"Solution to Clinical Staff Shortage in Healthcare Industry - A Case Study of Mayo Clinic" Research Project
Overview of the Research Project
The research project’s topic is “Solution to Clinical Staff Shortage in Healthcare Industry – A Case Study of Mayo Clinic”. Necessity to study this topic arises from the acuteness of the problem of staff shortage in clinical establishments. Clinical staff shortages directly affect quality of patient care and lead to increase in patient death rate, in-hospital infections and preventable complications. Importance of the issue is also explained by the effect it has on working clinicians in terms of work overload and longer working hours that cause professional burnout, workplace stress, exhaustion and fatigue. As a consequence, clinical employees experience job dissatisfaction and decide to leave their jobs that, in its turn, leads to even more severe staff shortages. That is why finding optimal solutions to staff shortages in healthcare establishments is of critical importance for the industry development.
In the project, understaffing problem in healthcare industry is addressed overall in the industry scale and particularly in Mayo Clinic as the chosen organization. The research is mostly conducted on the base of secondary resources of information including literature on the topic, internal and external information sources in Mayo Clinic, and interviews with leaders in healthcare industry. The paper is aimed at assessing the scope of the problem, measuring its impact on the industry in general and quality of services provided, defining the reasons that cause clinical staff shortages, discovering short-term and long-term strategies designed to solve the problem, and application of the findings to Mayo Clinic understaffing problem. The solutions discovered will improve staffing at the clinic, reduce costs associated with employee turnover and unfilled positions, increase job satisfaction among clinicians, lower the likelihood of burnout and fatigue among physicians and nurses, and improve overall quality of healthcare services provided by the organization. The research will enrich the discipline by determining the most effective approaches to staff shortages in healthcare establishments and defining what strategies and tactics are suitable for addressing the problem in Mayo Clinic specifically.
Description of Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit organization operating in three major directions: clinical practice, education of clinicians, and healthcare research. Its mission is to “inspire hope and contribute to health and well-being” of every patient by providing high-quality healthcare services through integrated system of clinics, research centers and educational establishments (Mayo Clinic, 2017). Organizational culture of the clinic is patient-centered, while needs and well-being of patients are its primary values. The organization is highly concerned with ethics in every aspect of its functioning. Among the most important value statements of Mayo Clinic it is reasonable to mention respect, compassion, integrity, healing, innovation and teamwork that characterize the organization as committed to sustainable development of extended communities it operates in, high quality medical services and support of employees (Mayo Clinic, 2017).
The history of Mayo Clinic began in 1860’s, when Dr. William Worrall Mayo moved to Rochester and started …
