The Pros And Cons Of Nursing Shortage

Deadlines are not met, a cynical or resentful attitude develops, a persistent sense of fatigue pervades both are the nurse’s personal and professional’s life. Today the proportion of acute patients entering the health care system through emergency

State-mandated nurse-to-patient ratios remains a controversial topic in healthcare. Sufficient nurse staffing is key to ensure adequate patient care, while scarce staffing effects patients’ safety and puts nurses at risk for burnout. Determining nurse-to-patient ratios in nursing facilities remains a challenge for the nursing profession. There are many factors to consider when determining staffing methods, such as cost, nurses’ satisfaction, patient outcomes and safety. Mandating ratios is one attempt at ensuring nurses’ workloads do not exceed what is needed for adequate patient care and safety.

What is the projected demand for workers in the health care field over the next 20 years? The demand for primary care services has stimulated the training of nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and certified nurse midwives who can deliver basic primary care to patients without access to primary care physicians. How does the aging of the population, health insurance reimbursement, and consumer demand impact the practice patterns of health care clinicians? A physician shortage is expected by 2020, primarily driven by the demand for physician services.

In response to hospitals being under staffed with nurses, Theresa Brown argues that hospitals must have a sufficiently large nursing staff in her article “When No One Is on Call”. She effectively builds her argument by using personal anecdotes and statistics. Brown begins the speech by recalling a personal story when she was in nursing school with understaffed busy nurses. A patient needed their pain medicine dose adjusted, the patient’s pain subsided, but the patient experienced shortness of breath and low oxygen levels. Brown informed the patient’s nurse that the patient needed narcan to reverse the impact from the pain medicine.

This study is important because this research is putting a cash value on each patient’s life. Research has shown us that low nurse to patient ratios will definitely save lives but why aren’t we quick to make the change? Is a human life worth any amount of money? If nurses are working in a ideal environment with adequate staffing and resources, another way the hospital can save money is

Due to hospital care reaching an all-time high in America, we need nurses now more than ever before. Currently in America, we have an issue with nurses having too many paperwork to fill out. In the article “We Need More Nurses” by Alexandra Robbins argues we need more nurses in the hospital. Nursing shortage has been a common issue throughout the world. Because of this issue others are being affected in many different ways.

Dr. Jean Watson’s theory of care addressed the nurse to patient ration, according to the method “nursing is positioned with caring of the sick, prevention of sickness, restoration of health and promotion of health. This process includes the process of assessment, plan, intervention, and evaluation. On the review, the nurse observes, identifies, review problem(s) and forms a care plan that will be used in appropriate nursing care. When the nurse to patient ratio is low, the nurse will not be able to perform this assessment. This will result in a reduction of patients’ outcomes, medical errors, frequent re-admissions, patient deaths.

Buchan and Aiken (2008) stated that the nurses shortage problems may be due to the nurses that not willing to work as a nurse under the current conditions in working environment. A real shortage is circumstances where experienced people are not available for a certain vacancies due to some reasons (Wildschut&Mqolozana, 2008). A news article written by Salma Khalikin in Straits Times stated that according to current situation Singapore may not be able to create enough nurses for upcoming years. The impact of nurses shortage may causes increase work load for nurses which subsequently may increase the risk for nurses made errors in clinical, the risk of increase hospital acquired infections which cause by viral, bacterial, and fungal pathogens. More over the impact of shortage of nurses may also increase death rate, and also increase the risk of occupation injuries and exposure in working environments.

According to the data from Health Resources and Services Administration Bureau of Health Professions (2013), there were 2.8 million Registered Nurses (RNs) and 690,000 Licensed Practice Nurses (LPNs) were working in the period from 2008-2010, in the United States. The nursing workforce grew substantially in 2000s, by RNs growing by more than 24.1 percent and LPNs by more than 15.5 percent. The population of nurses are facing multiple challenges at the workplace, such as shortage in staffing, nurse turnover, increased workload, long working hours, poor relationship with co-workers, lack of support from the management, and eventually these challenges create high level of nurse burnout. It is estimated that job- related burnout measure using the Maslach Burnout inventory – Human Services Survey, 36.5 % of nurses having high level of burnout. The researchers at the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research at the University Of Pennsylvania School Of Nursing, estimates if nurse burnout reduces by 10 %, could prevent thousands of hospital acquired infections and reduce the health care expense (Potera, 2012).

Panagiota Copanitsanou, Nikolaos Fotos, and Hero Brokalaki mentioned that negative effects may lead to poor patient outcomes due to the increased mortality, complications, and readmissions. With that being said, it is vital for nurses to work in an environment that is well staffed and trained without the use of having nurses work more hours than they already are required to. It is known that having good management, balanced work schedule, and a safe environment all contributes to nurses with less patient burnout which then can provide a higher quality of

Our nation has displayed its greatness in thousands of different ways. It has overcome many obstacles and solved many problems, but it seems to have gotten caught up on a select few over the past hundreds of years. One hardship that the U.S. is having difficulty solving is the nursing shortage. Although many, including myself, have seen this as a crisis that the nation faces, others seem to see a silver lining in the fog. Because of this, I believe that my thesis, the nursing shortage is a major concern that needs to be acted on soon, is a great thesis for the final research paper.

9. PROFESSIONAL AUTONOMY IN NURSING Nursing has come a long way from being the hand maidens of the physician to having control over nursing knowledge and practice. It now has two essential ingredients of accountability and autonomy. There is more demand from the nurses now than in the past when all they were expected to do was just to provide comfort and care.

This occurs when nurses provide care to more than the assigned patients, thus increasing patient workload. It affects the patient’s quality of care, increasing the risk for NSOs and other patient complications. Not only are patient outcomes affected, but nurses are experiencing increased burnout and fatigue. A safe nurse is necessary when providing care to ensure a safe and stable patient outcome. These concerns can be preventable by implementing and assigning the necessary tools to minimize effects on nurses and patient

Large patient loads combined with a stressful work environment affects nurses’ abilities to provide quality healthcare. Patient safety should never be compromised. It is our responsibility to learn from research and improve our current nurse staffing ratios. Nurse staffing is key and affects all other outcomes. Without nurses administering the right treatment at the right time to the right patients, all other healthcare interventions are not effective.

Since the beginning of my nursing journey, I have heard about the nursing shortage. It seems unreal to me simply because of how competitive nursing school is and the amount of people that try to become nurses. So why do we have a nursing shortage? “The persistent nursing shortage is challenging the values and beliefs of the nursing profession and causing nurses to ask how they can fulfill their ethical responsibilities to patients when there are an insufficient number and a maldistribution of nurses” (Erlen, 2004, p. 289).