Monday, June 29, 2020

More Law Schools Plan to Accept the GRE

According to Kaplan Test Prep’s 2017 law school admissions survey, more law schools are considering allowing applicants to submit GRE scores in place of LSAT scores. Of the 128 U.S. law schools responding to the survey, 25% said that they plan to implement the use of GRE scores as an admissions policy, up from 14% in 2016; 45% said they have no plans to do so, down from 56% in 2016; and 30% are not sure, unchanged from 2016. The option of using GRE scores is positive for both the law schools and applicants. Schools will have a larger pool of prospective students to choose from, while students will have more options to get in. However, the governing body of the 200+ U.S. law schools, the American Bar Association (ABA), continues to deliberate whether to continue allowing GRE scores or at least temporarily to stop it. Law schools offer many reasons to begin accepting GRE scores and often state that they’ll be at a student recruitment disadvantage if they don’t. Other rationales include: †¢ Believing that it will become the norm and not doing it will leave them behind. †¢ Planning to do it because â€Å"Harvard is doing it.† †¢ Knowing that the GRE is more accessible. It’s offered every day of the year, doesn’t require advance registration, and is available in numerous test centers. †¢ Recognizing that a school has a range of applicants, many of whom are interested in non-traditional careers. They are better off taking the GRE. Although the number of schools who say that they will only accept the LSAT is declining, those admissions officers state that they don’t believe that the GRE is as predictive of first-year success as the LSAT. They also say that they won’t change their policy until the ABA makes its final ruling. Finally, they also state that they would have to do significant research to show that the GRE is an effective predictor. They’re waiting to see student performance and bar passage rates from Harvard and Arizona (the first schools to recognize GRE scores). Although the survey shows growing acceptance of GRE scores among law school admissions professionals, Jeff Thomas, executive director of pre-law programs, Kaplan Test Prep, suggests caution. â€Å"[T]here are numerous caveats for applicants who plan to seek the GRE route to get into law school. Firstly, most applicants will still have to take the LSAT as only three law schools accept the GRE this year. And even if you rock the GRE, but bomb the LSAT, law schools will see your LSAT score. You can’t only send the score you want to the schools you want. You will not be able to withhold your LSAT score. That means that while a high GRE score could mitigate against a weaker LSAT score, it will not be overlooked entirely. Plan on taking the LSAT.† Work with an expert to create a law school admissions strategy that will position you to get accepted at your top choice school! For 25 years, Accepted has helped applicants gain acceptance to top law schools and LLM programs. Our team of admissions consultants features former admissions directors, lawyers, and professional writers who have guided our clients to acceptance at top programs including Yale, Stanford, Harvard, University of Chicago, Columbia University, Penn, NYU, and many more. Want an admissions expert  to help you get Accepted? Click here to get in touch! Related Resources: †¢ 5 Killer GRE Prep Tips, a free webinar †¢ Harvard Law School to Accept the GRE Beginning Fall 2017 †¢ Law School Selectivity Index [Can I Get Into My Dream School?]

