The shortage was further worsened after the Second World War. Currently, America experiences an acute shortage of nurses within the healthcare facilities. The shortage is caused by different factors that include aging workforce, reduction in number of graduates from nursing schools, poor remuneration and other job working conditions making nurses to look for other better paying jobs in other service sectors like insurance or private practice nursing. This paper discusses ways of reducing nursing shortage in America and focuses mainly on three key issues of reducing the shortage. The issues are financial assistance programs for nursing students, creating a retention environment and strengthening the infrastructure.
This can be attributed to increase demands on nurses to produce more because there overworked coworkers have increased use of sick leave related to burnout. Patients and family members are beginning to realize the inadequate quality of health care services administered as the nurse is often very tired as the nurse to patient ratio surpassed safe patient care levels. The supply curve emphasizes change, allowing the health care industry to focus on a range of solutions indication how they will fix the shortage as the demand increases (Getzen, 2007). “The major factors and trends behind the growth in RN demand include: population growth, aging of the population, increased per capita demand for health care, and trends in health care financing,” (Bureau of Health Professions, 2004,
Staffing issues Sandra Terry Drexel University Critical issues facing most hospitals and long term facilities today is staffing correctly on nursing units for the number of patients and acuity of patients. What happens when the nursing units are not staffed adequately from budget cuts, illness or nursing shortage, and what can be done? When units are not properly staffed, there is an increase in mortality nurses run the risk of medication errors, missed charting, decreased patient satisfaction, and the possibility of having a hospital stay longer than necessary. These issues are usually the result of nurses unable to take the time needed to assess their patients. When there are more patients to handle than time allows nurses might take short cuts in their nursing care.
A third contributing factor is very interrelated to nursing education is that nursing education has shifted from hospital-based diploma programs to university and college programs. This shift created the need for hospitals to increase the percentage of paid nursing staff to keep up with the demand of related to the void of care provided by nursing students (Fox & Abrahamson, 2009). A fourth factor contributing to the current nursing shortage is the economic stress that nursing turnover creates in the healthcare setting. The nursing profession can be stressful mentally, physically, and emotionally creating an argument that nurses are not adequately compensated for their working environment. With other less stressful professional occupations available to a profession that is primarily female individuals are leaving the profession (Fox & Abrahamson, 2009).
Executive Summary – Middlefield is facing the high employee turnover, workforce shortage - especially of Nurses and low employee morale problems. Some of the findings about the causes of the problems are opening of the new hospital with better facilities and advanced technology for patient treatment and care, unavailability of quality instructors for nursing degree programs at universities. To tackle the problems, efficient use of existing Nursing workforce should be done in the short term. Whereas aggressive retention policies and increase in production of quality Nursing workforce should be long term strategies. Also Middlefield must ensure to increase the employee morale.
Frontline Caregivers: An Analysis of Turnover and Retention Frontline Caregivers: An Analysis of Turnover and Retention Introduction The turnover of employees in an organization is an inevitable event. However, the rate at which it occurs is a very critical trend that management should monitor closely. In the case of healthcare providers, the stability of their frontline caregivers contributes tremendously to the success or failure of the organization. For some time now, the rate of attrition has been high amongst nurses and certified nurses’ assistants. The high cost of replacing qualified nurses and certified nursing assistants should be a wakeup call for healthcare organizations to implement effective retention strategies.
The High Burnout and Turnover Rate of Registered Nurses Registered Nurses are the backbone of any major medical facility. They are the medical personnel you have your first interaction with in a hospital. Nurses are trained to put the needs of others before themselves. They endure emotional stress, as well as, other stress factors usually involved with the healthcare profession. There is an ongoing shortage of nurses, which along with emotional stressors, is said to be the cause of burnout among nurses.
This often leaves nurses feeling powerless over their work life as well as their personal life. Mandatory overtime has generated much hostility and resentment between nursing facilities and their employees. But if mandatory overtime is so problematic, why is this practice so commonly used? THE REASONS BEHIND MANDATORY OVERTIME Numerous factors contribute to the increased use of mandatory overtime. Several of those issues began in the 1990s when changes in the health care system were implemented.
Malpractice can be increasing because of a severe shortage of trained nurses, and it happened because of a few factors: nurses are required to work longer shifts; they can lead to fatigue and increase the risk for an error; also short Nursing courses providing degrees with no sufficient time to train nurses results in malpractice. Nurses who lack the experience and knowledge fail their duty, and when it happen not only them but also the hospital in which they work bear the consequences. Because most nurses are employees of hospitals, hospitals are frequently defendant in nursing malpractice cases. Another factor that contributes to nurse malpractice is miscommunication. Even though it is unintentional it can lead to tragedy.
Change, though a part of our daily routine in nursing was difficult. My history with this organization was that often nurses found that practices that were adequate during their own experience as a patient and therefore should not be changed or improved on. More well seasoned nurses had told me during my initial fact finding phase that they prefer specializing in either mothers or newborns, but not both. All my nurses had certification in neonatal resuscitation and basic life support which was the basic structure of being competency in couplet care. After assuring the support of my clinical coordinator and my senior leader, I spoke at a staff meeting about the benefits of couplet care.