There is an ongoing shortage of nurses, which along with emotional stressors, is said to be the cause of burnout among nurses. It has made nurses fearful of patient safety because of the inadequate staffing. The most common source of burnout among nurses is the work overload. The problem of inadequate staffing causes nurses to have an increased workload. Nurses can end up working long days and nights, overtime work, rotating shifts, and weekend work.
Compassion Fatigue and its Affect on Nursing Kelly Kramer Drexel On-Line Compassion Fatigue and its Affects on Nursing Compassion fatigue is a rising issue for nurses working in all specialties of nursing, mainly in critical care. In this paper I will be discussing compassion fatigue, it’s symptoms, how it affects the nursing profession and individual nurses, as well as the hospitals and what untreated compassion fatigue can mean for the future of nursing. Compassion fatigue, also referred to as secondary traumatic stress syndrome, has been defined by Charles Figley as the “natural consequent behaviors and emotions resulting from knowing about a traumatizing event experienced by a significant other – the stress resulting from helping, or wanting to help, a traumatized or suffering person”(Figley, 1995, p. 7). Although compassion fatigue has been studied more in the past 20 years in regards to nursing, there have not been many tools developed to measure the presence of it. There is a general consensus among all the articles that I read regarding the need for more studies, tools to assess and programs at hospitals for nurses.
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,
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.
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.
Nurse Retention By Lee Ann Runy An Executive’s Guide to Keeping One of Your Hospital’s Most Valuable Resources With no end in sight for the nation’s nursing shortage, hospitals are placing greater emphasis on retaining their current RN staff. It’s a complex process, requiring in -depth knowledge of the needs and wants of the nursing staff and lots of creativity. “You have to know what motivates nurses to stay,” says Pamela Thompson, CEO of the American Organization of Nurse Executives. To that end, many hospitals regularly conduct retention or exit surveys to understand what’s on nurses’ minds. Leadership involvement is also important.
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.
The importance goes further to the core of the problem focusing on the nurse and evaluating what is needed to be done in order to educate this patient group. The research problem involves nurses who are not comfortable discussing end-of-life issues with their patients and is identified in the first few paragraphs of the article. This is a significant problem nurses and doctors can educate, manage and monitor for these chronic patients. The purpose is not clearly stated in the study, but is inferred within the abstract of the article as well. Patients and families dealing with potential end-of-life issues is a very common problem in health care today.
There are many factors that can cause job dissatisfaction and turnover rates. Cangelosi, Markham and Bounds (1998) suggest several factors for nurse job dissatisfaction: heavy workload, inadequate staffing, inadequate salary, and inflexible work schedules, job related stress and poor communication and collaboration between physicians and
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.