Decision-Making in Nursing: Impact of Social Problem-Solving Training

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Nowadays, the nursing field faces numerous problems, including struggles with anxiety, workload, and issues related to understaffing. While certain issues are straightforward in the nursing field, some situations are frequently intricate. Decision-making in nursing practice is a complicated system that can be characterized as a sequence of considerations or judgments that include gathering subjective and objective facts about the case and evaluating the details. When it comes to the difficulties nurses meet in their professional environments, such as lack of commitment and productivity, and disrespectful communication, these situations might need to involve problem-solving methods such as optimizing and group decision-making.

First, it is necessary to perceive the nursing environment as a vital element of healthcare that only while being cohesive, can be the most beneficial. Among the primary responsibilities of nurses are to provide high-quality patient care, along with other tasks that involve constant training, assistance, and interventions (Ahmady & Shahbazi, 2020). Without unity of the team and strong management, the quality of patient care decreases, which leads to further problems necessitating constant decision-making and problem-solving (Yoder-Wise, 2013). Consequently, decision-making entails gaining skills and knowledge to arrive at a solution.

In the case of Vickie Lemmon, director of Clinical Strategies and Operations, the team of healthcare professionals met issues. According to Vickie, the main problems were poor communication in the group, understaffing and work overload, which resulted in stress and low-quality patient care. In this case, if I were the nurse, I would address each problem separately and involve the opinions of the team and administration. While my main goal would be to maintain compliance with state-mandated standards, obtaining more details about each issue would be vital.

When it comes to the issues that pertain to workload and staffing, the decision-making should also be delegated to the head of the department or facility. Among the decision-making methods that might be useful is optimizing. Optimizing is a decision-making approach in which the responsible party chooses the best alternative after weighing the benefits and drawbacks of each choice (Welch, 2016). Considering that the team is not satisfied with the workload and staffing, it must be decided to create incentives for the staff. For example, either hire more healthcare professionals to delegate the responsibilities or provide more rewards for the existing team. When weighing the decision, an optimizing approach will indicate that among the benefits are lower anxiety levels of the staff, increased productivity, and better documentation. Meanwhile, the drawbacks are additional expenditures, decreasing quality of patient care, and satisfaction of employees, which all results in higher staff turnover.

Another decision-making method is group decision-making, which allows the team to communicate their troubles and dissatisfying factors. According to Vickie, it was a complicated task for her as an administrator to resolve the problems presented by the team. Considering the fact that this was the new workplace for Vickie, if I were this nurse, it would be reasonable to discuss each problem and the roots of frustration with the staff. This decision-making model could allow me to engage employees in the process and will enable them to provide the possible decisions that could make their work easier and more productive (Welch, 2016). Furthermore, this could make the team more united by encouraging communication (Lahana et al., 2019). Thus, a non-threatening environment would promote engagement in the process and open communication.

Hence, the healthcare field is a complex system that has numerous issues. The nursing environment is often connected with more intricate problems, such as frustration with the workload, staffing, and poor communication. These factors result in low-quality patient care and anxiety among healthcare workers. As a result, in such situations, it is vital to incorporate various decision-making approaches, such as optimizing and group decision-making. In the first case, before making a decision, a healthcare professional will weigh the benefits and drawbacks of the option. The latter will allow the team to thrive in a non-threatening environment that promotes open communication. This will decrease high staff turnover and dissatisfaction among the patients.

References

Ahmady, S., & Shahbazi, S. (2020). Impact of social problem-solving training on critical thinking and decision making of nursing students. BMC Nursing, 19(1), 1-8.

Lahana, E., Tsaras, K., Kalaitzidou, A., Galanis, P., Kaitelidou, D., & Sarafis, P. (2019). Conflicts management in public sector nursing. International Journal of Healthcare Management, 12(1), 33-39.

Yoder-Wise, P. S. (2013). Leading and managing in nursing. Mosby.

Welch, R. A. (2016). Making decisions and solving problems. Nurse Key. Web.

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