CLINICAL PROBLEM DURING PRACTICUM 1

Clinical Problem during Practicum

Name

Institution

Course

Date
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Clinical Problem during Practicum

The nursing workforce is essential in ensuring the delivery of primary care services to

the patient population. While nurses are committed to providing healthcare services to their

patients, healthcare organizations and the management strive to ensure that they gain the best

out of their employees. One effect of this is the institution of mandatory overtime, a practice

that involves nurses being forced to work beyond the agreed-upon working hours in their

contracts (Bradley University, n.d.). The goal of mandatory overtime is to enhance the

performance of healthcare providers and ensure that patients are attended to; there are

negative implications of this issue on the nurses and their patients.

While mandatory overtimes seek to solve nursing shortages, it does so with some

inherent costs that adversely affect nurses and patient care. Chronic mandatory overtime has

been associated with fatigue, which affects their overall performance and efficiency levels.

According to Deering (2022), longer working hours for nurses are associated with declining

productively, which may also lead to the nurse feeling dejected and resentful, feelings that

can lead to subpar patient care. Another implication of longer working hours is burnout, an

issue that is associated with high nurse turnover rates. Further, with burnout due to longer

working hours, healthcare providers are more likely to cause medical errors that affect the

patients' quality and safety. Therefore, addressing the issue of mandatory overtime is

important as it will ensure that nurses are not forced to work for longer hours when their

productivity and concentration levels are almost at 0%. Therefore, proper staffing strategies

are essential in ensuring that nurses work within normal hours and overtime cases are not

exaggerated to affect their overall well-being and the safety of their patients.
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References

Bradley University (n.d.). A closer look at the issue of mandatory overtime. Bradley.edu.

https://onlinedegrees.bradley.edu/blog/mandatory-overtime-what-you-need-to-know/

Deering, M. (2022). Understanding mandatory overtime for nurses: Which states enforce

mandatory overtime? Nurse Journal. https://nursejournal.org/resources/mandatory-

overtime-for-nurses/