Running Head: SCHEDULING AND STRESS MANAGEMENT 1
SCHEDULING AND STRESS MANAGEMENT 2
SCHEDULING AND STRESS MANAGEMENT 2
Topic: Department Scheduling and Stress Management
Practicum Site: Metrohealth Hospital (Respiratory Care Department)
Name: Wasiu A Ibrahim
Institution: Kent State University
RSPC 41092 Practicum for Respiratory Care
Stress has numerous devastating effects on an individual especially healthcare worker, however, enhancing psychological readiness may facilitate an individual ability to deal with stress in a workplace. Improving productivity in a workplace, department scheduling and stress management techniques must be evaluated among healthcare workers. Respiratory care department must demonstrate their values by implementing strategies that will aid their staffs in decreasing the number of tasks given to each therapist daily or per shift. Respiratory care departments heads (managers and supervisors), Chief of Nursing and employee health staffs must develop a new strategy to help respiratory therapists (RT) and other healthcare professionals manage their stress levels
Literature Review
Labor productivity have the most priorities when setting up a business and it accounts for more than 60% of respiratory care department total cost. Considering month-to-month, day-to-today and hour-to-hour of demand for respiratory therapist requests for breathing treatment, patient transport to and from procedure, assistance during code, it is important to have a system in place that will help during workload fluctuations, this system will provide a data driven approach to adjusting labor per hours scheduled. To have a successful respiratory care department, there need to be strategies that ensure adequate number of qualified personnel (respiratory therapist) who are competent in providing care and meeting patient needs always (Richard Ford, 2011).
To provide adequate numbers of qualified RT’s to get the job done, the department require the ability to measure work demand. “The American association of respiratory care (AARC) uniform Reporting Manual helps identify staffing needs by accounting for the number of procedures due over a time period and identifying the amount of time required for each procedure. Staffing requirements are then calculated by multiplying the number of procedures by their specific time standards to determine total required hours needed. In addition, knowing the amount of work in any given nursing unit facilitates an approach to equitable distribution of work among the therapists on duty” (Richard Ford, 2011). This is something that needs to change, calculating staffing base on procedure and specific time standards is causing a lot of issues in the respiratory department scheduling, staffs can become overwhelmed with workload/demand between shifts and find themselves in situations where patient treatments is delayed or patient prioritization policy must be applied, unforeseen circumstance like this may cause an issue...
