Question

Explanation of the Issue and Proposed Strategy -Effect of the staffing shortage on nurses.

Answer 1

In United States, there are about 4 million practicing nurses today and there are 29 million nurses working globally. On paper it looks good but on actual terms, the world is facing significant nursing shortage. According to World Health Organization, there is current shortage of about 7.2 million nurses and by 2035, this number is going to rise to 12.9 million. As far as United States is concerned, we will need 1.09 million more nurses by 2024. The biggest reason for this is the growing population. The country do not have enough nurses to care for the people with medical conditions. The fact that the people are living a lot longer as compared to the older times, contributes to this shortage. But the biggest possible reason for this issue is the nurse burnout which is a condition where nurses are drained mentally, physically and emotionally due to excessive work and a sense of negligible personal accomplishment. Due to this physical or emotional exhaustion, nurses are twice as likely to be depressed as the general population. In short, just because nurses are aging and retiring and every year there are more and more jobs for the general public as the general public is dealing with more healthcare issues, more chronic conditions and more older population. There is a significant shortage of faculty in nusing education too due to which insititutions are not able to admit qualified students which was about 75000 applicants in 2018. So knowing this nursing shortage coming about actually seems frightening since there will be higher patient nurse ratio and in this situation, the overall outcomes are not going to be safer for the patient as well as nurse's health. To improve patient's outcome and to ensure patient's outcome, more nurses are required. Nurses are the backbone of the healthcare and studies show that better educated nurses and having a smaller nurse to patient ratio can improve outcome as well as safety.

So the key considerations while planning to staff the nursing shortage number is first efficiently improve the work schedule as well as the environment for the profession which will help in lowering the number of retiring nurses and attracting the number of aspiring nurses. Another significant step could be to efficiently as well as effectively use the current number of nurses available. An idea of collective and coordinated decision making, scheduling and adjustment based on the specific abilities, skills, cost and flexibility to work in different units of healthcare can effectively help in managing a versatile and flexible workforce. The healthcare should not only work on strategies to increase the number of nurse but also work in attracting more numbers of skilled nursing managers which will help in efficient use of the worforce number. Additional funds should be allocated to address the nursing shortage by retaining and attracting more number of qualified nurses. Regulations should be implemented to reduce the overtime and undesirable shifts for the existing personals. The concept of more number of agency nurses can also compensate this shortage signifiacantly. And at last, provisions should be made to ensure that none of the qualified nursing applicant are turned away.