The World of Nursing: What Is Causing the Shortage? One of the few careers left in the United States that is said to be everlasting, seems to be getting a taste of reality. What once was a thriving career has steadily begun to struggle with a call to arms. Hospitals around the world are finding that the need for nurses is increasing as new nurse graduates are decreasing. Nursing schools are unable to produce enough new graduates to meet the need. Which causes a need for adequate instructors with the knowledge necessary to educate nursing students. Even with the rate of nurses graduating each year with Bachelors and Associates, why are we in such a drastic need for nurses? Has the population and illness increased so fast that our current nurses are not able to keep pace? Many researchers have attempted to figure out what may be causing this need. This need for nurses is vital to patient care and outcome, but we still lack consensus. The question that has been asked since the 1980s with no resolution. The medical community has changed since the 1980s, as positions and duties has changed. Each position contains specific duties to help with patient care and outcome. Just like a pyramid, each position holds a superior rank to the other. The doctors are at the peak and control the patient care. They make the decisions based on the information provided to them by the nurses. The registered nurse (RN) is at the next level and communicates between the doctors and the supporting staff. The supporting staff, the final level, assist the patients on a one on one basis. This pyramid of positions alters depending on the specialty or facility that an individual is employed, and condition of the patient. One without the other is an impossible task... ... middle of paper ... ...taff but reduce the hours, so that the staff is available when needed. Keeping the staff available also reduces the cost for replacement. In an article by Kovner, Brewer, Greene, & Fairfield “the estimated cost to replace a registered nurse is 1.2 to 1.3 times a nurse’s salary which is from 40,000 to 65,000” (as cited in Edwards, 2011). The recession is also affecting the patients as well, with more and more individuals being laid off and having difficulty procuring a new position. Fewer and fewer to seek medical care, especially when there is no insurance to assist with the billing. With all the over-the-counter medications, patients are relying on internet sites such WEB MD to diagnose and treat their symptoms. Ultimately leading hospitals to make hard decisions on how to stay afloat in a crumbling economy. How are New Nurse Graduates Affected? ses would decrease.
As the United States’ population ages and the Affordable Care Act continues to be implemented the need to address the shortage of nurses and faculty is more pressing than it ever has been. However, this is multi-dimensional problem, to get to the crux of it; one has to ask what the major contributing factors to such shortages are and what can be done to prevent them? Perhaps the most significant influence to the nursing shortage is the fact that each year a large number of qualified applicants are denied entrance because of a lack of prepared nurse educators (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2014). Equally as troubling, if not more so, is according to a 2014 survey by the AACN there is already a 8.3% faculty vacancy, coupled with the age of professors with doctorates being 61.3 and master’s degrees
It is no secret that we are living in a world where nursing shortages continue to worsen. In my report you will find reasons to expand educational resources. I will be highlighting the need for more nurses and displaying statistics on various aspects of nursing staff and nursing programs. With such demand and interest in this field we should not see a lack in nurses in the workforce, yet we are in dire need of them.
Nursing Shortage Affecting Both Nurse and Patient Ansu Sam York College CUNY Introduction One of the main reasons that makes patient safety goals impossible is nurse staff shortage. Nurses shortage is of primary importance, unlike many other health care professionals because of their direct interaction with susceptible patients throughout their stay in the health care settings. They track a patient’s condition continuously and are the first to know about any serious health conditions the patient face while in hospital. “ In a recent study conducted on behalf of the American Hospital Association, respondents reported that the nursing shortage has caused emergency department overcrowding in their hospitals (38%); diversion
shortage will put older adult care in great jeopardy. A higher demand for nurses are needed
(2007). Impact Of The Nurse Shortage On Hospital Patient Care: Comparative Perspectives. Health Affairs, 6(3), 853-862. doi:10.1377/hlthaff.26.3.853
A registered nurse (RN) practises self-sufficiently and in partnership with other health professionals such as enrolled nurses, health care assistances, doctors and surgeons etc. Registered nurses carry out general nursing tasks, delegate to and direct any health care assistants or enrolled nurses working alongside them. They deliver complete assessments to develop, implement, and estimate an assimilated plan of health care, also a RN provides mediations that involve extensive scientific and qualified knowledge, skills and clinical decision making. They organise this in a variety of surroundings in corporation with individuals, the families and the communities. Registered nurses (RN) are able to practise in a wide range of clinical frameworks, all depending on their scope of practise. All nurses have a scope of practise subject to their qualifications and knowledge. RN’s are to care for patients and encourage health and illness prevention. Some of the roles a nurse will come across are caregiving, teaching, communicating and managing. It is part of the RN’s role to educate patients about their healthcare in an equitable manner (N...
Nursing shortage According to the Canadian Nurses Association(2009), human health resources have stated that by the end of 2011 Canada will experience a shortage of 78 000 registered Nurses (RN) and a shortage of 113 000 nurses by the end of 2016. Globally, there will be a shortage of 4.3 million health care workers. It was also shown that approximately 38% of new graduate nurses leave their workforce within the first year of employment (Lavoie-Tremblay, Wright, Desforges, Gelinas, Drevniok & Marchionni, 2008). According to registered Nurses Association of Ontario (2011), full time positions of RN dropped to 57.9% in 2010 from 58.9% in 2009.