Thursday, June 4, 2020

Reducing High Levels Of Nurse Turnover The Barrier In Healthcare - 3850 Words

Reducing High Levels Of Nurse Turnover: The Barrier In Healthcare (Essay Sample) Content: REDUCING HIGH LEVELS OF NURSE TURNOVER Reducing high levels of nurse turnover Change Proposal The healthcare barrier which would to be addressed in the following paper consist of the high turnover rates and high levels of temporary nurse staffing. The issue is relevant because it increases the average costs per discharge (cost of inpatient care, including administration) and overall operating costs. High turnover can affect nurse performance and patient-mortality rates, staffing costs, and liability. In this paper a solution to reduce the high levels of nursing turnover will be discussed, how the solution will resolve the barrier or issue in health care and review the expected outcome for the high turnover rates and high levels of temporary nurse staffing. Based on different studies the turnover rate of nurses seems to be directly involved with how different medical institution spend their resources and time in ensuring they focus on maintaining the best talents in the industry. Nurses do such a vast majority of work within a hospital hence are not are more involved in the planning which is crucial in building the organizations work flow and environment. A solution to this would be to increase staff to reduce the workload. Consequently other approach would be to improve the leadership style of the organization. It is important that the leaders are well trained in how to properly communicate with staff without being over powering and making the staff feel like they are any less. An authentic leadership style may reduce the probability of a unit culture of workplace bullying developing, contributing to a nursing workforce that is less burned out. Continual education for all staff will be provided, along with real-time system updates bec ause this will help to better organize the work flow, thus taking some overload off the nursing staff. Not only does the work overload or high turnover of a nurse affect the nurses but it can also take a toll on the patients. Thus, techniques to reduce the nurse turnover rate the solutions for managing stresses on patients, and provide a better patient experience (Duffield et al, 2014). We will take action and get the nurses involved and set up focus groups to interview them on what would keep them at their current workplace longer. This will help us then develop a plan that will change the leadership style to be more focused on what the nurses need to work more efficiently and do their job properly with less stress. We would then benchmark the other hospital that has a lower turnover rate and specifically ask the nurses what they liked most about their job, and what kept them at their organization for so long. Through these solutions we should have the ability to reduce the amount of work the nurse’s experience, and create a happy environment where the staff feels more welcome. In turn reducing the amount of turnover that healthcare organizations are having, the nurses may have significant time to build interactions between nurses, patients and the management. This industry is expensive enough as it is and to have the added expense of the amount of money it takes to continually hire and train new staff does not help and is something that could be prevented. The outcome would be positive and the nurses and patients whom participated will be motivated by the changes taking place. They will appreciate the changes that the organization is trying to make in order to make things better. The CEO and board of directors will see the positive effect this change can have on the organization and all changes will be accepted (Ryan et al, 2015). The Implementation Plan This section will review the implementation plan for reducing high levels of nurse turnover. The organizational resources needed, the stakeholders, the timeline, the steps, and the barriers of the change plan will be discussed. The resources that will be needed to make this change happen would start with the staff such as the healthcare administrators. The healthcare administrators would collect the information to benchmark the work environment of a specialty care facility .The researchers would conduct the surveys and interviews with the nurses to find out all the information. The CEO and board of directors would be involved in order to make the decisions based on the research and to supply the funding needed (Koyner et al, 2014). The stakeholders are important because they have a vested interest in the decisions that are made within the healthcare organization. They will be needed during the implementation. First let’s start with the clinicians/ nurses and their professional associations; they are important because they are the ones experiencing the situation that the research addresses. Next, the health care researchers and research institutions will be involved and they collect and examine the data from multiple sources. Mid and upper management, the CEO, CFO, and board of directors all have to review the data and plan to give proper guidance and then the approval, it is the board of directors that grant the funding for the plan. All the stakeholders will have to prepare for such, as their will be new ways of approaching their work especially because a culture change is needed. This change will create a happier work place, bring in nurses that stay longer and can work more efficiently, the organizati on will receive more positive reviews, there will be enriched work place balance, improved patient outcomes, and overtime more revenue for the organization. This type of change plan involves a complex framework which need a comprehensive long term implementation process it should be short term. The budget needed will mainly be used towards creating a better culture based on the results that come out. There may also need to be a system change or add-on’s to increase efficiency. The total time allotted will be about 7 months, 3 months for the researching and planning, then another month waiting on approval, and then 3 more months implementing the change. First, a change team will be selected per the process. There will be representation from three different leadership levels such as senior leadership, clinical/technical expertise, and front-line leadership. The change team will emphasize on refining the practice within its own clinical environment. Actions will identify opportunity for improvement that will enhance the hospital team. They will assess the team assessment questionnaires, team performance observation tool, and site-spe cific process and outcomes measures. They will review reports and analysis’s to find the root cause of the issue. Once the main problems are identified the proper steps will be taken, they will be looking at problems which frequently affect the nurses and the patients for instance lack of good rapport between the two parties. Through the questionnaires, benchmarking, and involvement of the nursing staff then the results will be provided that will lead us to take the proper action to make the change. Through the data we will develop a map and flow chart that will discuss the challenges and the benefits of the change, and this will be presented to the CEO, and board of directors for the approval. Potential barriers to the organizational change might be that the budget needed to make the change does not get approved. We could overcome this issue by pre developing a plan that has options to replacing certain programs, or operations with a less expensive option. Another barrier would be nurse’s retention rates as they are always going to be a challenge in industries with high demand talent. One resolution would be to be better at hiring top talent in the first place and providing the staff with the proper operations, additional education, and promotions they would need to want to stay at the organization (Park et al, 2016).   Logic model A logic model involves an effective tool requiring very limited resources which only includes personnel time. It also provides details on improving the team focus and relationS, which can be further connected with other aspects of the practice like resource allocation, project management and strategic planning. The most notable model includes the Practice Research- Based Networks (PRBN) which is an extensive model for evaluation and planning. The process of developing a logic model involves four significant steps: Agreeing on the target audience and the team’s mission; the nurses must agree on the project goals which consists of improving the health care of all patients. To achieve these goals both the academic investigators and clinicians should be critically engaged in the network of success. The academicians facilitate the process of research while the clinicians define and frame the relevant research questions. Identification and description of inputs assumptions and activities; after identifying the target audience, the next step includes establishing assumptions which are done by the clinical coordinators and evaluators. The groups are tasked with the process of creating the assumptions which include in this case determining the appropriate techniques hospitals should employ in nurses retention. The inputs are then defined, this provides the list of resources which will be needed for the whole research including network directors, clinical expertise, the community and funds for the entire study also the constraints to the study should be established. After the assumptions have developed and inputs defined the next step includes describing the activities which will occur during the whole program, they should be based on the specifics of the research. A well-coordinated activity log is an essential element in a logic model (Edward et al, 2015). Identification of outputs, outcomes and indicators for results; to demonstrate that there was indeed development and growth, it is crucial to identify the particular outcomes, end-results and outp...