Systems Theory in Nursing Essay

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The problem of burnout within the nursing progressive care unit (PCU) is one that can be addressed using systems theory. The PCU is a very busy unit and nurses can sometimes feel overworked or burned out as a result of long hours, extended shifts, and other stress factors. As a result, they often feel low job satisfaction, which has been shown to lead to high turnover as well as to low patient satisfaction (Hudgins, 2016). Within a systems theory framework, this problem is situated in the throughput—i.e., the nursing suprasystem (Meyer & O’Brien-Pallas, 2010).

The inputs within this system consist of the materials, people and energies of the unit (Meyer & O’Brien-Pallas, 2010). The materials include schedules that are produced by the unit manager that can impact how many hours nurses are working, the instruments and monitors that are used to evaluate patients, which can cause alarm fatigue and also lead to nurses feeling burned out (Ryherd, Waye & Ljungkvist, 2008; Horkan, 2014). The people include the nurses, their managers, the patients, and the physicians, with whom there can sometimes be a lack of effective communication that adds to nurses’ feelings of poor job satisfaction and contributes to a lack of retention in the unit (Tandon & Kaushik, 2015). The energies include the attitudes and expressions of the nurses and the workplace culture itself, which promotes communication but lacks a proper support system for ensuring that nurses are not overburdened and have an effective means of communicating their needs to other professionals.

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The throughput consists of the nursing unit’s organization structure, which does not have a good handle on scheduling in order to keep nurses from getting burned out. Nurses routinely work longer than 8-hour shifts, which can drain them physically and emotionally. The throughput also lacks a mechanism whereby nurses can communicate more effectively with colleagues to ensure that patient care is continuous and that nurses are not stressed by gaps in patient care that they must then address on top of their other concerns.

Output consists of the unit’s service towards the patients, which should be of high level of quality care so that patient satisfaction is high. Patient satisfaction and job satisfaction for nurses go hand in hand, and in when the former is not achieved, the latter is not either, and vice versa. Ensuring that the nurses are having enough rest and support within the workplace can better help to ensure that patients are receiving quality care and that nursing retention is better effected overall.

Cycles of events in the unit refer to the “process of exchanging and transforming energy [which] must renew the….....

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