Long-Term Care Facilities
This paper requires you to create a SWOT analysis based on a long-term healthcare facility. However, the focus would be on nursing shortages and patient satisfaction, with a particular emphasis on nursing shortages. As a result, SWOT analysis entails conducting an examination of the internal strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for health care, as well as the external threats (ManzanoGarca, & AyalaCalvo, 2014). A long-term healthcare facility’s mission is to provide a variety of services, including medical and personal care. It primarily targets individuals in society who lack the ability to manage on their own. Threats, on the other hand, are external conditions that can have a negative impact on a healthcare facility’s goals. Specifically, the paper will examine one threat for each of the external environmental factors listed below. Technology, politics, competition, regulation, economics, and social factors are among them. The examination of external environmental factors will aid in the generation of new solutions to the problems. It will also help hospital managers achieve their main goals, which are to fix the shortage of nurses and make patients happier.
Threats to Health Care Facilities
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Increased demand for expensive technology is the threat posed by this factor. These technologies, however, are not cost-effective. Advanced technologies are required for both nurses and patients to ensure a safe operation. When a healthcare facility is unable to provide sophisticated technology, nurses will find it difficult to work there. It will result in a nurse shortage because nurses prefer to work in an environment where information flows efficiently and is always up-to-date. Nurses face difficult working conditions due to technological backwardness. Many hospitals have attempted to attract nurses by improving the working environment in terms of technology, but their efforts have yielded no results. It is because the technology they are attempting to implement does not favor the demand for nurses or the complexity of the work. Also, many healthcare facilities don’t have enough money to keep up-to-date technology and keep nurses.
One of the threats depicted under this factor is the complexity of documentation caused by regulatory agencies. The regulatory bodies have mandated that nurses fill out a plethora of paperwork during their practice time. However, nurses are dissatisfied with the complexity of the paperwork because it leaves them with less time to see their families and care for patients. Such circumstances are likely to cause nurses to leave direct care positions. As a result, there will be a nursing shortage, particularly in acute care settings. Similarly, nurses would prefer not to work in the future under such constraints and tiresome practices. Nurses would like the freedom to spend the majority of their time with patients and their families, which they are denied.
The threat posed by social factors is an increasing uninsured population. Because of the large population, healthcare utilization would be high. In addition, new cases of chronic diseases may emerge, posing a challenge to hospitals. It would be difficult for a small number of nurses to manage a large population. As a result, changes in demography indicate the need for a sufficient number of nurses. Future nurse shortages are likely due to population growth and the emergence of chronic diseases. Additionally, the aging population necessitates the need for more nurses. According to Nielsen, Noone, Voss, and Mathews (2013), the elderly population is expected to decline by 40% between 2015 and 2030. Unless the nurse-patient ratio is changed, population changes will limit access to health care services.
The economic factor is an increase in the federal budget deficit. When the federal government’s budget falls short, there is a chance that nurses will receive low-wage jobs. Furthermore, the government may not raise their pay. Most nurses will be forced to leave their profession or work in private hospitals where pay is higher. Similarly, the high wages demanded by registered nurses (RNs) and other nursing department personnel have had a significant impact on the hospital’s demand for RNs. Many RN education programs are funded by the government, and they are unable to increase nurse graduation rates because the government is incurring a budget deficit. It will pose a long-term threat to the number of nurses required to care for a large number of patients. A country’s economic inefficiency would result in an inability to attract and retain nurses.
The political factor is the reduction in government reimbursement. There will be pressure on physicians if the government reduces the medical reimbursement it provides to the healthcare sector. The physicians’ costs of running an independent practice would rise, and the majority of them would be kicked off Medicare and Medicaid (Nielsen, Noone, Voss, & Mathews, 2013). Others may choose to leave medicine or join larger organizations. The rising cost of nursing will result in a nursing shortage.
The threat associated with this factor is competition for specialty physicians. Healthcare facilities compete for doctors who are experts in specific fields. As a result, government hospitals will suffer greatly as more physicians are expected to move to the private sector. Furthermore, the federal government competes with foreign countries for highly qualified registered nurses (RNs). The competition is a threat because not all nurses will migrate to the United States to work. Likewise, even if the number of international nurses decreases, there will still be a shortage. So, because of competition, the plan to hire nurses from other countries wouldn’t work in the long run.
References
G. ManzanoGarca and J. C. AyalaCalvo (2014).A SWOT analysis of the nursing profession in Europe, 358–367 in Nursing Inquiry.
Nielsen, A. E., Noone, J., Voss, H., and L. R. Mathews (2013). A novel approach to clinical education for preparing nursing students for the future is found in 301-309 in Nurse Education in Practice, 13(4).
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