Give the various number of important roles nurses play in healthcare, strategies must be implemented to assure that there are an adequate number of nurses to care for our ever-growing population. For example, in addition to caring for hospitalized patients every day, nurses at Ridgeview Medical Center (RMC) work in information technology to build and maintain the electronic health record, provide discharge planning/case management, coordinate patient care, lead healthcare teams, manage hospice patients, provide homecare, administer high-risk, life-saving medications such as chemotherapy, service as primary care nurse practitioners, and the list goes on.
The nurse manager presented in the scenario is above all, a nurse who belongs to the group of “professional nurses that experience situations each day in which they must lead, manage, and follow” (Yoder-Wise, 2014, p. 6). The manager as she walks in to her unit, is aware of the fact that “care routines must be managed” (Yoder-Wise, 2014, p. 5). In prioritizing her decisions, the nurse manager would need to sort out which problem or issue has the high urgency and importance. Therefore, “a problem with high urgency and importance rankings should be dealt with first” (NDC, 2007, p. 12). Of the five issues she is faced with, the number one priority to address would be the staffing issue related to the RN who called in. As in any staffing problem, the nurse manager needs to consider not only the patient quality care and
Nursing staff shortage is expected to get worse. By the year 2020, the nurse staffing deficit is expected to rise to 525,000 by the year 2022. The rise is attributed to retirement of baby boomers and the rise in need for health care (AACN, 2014). Nursing shortage has negative impact on the public. A study done in 2011 showed a 6% rise in mortality rate in institutions that had nursing shortage compare to fully staffed units (AACN, 2014). In a different study, the patient readmission rate increased when a registered nurse was allocated to care for more than 4 patients (AACN, 2014).
In 2013, about 55 percent of the RN workforce holds a bachelor’s or higher degree. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has released the Employment Projections 2012-2022 in December 2013 stating that Registered Nursing (RN) is listed among the top occupations in terms of job growth through 2022. The RN workforce is expected to grow from 2.71 million in 2012 to 3.24 million in 2022, an increase of 526,800 or 19%. The Bureau also projects the need for 525,000 replacements nurses in the workforce bringing the total number of job openings for nurses due to growth and replacements to 1.05 million by 2022. One factor that impacts nursing shortage is the shortage of nursing school faculty that restrict nursing program enrollments. According to AACN’s report on 2012-2013 Enrollment and Graduations in Baccalaureate and Graduate Programs in Nursing, U.S. nursing schools turned away 79,659 qualified applicants from baccalaureate and graduate nursing programs in 2012 due to insufficient number of faculty, clinical sites, classroom space, clinical preceptors, and budget constraints. Since BSN-prepared nurses are more likely than nurses with associate degrees in nursing (ADNs) to eventually attain graduate degrees, an expanded pipeline of BSNs will contribute to solving the nurse faculty
The problem identified for this report is for administration to address the workload and shortages of the nursing staff. Healthcare maintains health through preventive or treatment measures. In order to adequately provide treatment, healthcare facilities must provide and retain healthcare workers. The issue with nursing workloads in the workplace needs to be addressed by administration and adequate solutions need to be available to healthcare providers to allow for a healthier work environment. As nursing shortage in healthcare is a major issue, administration must develop techniques to brainstorm, discuss, and adapt to this issue to assist nursing staff to reduce workload in the workplace.
Nursing shortage will increase as there are many nurses approaching retirement age. The problem is not only that there aren’t enough nurses, but they are quitting their jobs as well. Reasons to why nurses leave their jobs are as follows: unsatisfied with their workload or work schedule, there are times they aren’t able to balance their work and family life, and the teaching support (Yedidia, 2014). Fewer nurses on the floor affects patients, other nurses, hospitals, nursing schools, and education. There needs to be a focus on the education that nursing schools are providing. There are job positions available, but some nurses do not meet the education requirements. There needs to be a way to motivate nurses to pursue a higher education so that
As the nursing shortage increases, the number of bedside nurses will decrease, which will place a burden on the nurses that remain within the hospital settings during a time that patients’ illness is more complex. For instance, patients are present within the hospital several types of diseases that require a variety of communication skills to obtain essential data to address the patients need. An example of this was presented within a simulation: The patient recovering from myocardial infarction (MI), a stent placed, diagnosed diabetic, blind, and living alone. This patient presents a multisystem of illnesses that require intense teaching and assistance from multiple sources; therefore, the patients’ outcome depends upon a multidisciplinary
Society has increased the demands for more education for nurses, how we practice nursing and how we lead as nurses. Society has to increase education availability for nurses, lower college fees and provide more loans and grants for students. Society has to illuminate barriers to transforming practice by growing more nurses, reducing patient- nurse ratios, and giving nurses the tools to become better leaders in