POLI 330 Week 6 Change Agent Assignment Part II of the Three-Part Course Project_Reforming U.S. Healthcare

Relevant Evidence The evidence linking Staffing's administrative burden and patient outcomes is substantial and growing: • Workforce strain: Nearly half of US health care workers reported burnout in 2022, and more than 44% indicated they were likely to leave their jobs; driven largely by excessive workloads and administrative demands (US Surgeon General, 2022). • Patient mortality risk: Each additional patient added to a nurse’s assignment is associated with a 7-8% increase in in-hospital mortality risk, underscoring the direct patient harm tied to insufficient staffing ratios (PRS Global, 2023). • Adverse events and readmissions: When nurse staffing coverage falls below safe thresholds, patients face significantly higher rates of healthcare-associated infections, avoidable complications, and 30-day readmissions, all outcomes that value-based care models aim to reduce (JuveC-Udina et al., 2025). • Reimbursement tension: CMS value-based programs continue to tie financial incentives to outcome metrics, yet the workforce conditions needed to achieve those outcomes are not adequately supported within the same policy framework (CMS, n.d.; Hafiz et al., 2024). Professional Recommendations As a registered nurse with over a decade of acute care experience, including time in the Emergency Department, Medical-Surgical, Telemetry, and OR settings, I have witnessed firsthand how administrative and staffing pressures compromise care quality and workforce retention. From that perspective, I advocate for the following policy changes: 1. Establish federal minimum nurse-to-patient staffing ratios. Legislation modeled on California's existing ratio law should be expanded nationally to protect patients and nurses alike. Safe staffing. It's not a workforce preference; it is a patient safety standard. 2. Reduce nonclinical administrative burden through technology and policy reform. Healthcare organizations and CMS should invest in streamlined electronic health record documentation and reduce redundant quality reporting tasks that draw nursing time away from patients. ©2024 Chamberlain University