Effects of Nursing Staff Shortages to the Health Care System
Introductions
Nurses are very important people in the health care system. They are renowned for being proponents of healthcare promotion, training patients and society about how to avoid diseases and injuries, taking part in rehabilitation, and offering assistance and care. Modern nursing responsibilities are complex, and they can only be understood via experience, observation, and the opinions of others. Nurses frequently put their own luxuries before the requirements of the people they look after on a daily basis. The nursing field has been known to be more female than male-dominated over the years. However, there has been a rise of nurse shortages in the world, especially with the current COVID-19 pandemic.
Purpose of pursuing the chosen Topic
This paper discusses the relevance of finding solutions to nurse shortages. It also illustrates the problems caused by nursing shortages, the causes of nurse shortages and the possible solutions to this problem. The purpose of pursuing this topic is to reduce the negative effects of nursing shortages in the healthcare system. This goal is realistic when the government works together with the health facilities to achieve it.
Problems Caused by Nurse Shortages
Nurse shortages have a huge negative impact on the healthcare systems today. One of these impacts include, increase in patient deaths. This is because patients will be sent home to be taken care of by caregivers rather than nursing professionals. Another impact is the increase of medication errors (Haddad et al., 2022). Studies have shown that 46.8% of nurses have committed errors in the last one year. These errors include giving medication to the wrong patient, omission of medication, mistaken medication and giving a patient medication twice instead of once. Lastly, nursing shortages increase overcrowding in emergency rooms. This is because the nurse-to-patient ratio is uneven. By solving the nurse shortage problems, these negative impacts will be reduced.
Nursing shortages are caused by a number of reasons. One of them is the fact that the nurses are growing old and need to retire (Mac et al., 2019). They however lack people to replace them and some of them are forced to continue working even during old age. This mostly brings about inefficient work. Another cause of nurse shortage is nurse burnout. This is mainly caused by the availability of few nurses who are forced to work overtime (Manyisa & Aswegen, 2017). Since most of the nurses are females, they are forced to leave the profession to go and bear children and take care of their families. In some American states, the number of nurses is high compared to others. This results to shortages in states that have few nurses. This is also due to the fact that nurses will prefer to work in regions that are good for settling with their families (Haddad et al., 2022). Some nurses complain of emotional and physical abuse caused by the stressful hospital environment.
Possible Solutions to Nurse Shortages
The best-known solution is an increase in nurse salaries and incentives. This will make more people consider the nursing field. It will also make them feel motivated, especially for the nurses who work in unfriendly areas (Haddad et al., 2022). The male gender is also highly encouraged to join the nursing field so as to enable women to have maternity leave and go take care of their families when need be. Male patients feel more understood when they are taken care of by male nurses. Healthcare institutions should also provide training and counselling to their staff. These will enable nurses to speak about the issues they face at work, prompting the management to find the solutions to the issues, hence da decrease in nurse turnover (Manyisa & Aswegen, 2017). In the event of pandemics or flu, the management of health institutions should hire temporary nurses to help the permanent ones. This will reduce the chances of nurses getting burnout. Another solution is having policies that make health centers carry out effective nurse staffing,g which will increase job satisfaction and nurse retention rates, therefore, reducing nurse turnover (Holmberg et al., 2018). Nursing programs can also help reduce nurse shortages by increasing wages for nursing educators and, therefore, motivating them. Nurse students can also receive scholarships that encourage them to start and finish nursing courses without financial problems (Marc et al., 2019). Having online nursing classes will motivate more people to take up the nursing career since they do not have to travel to access institutions of higher learning.
References
Haddad, L. M., Annamaraju, P., & Toney-Butler, T. J. (2022). Nursing shortage. In StatPearls [Internet]. StatPearls Publishing. HYPERLINK “https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK493175/” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK493175/
Holmberg, C., Caro, J., & Sobis, I. (2018). Job satisfaction among Swedish mental health nursing personnel: Revisiting the two‐factor theory. International journal of mental health nursing, 27(2), 581-592. HYPERLINK “https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Christopher-Holmberg/publication/315839805_Job_satisfaction_among_Swedish_mental_health_nursing_personnel_Revisiting_the_two-factor_theory/links/59e245eb458515393d57efca/Job-satisfaction-among-Swedish-mental-health-nursing-personnel-Revisiting-the-two-factor-theory.pdf” https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Christopher-Holmberg/publication/315839805_Job_satisfaction_among_Swedish_mental_health_nursing_personnel_Revisiting_the_two-factor_theory/links/59e245eb458515393d57efca/Job-satisfaction-among-Swedish-mental-health-nursing-personnel-Revisiting-the-two-factor-theory.pdf
Manyisa, Z. M., & van Aswegen, E. J. (2017). Factors affecting working conditions in public hospitals: A literature review. International Journal of Africa Nursing Sciences, 6, 28-38. HYPERLINK “https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S2214139117300082?token=D0CC165AE5A35F826306E23E28CB281D82200AAFCC97C33F86A9FDD45EBDC8DBD687E104BD2018A858094210B8B55CDA&originRegion=eu-west-1&originCreation=20220824134123” https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S2214139117300082?token=D0CC165AE5A35F826306E23E28CB281D82200AAFCC97C33F86A9FDD45EBDC8DBD687E104BD2018A858094210B8B55CDA&originRegion=eu-west-1&originCreation=20220824134123
Marć, M., Bartosiewicz, A., Burzyńska, J., Chmiel, Z., & Januszewicz, P. (2019). A nursing shortage–a prospect of global and local policies. International nursing review, 66(1), 9-16. HYPERLINK “https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Joanna-Burzynska-2/publication/326584152_A_nursing_shortage_-_a_prospect_of_global_and_local_policies/links/5b7440dca6fdcc87df7fc0ac/A-nursing-shortage-a-prospect-of-global-and-local-policies.pdf” https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Joanna-Burzynska-2/publication/326584152_A_nursing_shortage_-_a_prospect_of_global_and_local_policies/links/5b7440dca6fdcc87df7fc0ac/A-nursing-shortage-a-prospect-of-global-and-local-policies.pdf
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the effects of nursing staff shortages on the healthcare system?
Nursing staff shortages lead to increased patient deaths, medication errors, and overcrowded emergency rooms, which significantly affect the quality of patient care.
What are the main causes of nursing shortages?
Causes include an aging workforce, nurse burnout due to overtime, family responsibilities, geographic disparities, and emotional or physical abuse in stressful hospital environments.
How can nursing salaries help reduce nurse shortages?
Increasing nurse salaries and providing incentives can attract more individuals to the profession, improve job satisfaction, and motivate nurses, especially those working in challenging environments.
What policies can healthcare institutions implement to reduce nurse turnover?
Policies that ensure effective nurse staffing, provide training and counselling for staff, and support family life with maternity leave can improve nurse retention and job satisfaction.
How can nursing education programs help alleviate nurse shortages?
Nursing programs can offer scholarships, increase wages for nursing educators, and introduce online classes to encourage more students to pursue nursing careers, addressing the shortage of nurses in the long term.