The Impact of Nursing Shortages: Literature Review

I am writing this letter in response to article “Nursing Shortage: A Comparative Analysis” which made me think about the similar situation of my country. I am from Nepal, a developing country which is facing the nursing shortage as you have mentioned in the article. If you ask a nursing student in my country, what are you going to do after graduating? Most of those answers would be going abroad for bachelor or masters. Here, doing bachelor or masters

It is no secret that the United States is currently experiencing a shortage of nurses . “The U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics ( 2009 ) estimated that more than one million new and replacement nurses will be needed by 2018 to meet the increased demands of the health care workforce” (). The stressful conditions under which nurses work, due in part to the nursing shortage, are among the risk factors that contribute to nurses’ abuse of illicit drugs and alcohol. Nurses are unique in that they work in an environment where they not only have access to controlled substances, but also are exposed to critically ill patients, traumatic situations, death and dying, the stress of which can increase the risk of substance abuse. (Epstein, Burns, & Conlon, 2010). Unfortunately, it is the patient that suffers the most.

The shortage of nurses in the United States has been discussed often and has been fully reported in the media over the past several decades. There have been reports of shortages so critical that they actually have become "…a national security concern" (Nelson, 2002). Moreover, the reasons for the shortages and potential solutions for this crisis are extremely well covered in the scholarly literature. In this paper, an article in the peer-reviewed Health Marketing Quarterly points to how the nursing shortage can be addressed using marketing strategies. In addition, other scholarly articles will be reviewed in order to address the challenges and consequences that could result if this crisis is not addressed immediately.

This paper will examine the shortage of nurses and the impact on the nurse’s quality

In 1960, Virginia Avenel Henderson a nurse and a theorist in the same time, defined nursing, “the unique function of the nurse is to assist the individual, sick or well, in the performance of those activities contributing to health or its recovery (or to a peaceful death) that he would perform unaided if he had the necessary strength, will or knowledge. And to do this in such a way as to help him gain independence as rapidly as possible”. It is a noble function and to be fulfilled at the highest levels, it takes time, patience and the devotion. When the number of people given this care is much lower than that of people who must receive the care, then a crisis occurs. The phenomenon is acute not only in America but all around the world. Even if the nursing is considered a meaningful work, the country is facing a nursing shortage that grows more with each passing year. Nursing shortages in America affect all parts of the health care delivery system.

The national nursing shortage is an ever-growing concern, and it is essential for healthcare organizations to confront the looming issue. Possible solutions to the nursing shortage include retaining older nurses who are looking to retire, increasing the amount of students graduating from nursing schools, and drawing nurses back to the bedside who have left the nursing workforce (Hatcher, 2006). Leaders must assess the nursing turnover in their organization, and they must strategize on ways to retain those nurses. Organizations must implement techniques to retain older nurses to help combat the national nursing shortage and prevent a national healthcare disaster (Keller & Burns, 2010). The purpose of this paper is to identify the demographic breakdown of an organization, explain how the organization’s environment is conducive and non-conducive for older workers, and describe tactics to retain older workers.

The national nursing shortage is predicted to continue to rise to levels that have not been seen since the 1960’s (Fasoli, 2010). Managers must create an environment that is conducive to employees. The leader needs to promote organizational commitment and retain employees by promoting a positive culture on the unit. Nurses want an environment where they can provide high-quality care to patients and leaders must help facilitate and maintain this environment. Employees also want to feel like their opinions matter to the manager, and they have a say in the future of the unit. Employees do not want to feel like they are not important, or their voices are not being heard.

Background - The modern nurse has a rewarding, but extra challenging, career. The role of the 21st century nurse is not limited to assisting physicians, but to be more of a partner with both the doctor and patient as an advocate, teacher, researcher, counselor, case manager, and of course, caregiver. Because of the complexities of the marketplace, HMOs, governmental structure, rising costs, lack of adequate staff and support, the nurse must rely on a number of tools in order to be effective and successful. The nurse must have the ability to analyze materials from other nurses and scholars, and must remain current with both scholarship and practice. It is therefore advantageous for the nurse to have access to understanding many of the theoretical templates that nursing scholarship has to offer. While unlikely that a nurse will utilize only one theoretical view, the more robust the toolbox, the better the nurse will be able to handle difficult situations (Kozier, Erb and Blais, 1997).

“The new nursing shortage” written by Ramachandran is about the lack of nurses in hospitals and other health settings. This is a major concern because it produces nurses to work tirelessly which cause nurses to become fatigue and drain all their energy. Nurses that become fatigue can result in injury. This newspaper article can help me with my essay because it talks about how there are not enough nurses for patient needs, which can be the root for injury. Ramachandran says (2014) “The recent recession made it more difficult for entry-level nurses to find work, as more experienced nurses put off retirement and stayed in the job force. So now there's a nurse shortage – and it's happening all over the world” (para.2). This is tragic and it’s causing

There are several to name as changes are continually being made, however a few that have negatively affected healthcare would be nursing shortage, shorter hospital stay, and/or access to health care. There continues to be a nursing shortage although it has gotten better, but the workload for nursing sometimes can be heavy. That's why it is very important to know your strengths and your weaknesses, know how much you can safely handle and be familiar with the Safe Harbour Laws. Shorter hospitals stays because of insurance, patient overflow or etc causes shorter hospital stays. This has allowed some patients to discharge before they were actually ready or admit to a Long-term Acute Care facility. This makes education imperiative for nurses to

With the Health care reform being the main focus right now regulatory initiatives regarding the patient to staff ratios are weighing heavily on the nursing workforce (Buerhaus, et al, 2009). In changing the ratios it has a great potential to change the organization and delivery of nursing care. Adequate staffing levels have shown to reduce medication errors, complaints, and mortality, improve patient satisfaction, reduce nurse fatigue and improve nurse satisfaction (Arkin et al, 2014). Staffing shortages have led to nurses moving from hospital-based organizations to outpatient clinics due to the heavy

Nurses play the major role in the healthcare system because they are the largest group of professional healthcare providers that give direct care for patients. That is why nursing shortage give an profound impact on the healthcare system. According to Nursingworld.org, the vast increase of the population of people over 65 who requires increasing health services, and the healthcare reforms in 2010 that help millions people can afford health insurance and lower the uninsured population. To respond to these major forces, more nurses and healthcare professionals are needed. That is why the nursing shortage will increase greatly in the future. To look at the effects of nursing shortage to the quality of care; this literature review will develop

The assigned article for this week uses the applied approach in the study. I believe this is applied approach because there is research that reveals a trend of a nursing shortage in the near future and this is an obvious problem. A recent study by Buerhaus et al. (2009) predicts that by the year two thousand – twenty five the United States will have a major nursing shortage and this shortage could possibly be greater than the nursing shortage in the sixty decade. The assigned article for this week, addresses the fact that although university enrollments continue to rise, the attrition rate from nursing programs nation wide is staying around fifty percent (Newton and Moore, 2009). In efforts to address the nursing shortage, nursing programs

We chose the same research topic from the scenario that was given, which was nursing shortage. Using a quantitative approach to study the problem of nursing shortage is feasible; it would involve looking at the nurse to patient ratio and comparing that to the mortality rate of the patients. In order for the patient to receive quality care, it is vital to have an appropriate amount of human resources (Abhicharttibutra, Kunaviktikul, Turale, Wichaiknum, & Srisuphan, 2016, p. 23). Having a shortage in nurse staffing can affect the patient as well as the nurses.

through the wound care being performed and missed a major step in caring for that patient, leading to infection. The effect of increased nurses to patients has been shown many times to improve patients’ outcome.