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Introduction to the study In this case, the healthcare organization under consideration is highly dynamic and uncertain. It also tends to be variable because of factors that can be controlled and those that cannot be effectively controlled. Such factors include staff capacity, unscheduled patients as well as treatment time, especially under complex conditions or during times of pressure when the workload is overwhelming. There is extreme variability in such cases; this leads to a situation where both performance and productivity are negatively affected. Most decisions related to scheduling and staffing are among the most important decisions that can currently be made in healthcare organizations. Such decisions are complicated by the need to have round-the-clock staffing in the various nursing units, the existing nurse shortage, and pressure from different quarters to cut the cost of healthcare. Moreover, in most cases, patients are kept in the hospitals only when they need highly skilled personnel (Restrepo, Rousseau & Vallée, 2020). Therefore, there is a need to reach the problem of staffing and scheduling in a bid to ensure that patients get adequate healthcare services that they deserve. Problem Statement The provision of nursing services in the health organization tends to be a difficult problem perpetually. In this case, healthcare services tend to be “pure” services that are supposed to be available, i.e., 7 days a week and 24 hours a day. There are no holidays and weekends. There is a lot of contact between the patients and the nursing staff, and demand is highly timedependent. In order to ensure that care is provided in a timely fashion and that rigorous quality standards are met, the right number and type of nursing staff must always be available when needed. Previous research tends to report on systems, schedules, and projects that have been tried in many hospitals. However, these researches have yet to be able to reach amicable solutions that
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can be generalized in most hospital contexts. For the health organization, in this case, the complexity of hospital, nurse staffing, and scheduling cannot be understated. The problem is coupled with medical staff shortages, the complexity of the staffing decisions, labor intensity, and scheduling methods that may not be optimal (Shimp, 2017). As such, staffing and scheduling have been major problems facing the organization, hence the need to find optimal ways of addressing them. Background of Research Problem For the health organization, there is more emphasis on cost containment measures, which has created a situation where it is impossible to have adequate nurses in the health facility. With the inadequate resources, and the need to deliver quality care to an increasing population of patients, allocation of resources, scheduling, and staffing has posed challenges to the organization. One of the solutions that the organization depends on is voluntary overtime, which has led to 12 to 16-hour days. The technologies in place are also labor-intensive and require adequate personnel (Nickitas, 2018). Most of the organization's scheduling is done by hand, and the scheduling and shift adjustments are frequently made. Several categories of nursing personnel are involved, and most of the scheduling is decentralized. Purpose of the Study The purpose of the study is to unveil the specific scheduling and training problems facing the health organization in order to come up with practical solutions that can help solve the problems. As mentioned earlier, the scheduling and staffing process has become very complex due to workload variability. Both internal and external factors contribute to this trend. The internal factors that contribute to the issue may include department characteristics, the structure of the hospital, and the policies in place, among others. The external factors include the increased
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complexity of staffing issues, which include demand profile and patient needs, union regulations, and state regulations that mandate scheduling and staff practices. Some initiatives can be put in place to address such problems, albeit to a certain level. However, these solutions are also associated with some disadvantages. For instance, health organizations may require nurses to work harder, leading to burnout in a shorter time. They may also reduce the time that is allocated to each patient. This may have negative implications for the quality of services rendered to these patients (Nickitas, 2018). Therefore, contextual factors must be unveiled to find solutions that will directly address the scheduling and staffing problems facing the health organization. Research Questions The central question for the study will be as follows:
How can the health organization effectively match the staffing patterns to meet the patient’s demands?
The sub-questions that will be addressed under this question include the following:
What are the key factors of management in the staff planning and scheduling activities in the health organization?
What should an integrated staffing and scheduling solution look like to be applicable to healthcare leaders? Definitions of terms or Concepts The term nurse scheduling is sometimes used interchangeably with the term nurse
rostering. As such, there is a need to differentiate the two in order to understand their meaning. Scheduling is the allocation of resources, subject to constraints, in such a way as to minimize the total cost of some set of resources used. Rostering is placing resources into slots in a pattern, subject to constraints. Staffing is the continuous process of selecting, finding, evaluating, and
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developing a working relationship with current or future employees (Aydas et al., 2021). The main goal of staffing is to fill the various roles in an organization with suitable candidates. Significance The study will help address the problems pinpointed by reviewing the literature that illustrates some of the scheduling and staffing concerns and the approaches taken to navigate them. In addition, there exist knowledge gaps that the research may help to unveil. For example, there is a need to shed light on issues such as how work-related stress is related to issues of staffing and scheduling and the manner in which designs for the delivery of nursing services will assure quality, and lower work stress, among other issues. Summary Factors such as staff capacity, unscheduled patients, and treatment time under complex conditions make it hard for the existing healthcare personnel to deliver adequately. Staffing and scheduling decisions are complicated by the need to have round-the-clock staffing in the various nursing units, the existing nurse shortage, and pressure from different quarters to cut the cost of healthcare. In addition, cost containment measures have created resource bottlenecks, affecting scheduling and staffing. The research is tailored towards addressing how the health organization can effectively match the staffing patterns to meet the patient’s demands.
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References Aydas, O.T., Ross, A.D., Scanlon, M.C., & Aydas, B. (2021). New results on integrated nurse staffing and scheduling: The medium-term context for intensive care units. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 72(12), 2631-2648. Nickitas, D.M. (2018). Precision Nurse Staffing and Scheduling Start with Empirical Data. Nursing Economics, 36(4), 158-160. Restrepo, M.I., Rousseau, L.M., & Vallée, J. (2020). Home healthcare integrated staffing and scheduling. Omega, 95, 102057. Shimp, K.M. (2017). Systematic review of turnover/retention and staff perception of staffing and resource adequacy related to staffing. Nursing Economics, 35(5), 239-266A.