The stakeholders that are affected by the nursing shortage and nurse retention are the patients, the nurses themselves, the organization, and the payer. Nursing shortage and nurse retention has the biggest impact on the patients and their health. Knudson (2013) states that there is a correlation between nurse staffing and patient outcomes, failure to rescue, and patient mortality rates. Quality of patient care that the nurses offer their patients suffer as an effect of these issues. Patient suffer from lack of care, bed sores, falls, and medication errors when nurses are overwhelmed and stressed due to the nurse patient ratio being so high. The nurses that are left to care for the patients are affected by the nursing shortage. They are made …show more content…
Nurse managers need to take measures to improve the autonomy of their staff nurses, practice good communications skills, improving the work environment, and listening to the voices of nurses (Renter & Allen, 2014). Applying the goal attainment theory is a useful way to improve job dissatisfaction of nurses and this will help to decrease the nursing …show more content…
The nurse manager is responsible to access the environment, plan to change or enhance the environment, implement ways to engage these changes, and then continue to evaluate the situations. This will help to retain nurses in their current positions. The role phase is what is expected of the nurse and the nurse manager to achieve the mutual set of goals. It is a set of behaviors that both the nurse and manager are expected to follow to make goal attainment effective. Role expectations and role performance will increase nurse retention and work to decrease the nursing shortage. If there is conflict in the role phase it will decrease the expected outcomes and may need to be revisited. Stress is how the nurse and nurse manager react to the environment. Some stress is good as it encourages growth and develop improved performance. Coping is how the manager and nurse will deal with the stress to make it a good stress that increases knowledge. This is another way that communication comes into the theory of goal
The nursing shortage in the healthcare setting, can result in decreased quality of care with the patient and this can have a significant impact on the financial aspect of the organization. As time changes, there are more acute illnesses being presented in the hospital as a result of the patient prolonging to seek medical treatment. The delay in seeking medical treatment often stems from the patient not having health insurance and seeking home remedies as an alternate method of treatment. When the patient present to the hospital with multiple acute illnesses, the staff should be skilled, ready and available to render the necessary treatment for the patient. The idea of nursing shortage, poses the risk and outcome of poor
Many health care professionals are wondering why shortage transpired when managed care cost initiatives, implemented throughout the country, are dramatically decreasing the length of patient stays (Upenieks, 2003). In fact, such a situation should be resulting in a nursing oversupply. As the nursing shortage ensues, the need for recruiting and retaining highly skilled nurses committed to the organization will become necessary to maintain high-quality patient care. The recent national nurse shortage has resulted in higher nurse workloads; fewer support resources, greater nursing dissatisfaction, and burnout, making it more difficult to provide optimal patient care (Upenieks, 2003). The primary role of nursing is to provide the best possible care to patients.
The nursing shortage is divided into four different categories. The four categories are as follows; "willing nurse" shortage, funding or perceived funding shortage, shortage of understanding that nurses are needed to deliver care, and nurse education and empowerment shortages (What is the nursing shortage and why does it exist?., 18 October, 2007). To be able to repair this major problem, all four segments of shortages need to be addressed. The first nursing shortage, A "willing nurse" shortage, is the simple fact of not enough supply to fill the demand of nursing positions. This shortage occurs either because there are simply not enough nurses to fill the open positions, or because experienced nurses are opting out of nursing and the willingness to provide care due to the current occupational environment. The second nursing shortage is the funding or perceived funding shortage. This shortage is merely due to nurses not feeling as if they are being compensat...
Recent literature reports that there is a nursing shortage and it is continually increasing. Data released by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (2011) projects that the shortage, would increase to 260,000 by the year 2025. AACN (2011) also reported that 13% of newly registered nurses changed jobs and 37% were ready to change within a year. A study conducted reports that there is a correlation between higher nursing workloads and nurse burnout, retention rates, job dissatisfaction and adverse patient outcomes (Vahey & Aiken, 2004). Among the nurses surveyed in the study, over 40% stated that they were suffering from burnout while 1 in 5 nurses intended
In healthcare it is very important to have strong leaders, especially in the nursing profession. A nurse leader typically uses several styles of leadership depending on the situation presented; this is known as situational leadership. It is important that the professional nurse choose the right style of leadership for any given situation to ensure their employees are performing at their highest potential. Depending on which leadership style a nurse leader uses, it can affect staff retention and the morale of the employees as well as nurse job satisfaction (Azaare & Gross, 2011.) “Nursing leaders have the responsibility to create and maintain a work environment which not only promotes positive patient outcomes but also positively influences teams and individual nurses” (Malloy & Penprase, 2010.) Let’s explore two different leadership styles and discuss how they can enhance or diminish the nursing process.
However, upon securing a job, they find that things on the ground are not as they had expected them to be and this results in some of them deciding to leave the profession early. Research shows that turnovers within the nursing fraternity target person below the age of 30 (Erickson & Grove, 2011). The high turnover within the nursing fraternity results in a massive nurse shortage. This means that the nurses who decide to stay have to work for many hours resulting in exhaustion. A significant percent of nurses quitting their job sites exhaustion and discouragement as the reason that contributed to their decision. In one of the studies conducted on the issue of nurse turnover, 50% of the nurses leaving the profession argued that they felt saddened and discouraged by what they were unable to do for their patients (Erickson & Grove, 2011). When a nurse witness his/her patients suffering but cannot do anything because of the prevailing conditions he/she feels as if he/she is not realizing the reason that prompted him/her to join the nursing profession. The higher rate of nursing turnover is also affecting the quality of care nurses provide to
Poor staffing stresses every nurse and makes them despite what they once loved to do. Nurses are overworked and because of that they may not provide adequate patient care.
