Balancing Flexibility and Inventory in Workforce - Free Samples

Question: Discuss about the Balancing Flexibility and Inventory in Workforce. Answer: Introduction: Australia is a country and continent surrounded by the Indian and the Pacific Ocean. Its rapid population growth has created a high demand for healthcare. The high population is a big challenge to the government in ensuring efficient provision of healthcare. Australian has the following different bodies that help in registration of health professionals. Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) that help in the registration of health professionals nationally, National Health Workforce Data Set (NHWD) an inclusion of the data acquired from registration process annually and the data from the nursing workforce report. Health Workforce Australia (HWA) addresses the challenges faced by the nursing workforce. Later, it was replaced with Future Health Workforce- nurses (AFHW). All these bodies have different research activities on the Nursing Workforce Australia and publications on the same. All these publications, reports and tools were put in the Australia Department of Health website for everybody to access them. The department of health in Australia is a body that maintains the health care system of the country. The department has established other bodies within its operation to handle other different needs. This report will give a summary of findings on the Australia Nursing Workforce. First, the report will highlight on the nursing workforce profile from the year 2009 to 2015. Then it will address the challenges that are being faced by the health care system in Australia and the reforms that have been made. It will also identify the different sectors covered by the health care system. Finally, it will address the recommendations reports on the Nursing workforce Australia specifically the Nursing Workforce Sustainability Report 2014 and the validity of these recommendations in 2018. In addition to that, the report will also briefly discuss the measures put in place to improve the efficiency of the nursing workforce and the applicable recommendations that have been proposed in the research materials (Mason,2013). Updated nursing workforce profile in Australia (2009, 2012, and 2015) has been obtained from the Australia Nursing Workforce Sustainability report 2014. The high rise of aged population in Australia has become a major concern to the government for provision of sufficient health care. There has been a progressive increase in the number of nurses being enrolled, employed and those becoming nurse practitioners. Research has been done and reports are written to support this. The tables below represent the number of nurses in Australia (Crittenden et al 2014). Table 1a: Number employed Registered Nurses Workforce characteristics 2009 2012 2015 FTE nurses 198,924 212,659 256,034 FTE per 100,000 population 905.9 936.4 958 Male proportion (%) 8.9 9.2 10.9 Average age (years) 44.9 46 44.1 Proportion aged 50+ (%) - 45.5 37.3 Source: AIHW Data for the employed nurses include the citizens with dual citizenship Full-time equivalent (FTE) working an average of 38 hours per week (2009, 2012) and 33.5 hours per week (2015). Table 1b: Number of employed Enrolled Nurses Workforce characteristics 2009 2012 2015 FTE nurses 242,521 255,174 51,070 FTE per 100,000 population 1,104.10 1,123.60 1,138 Male proportion (%) 9.6 10.2 9.4 Average age (years) 44.3 44.6 46.3 Proportion aged 50+ (%) 36.3 39.1 47.7 Source: AIHW The data defines as a number of hours either a midwifery or nurses who worked within the week. Full-time equivalent (FTE) working an average of 38 hours per week (2009, 2012) and 33.5 hours per week (2015). Table 1c: Number of all employed nurses Workforce characteristics 2009 2012 2015 FTE nurses 43,614 42,467 307,104 FTE per 100,000 population 198.2 187 179 Male proportion (%) 9.8 10.4 10.7 Average age (years) 44.2 44.3 44.4 Proportion aged 50+ (%) - 37.7 39 Source: AIHW The employed midwifery or a nurse who worked as midwives at all hours. Full-time equivalent (FTE) working an average of 38 hours per week (2009, 2012) and 33.5 hours per week (2015). There are many developments after the addition of the more recent materials into the health care system of Australia. The following improvements led to the development of the nursing workforce. The e-health system development made it easy for the nurses to keep records efficiently and retrieving the bundles that contained patients information (Addicott et al 2015). It encouraged the system to retain nurses who were within the system so as to increase their numbers hence meet the healthcare demand. Giving links to the health department website. This was very useful to those who are interested in information concerning the nursing workforce Australia. This has made it possible for the public to access information concerning health care. These links are even reports that have more information concerning the researchers who have written reports concerning the nursing workforce Australia (Westra et al 2015). It also contributed to the upgrade of education. This was achieved through study scholarships especially at the undergraduate level where many students ended up registering for the nursing course. This increased the number of students in the nursing profession (Hodges,2018). These scholarships were not only for the undergraduate. Higher level study scholarships were given. This generally improved the education level of the nurses. There was also educative training for the nurses and even the support staff. This was done to enhance the productivity of the nurses, their working efficiency, and their governance and communication framework to make them more innovative at work. All these put in place; the characteristic of the nursing workforce has greatly changed. This is evident from the tables in the first section of this report showing the increasing number of nurses being employed with time (Moodie et al 2016). In accordance with the AFHW (Australia Future Health Workforce) - Nurses report, the current position of the nurse workforce is stable. There has been a progressive increase in the number of registered employed nurses. The strategies that had been put in place to ensure retention of nurses were bearing results. Nevertheless, the leadership training and education programs that had been put in place have borne fruits hence enhancing the capacity building within the workforce while encouraging innovations. This made the current status of the nursing workforce manageable but still needs more improvement to increase its capacity (Gupta, Wilson, 2017). There has been a difference in allocation of nurses in the different sectors that are governed by the healthcare department. The ageing people sector was the most demanding because of the increasing number of the ageing group in the country. Therefore, the future status of the nursing workforce will be dictated by the rapid demand for health care due to the increasing population. This calls for a rapid measure to ensure that the nursing workforce will be able to balance the demand of the country's population healthcare system. All the different sectors in the health department have got different needs that have to be met. Hence, the number of nurses in each sector differs because of their differences in service demand (Squires et al 2017) Before the developments started taking place, there was an uneven geographic distribution of the nurses around the region. Thanks to the development of the e-health system which has made it possible for a proper documentation procedure. This has made it possible for proper allocation of health administrators both in the capital and in the remote areas of Australia. Though, in the near future, it could be a problem since most of the aged populations tend to be located in the countryside. This raises an alarm for more nurses hence the stability of the workforce. With all these reforms, it is evident that there is the improved distribution of nurses across the state even though it is not satisfactory. Some states still need more nurses to be able to meet the population's demand (Rees et al 2018). Following are the recommendations in the nursing workforce sustainability report 2014 that led to the increase in the number of nurses. It was the best way for creating room for innovations and rewarding innovators within the nursing workforce. It gave the nurses a wider room for creative thinking because they know that at the end of it all they will be rewarded. In addition to that, it ensured that each nurse was taking their responsibility diligently (Terry et al 2018).This was an essential tool in encouraging the nurse managers to be innovative leaders and good decision makers through improved evidence-base. This step was going to ensure a stable workforce was created to meet the rapid demand of the health care system. The nurses who were already in the system were being retained so that they retire at a later age (Valeva, et al 2017). Despite that, there was still demand for nurses. This opened up more employment for fresh graduate nurses while balancing the country's demand and supply of the nursing workforce. With respect to the report, I have read and the research references, the recommendations above are relevant in many ways in the future success of the nursing workforce. There is still need for more nurses in the Australia nursing workforce because of the rapid increase in population. Therefore, the recommendations that were earlier put in place could still be applicable in the near future to maintain the number of nurses required to meet the country's health care demand (Holland et al 2018). Conclusion In conclusion, the Australia Health Department should put in more efforts to ensure that it meets the growing healthcare demand of its population. This will be achieved by implementing the recommendations that have been suggested in the different research materials concerning the Australia Nursing Workforce. References Mason, J. (2013). 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