurse shortage has been identified in the mental health, aged care, and palliative care health centres due to extreme physical and mental stress. It is shocking to reveal that 37% of nurses reported being yelled at workplace by their seniors; 41% nurses have experienced muscular stress; and 31% nurses have experienced mental stress in the last 6 months of their profession (Lenthall, Wakerman, Dollard, Dunn, Knight, Opie, Rickard and MacLeod, 2017). With this project idea, the hospitals can be motivated to understand and focus on the best strategies to help nurses manage and cope up with their support through effective initiatives (Khamisa et al. 2015).

Task 2B

Criterion 5 Project Aim

The project aim is to identify the key stressors among nurses and the most efficacious stress management and coping strategies viable and reliable to be implemented in the healthcare setting.

Criterion 6 Three SMART Project Objectives

1.     To search and promote enhanced understanding about the needs, problems, key workplace stressors, and required solutions of the nurses within the healthcare settings within 7 days.

2.     To identify and implement the combination of individual coping strategies and institutional management practices for effective nursing stress management within 1.5 months.

3.     To enhance the quality of healthcare services and performance by 30% with enhanced nursing support and workplace satisfaction rate within 4 months.

Criterion 7 Justification & Rationale for Project

This project is the sincere need of the hour in the Australian healthcare industry because I am evident of the increasing stress among nurses and their decision to leave this profession. Even in my healthcare workplace, I have seen 6% reduction in nurse retention process with significant reduction in patient outcomes and satisfaction rate due to mentally and physically disturbed nurses (Khamisa et al. 2015). Every healthcare setting wants to attain best quality of care and services for the patients and this is impossible without satisfied and healthy nurses (Lenthall et al. 2017). The lacking friendly environment, lacking management support, more work and less time, and interpersonal conflicts are forcing this profession to become a stressful option. Thus, the aims and ideas of this project are highly supportive and justified (Lenthall et al. 2017). This project is high on its scope of retaining as much nurses as possible with key focus on helping them to manage their stress and enhance their abilities at the same time (Lo et al. 2018). This defined project will be setting a positive example for every healthcare setting to primarily focus on keeping nurses stress free and supportive in all circumstances to attain the healthcare goals. It is because stress-free nurses will be able to present stress-free healthcare services and better patient outcomes (Opperman, 2016).

It has been universally accepted that the human nature is highly prone to wide range of wears and tears linked with daily activities. This is actually manifested in the form of strains and stress in the daily life. The nurses are highly exposed to several types and levels of stress and burnout in the daily professional life with increasing job demands (Opperman, 2016). As per Lenthall et al. (2017), the nursing professionals are extremely exposed to extreme stressors of inadequate staffing, intense administrative workload, lack of effective communication flow, lack of support, and mental traumas due to patient death and medication errors. The nurses have high-level responsibilities (Holland and Tham, 2016). The nurses also need to be supportive and emotionally stable for the dying patients and their families which increase their physical and mental stress. They even have to face unavoidable and sudden extended working hours, huge manual work, and difference social vices such as verbal and physical abuse from patients, family members, and senior colleagues (Lo et al. 2018). Several nurses have come up with their experience of severe scrutiny due to their action impactions and reactions to the senior management. This makes their professional course unbearable and they either decide to leave the job or get mentally affected. Thus, stress management and coping strategies are highly important for nurses (Lenthall et al. 2017).

This project is a necessity to make nurses feel important, comfortable, and contended in their profession and to assure their positive productivity. With this project outcome, the nurses in all healthcare settings will get opportunities to enhance their capabilities and get encouraged to provide positive care and contribution to the healthcare industry (Khamisa et al. 2015). When there will adequate nurse staffing, better inclusion in healthcare decisions, better support from management, and strategic development, they will surely feel associated and will develop a relaxed mind-set. The project is required to improve the disturbing healthcare coordination and relationships (Lo et al. 2018). With a supportive healthcare environment, stress will automatically take a backseat. This project will help in inculcating positivity and a happy overall nursing balance to enhance the quality of life for all healthcare stakeholders (Holland and Tham, 2016).

No one can deny the fact that stress basically consists of relationships between individuals and their surrounding environment which are taken as challenging aspects or being exceeded from their resources and jeopardizing the health (Opperman, 2016). The human nature of responding to stress is either psychological or physiological. Stress is surely a worldwide epidemic as it is associated with 90% of patient visits as reported by World Health Organization (Lo et al. 2018). This project is directly focused on the ways to reduce among nurses. Again, this project is justified because it will make the nurses feel important and believe in themselves.

Criterion 8 Three interactions

Three interactions with three students on discussion board are required.

References

Holland, Peter. and Tham, Tse Lang. 2016. Burnt-out and overworked, Australia’s nurses and midwives consider leaving profession. The conversation. Available at- https://theconversation.com/burnt-out-and-overworked-australias-nurses-and-midwives-consider-leaving-profession-66141

Khamisa, N., Oldenburg, B., Peltzer, K. and Ilic, D., 2015. Work related stress, burnout, job satisfaction and general health of nurses. International journal of environmental research and public health, 12(1), pp.652-666.

Lenthall, S., Wakerman, J., Dollard, M.F., Dunn, S., Knight, S., Opie, T., Rickard, G. and MacLeod, M., 2017. Reducing occupational stress among registered nurses in very remote Australia: A participatory action research approach. Collegian.

Lo, W.Y., Chien, L.Y., Hwang, F.M., Huang, N. and Chiou, S.T., 2018. From job stress to intention to leave among hospital nurses: A structural equation modelling approach. Journal of advanced nursing, 74(3), pp.677-688.

Opperman, C.S., 2016. Facilitating Positive Professional Practice Environments.