The purpose of this paper is to address the issue of nursing staffing ratios in the healthcare industry. This has always been a primary issue, and it continues to grow as the population rate increases throughout the years. According to Shakelle (2013), in an early study of 232,432 surgical discharges from several Pennsylvania hospitals, 4,535 patients (2%) died within 30 days of hospitalization. Shakelle (2014) also noted that during the study, there was a difference between 4:1 and 8:1 patient to nurse ratios which translates to approximately 1000 deaths for a group of that size. This issue can be significantly affected in a positive manner by increasing the nurse to patient ratio, which would result in more nurses to spread the work load of the nurses more evenly to provide better coverage and in turn result in better care of patients and a decrease in the mortality rates.
Since the 1990’s, the interest in nursing and the profession as a whole has decreased dramatically and is still expected to do so over the next 10-15 years according to some researchers. With this nursing shortage, many factors are affected. Organizations have to face challenges of low staffing, higher costs for resources, recruiting and reserving of registered nurses, among liability issues as well. Some of the main issues arising from this nurse shortage are the impact of quality and continuity of care, organizational costs, the effect it has on nursing staff, and etc. However, this not only affects an organization and community, but affects the nurses the same. Nurses are becoming overwhelmed and are questioning the quality of care that each patient deserves. This shortage is not an issue that is to be taken lightly. The repercussions that are faced by both nurses and the organization are critical. Therefore, state funding should be implemented to private hospitals in order to resolve the shortage of nurses. State funds will therefore, relieve the overwhelming burdens on the staff, provide a safe and stress free environment for the patient, and allow appropriate funds needed to keep the facility and organization operational.
The prolonged shortage of skilled nursing personnel has been a serious concern to the healthcare industry, and this shortage has impacted the quality of care delivery. In addition, nursing turnover has also exacerbated the problem of nursing shortage. Nursing shortage has been blamed on many nurses retiring and less younger nurses joining the occupation. There is also an increase in life expectancy (baby boomers) leading an increase in both physical and mental ailment with subsequent demand in nursing care. Nurses are also leaving nursing profession because of inadequate staffing, tense work environment, negative press about the profession, and inflexible work schedules. Even though nursing is a promising career and offers job security, the
Factors such as, heavy workloads, stress, job dissatisfaction, frequent medical errors, and intention of leaving the job are all common for nurses to experience, especially during the nursing shortage crisis. Not only do the nurses suffer during a shortage, but the patients ' health outcomes suffer even more. For instance, there are higher rates of infectious diseases and adverse patient outcomes, such as urinary tract infections (UTIs), upper gastrointestinal bleeding, shock, pneumonia, prolonged hospital stays, failure to rescue, and mortality. As a result, this leads to higher re-admission rates for patients. Furthermore, high patient-to-nurse ratios cause heavy workloads due to an inadequate supply of nurses, an increased demand for nurses, a reduction in staffing and an increase in overtime, and a shortened length of stay for patients. Without the heavy workloads that nurses have to endure on a daily basis, there would more time for nurses to communicate more effectively with physicians, insurance companies, and patients and their families. Those heavy workloads are the result of hospitals reducing the nursing staff and implementing mandatory overtime policies just to meet unexpectedly high demands. Unfortunately, the nursing shortage has affected nurses ' mental and physical health. For example, the most common health concerns for nurses include cardiovascular health, occupational injuries and illnesses, and emotional and physical exhaustion. Therefore, safe-staffing ratios/levels have to become the main
A career in the medical field is always evolving, and always needing more hands. I knew from a young age that helping people is what I was meant to do, and from then on out every step I took was the way to a successful career in nursing. It is a profession that allows you to see people at their worst, all while helping them become their best. The most important task for nursing students is to create a clear pathway for our education, and to be sure to follow that plan accordingly. When choosing this career, I had to access my own strengths and weaknesses and really establish clear goals for myself and evaluate if I had what it takes to be a part of this diverse and skilled profession. I also decided not only not only do I need to set professional goals for this career, personal goals are important as well.
Nursing involves alleviating suffering by doing a diagnosis and treatment of human response, preventing illness and injury to individuals, populations and communities. The professional growth in the provision of patient care depends on setting goals that contribute to development of the career and skill enhancement as the caregiver. Goals in the nursing profession can be short term or long term. Short term goals are those that are achievable in a short time frame and more immediate as they take one to two years. They help in reaching long term goals.
Finally, a more obvious and direct cause of nurse turnover is overall dissatisfaction with the current job. This can be for numerous reasons related to pay, benefits, job growth availability, lack of autonomy, or simply feeling unappreciated. According to one source, “a 2014 survey of more than 3,300 nurses found that they were stressed, overworked, underappreciated, and underutilized” (Fischer, 2016). No matter the reason a nurse chooses to leave their job, the negative outcomes remain the same. The most common of these outcomes are that hospitals lose money, it decreases patient quality of care, and it continues the cycle of more turnover in the nursing profession. “It is predicted that there will be a shortage of nearly 1 million nurses in the United States by 2020” (Hunt, 2009). Hospitals are impacted financially by the high nurse turnover rates. “The financial costs of losing a single nurse has been calculated to equal about twice the nurse’s annual salary” (Hunt, 2009). With these numbers in mind, the hospital spending more money to retain nurses could be a smart and beneficial action for them to
These characteristics of a nurse manager show how their leadership plays a role in their position in the nursing field. Without this position in the nursing structure, it would be very difficult to produce positive results in providing optimal patient ca...