There is currently a larger nurse-to-patient ratio than most nurses would like. Along with the stress and long hours associated with the career choice of nursing, nurse burnout is a very common complaint in today’s society. Nurses often complain of being short staffed and having too large of a patient load. Interest in this topic comes from wanting to pursue management at some point in my career and working on a floor in which a second shift nurse could have twelve patients. Not only will nurses feel better, but better patient outcomes occur when units are better staffed.
The Nursing Shortage Reviving one’s well-being, listening, caring for and restoring one’s physical health to the highest possibility are only four of the many important duties nurses hold in patient care. For every ill patient there is a nurse, however nurses are required to provide care for many ill patients. As the nursing shortage increases, the amount of nurses available for clients decreases, therefore increasing the nurse to patient ratio. Not only does this result in nurses caring for many more patients at once, it also makes for a much more stressful work environment. The nursing shortage is not only dependent on the nurses themselves, but also the health system, the citizens, the education required to become a nurse as well as stereotypes brought up in today’s society.
Title: Reducing the numbers of medication errors by the nurses in health care system. Administration of medication is a key element of nursing care. Medications are an amazing discovery. They promote healing, reduce suffering and contribute to modern medical miracles. However, because thousands of new drugs have been developed recently, because the health care environment is increasingly complex, and because the patients are older and often sicker, there is increasing risk for medication errors in hospitals.
Going to an emergency room instead of scheduling a doctor's appointment has become a trend in this country. Translated into dollars and cents that means 40.5 million people paid up to three times as much for routine care as they would have paid at a physician's office. They probably wasted a lot of time too because emergency rooms are not set up to care for routine illness, and they do not work on a first-come, first-served basis as many people mistakenly believe. To ensure that the sickest patients get immediate care, emergency rooms use a triage (French for "sorting") system of evaluation so that critical cases, such as people suffering from heart attacks or injuries from serious accidents or violent crimes, are treated first. Everyone else may have to wait quite a while before being seen.
Solutions for Nursing Personnel Shortages Executive Summary Senior Human Resource Management should adopt some changes in order to combat the current growing nursing/healthcare personnel shortage. Employees simply want to be heard and sympathized with. Nowadays the nursing shortage has caused many problems in the healthcare industry. First and foremost, the quality of care being provided to patients is declining due to the fact that there are not as many nurses to care for the patient appropriately. As a matter of fact, the workload being dumped on the employees is steadily increasing.
They find their overcrowding further aggravated by outdated federal and state policies (Brewster, 2007). Worse, while many emergency rooms are already operating at peak capacity on a day-to-day basis, the emergency medical system is incapable of absorbing the massive surge in demand for emergency medical assistance that would follow a natural disaster or terrorist attack. Emergency Department Problems – Speed and Accuracy There are several reasons why this is becoming a nationwide problem. First, the emergency medical system is stretched beyond capacity (Schull, 2011). From 1994 to 2004, visits to hospital emergency departments increased from 93.4 million to 110.2 million-an 18
Burnout in nursing is one of the major problems that occur due to the shortage of staff members, variable shift works, dissatisfaction and stressors of workplace that can lead to physical, emotional, social and long-term career effects to the nurses. However, it can be resolved by following a problem focused copping mechanism and positive emotion focused coping mechanism. Besides this, working as a team at work place and practicing healthy life style also can help in resolving burnout. Causes of Burnout in Nursing The demand of nurses is increasing at a great pace all over the world. No matter how many nurses a country produces every year, there is always a shortage of workers.
Policy problem and goal: The quality of health care provided by nurses at hospital facilities has always been a point of controversial discussion in the United States (US), and even more so with the decline in the availability of qualified nurses and an increase in nurses that are overworked. The US, often referred to as a mecca for its world class hospitals and patient care facilities, is facing the worst shortage of qualified nurses in its history. Most hospitals in the nation are running on reduced nursing staff and often have to overwork their nursing staff to meet the demands of patient care. Research has shown that by reducing the number of nurses, patient outcomes deteriorate and length of stay increases (Garretson, 2004). Reducing nurse staffing can lead to overworked nurses, low staff morale, less patient satisfaction, and errors and more malpractice suits, which can raise the costs much more than hiring more nurses (Garretson).
Theses shortages continue today and will be driven by fundamental shifts in the labor market that are not expected to reverse for several decades(…….). A look at the present nursing shortage revealed hat it is more complex than the previous ones and is projected to intensify in the coming decades, several key factors make this shortage different from the past ones. While the healthcare industry has been though cyclical nursing shortages before; this shortage is more structural and presents a long-term problem for the hospital industry(……). Though many hospitals also have difficulty filling
Running head: NURSING STAFF SHORTAGES Nursing Staff Shortages: Why is There a Problem and What Can be Done to Solve It? Wendy Allen Troy University NURSING STAFF SHORTAGES ABSTRACT Nursing staff shortage is a large problem in today’s healthcare environment. There are fewer nursing students as a result of their being fewer nurses. The population is aging, which is creating a larger demand for healthcare services. Healthcare organizations are finding it difficult to provide quality healthcare services in a timely manner due to the nursing staff shortages.