Nursing Shortage For The Health Care Delivery System

Being a nurse is not just a profession, it is a privilege and an honor. With it being a profession where there is an opportunity to touch many patients’ lives, there must be regulations, laws, and codes that nurses must abide by. There are certain professional traits that a nurse must possess to make them not only a good nurse but a great nurse. There are various nursing theories that a nurse can base their practice upon and many historical figures of the past that guide the nurses of today and of the future.

According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) we are currently experiencing a nursing shortage. It stated that this nursing shortage is currently different than the past shortages. The present nursing shortage is due to fewer nurses entering the workforce due to unacceptable conditions, and the ones that do enter the workforce are not prepared to provide patient care in a changing health care environment. One would think, if they graduated from a nursing program, and passed the NCLEX licensure exam, how is one not prepared to provide excellent patient care? I believe it’s not that the individual is not qualified for the job, they may be lazy or even overwhelmed with too much work, due to the shortage. With there being

An article in the Health Marketing Quarterly written by Mark Somers, Linda Finch, and Dee Birnbaum (university instructors in schools of management, nursing and business fields in the U.S.) asserts that the nursing shortages of "highly trained nurses and of nursing faculty" is close to a level that could be termed a "crisis" (Somers, et al, 2010). The expected gap between supply and demand will expand to more than a million nurses by 2020, Somers explains, which is twice the shortfall had had been projected just two years prior to this article's publication (292).

Registered nurses are the largest group of professionals in health care. There remains a growing demand for nurses both in hospitals and in the community. A 16% growth is expected to take place in the next decade for registered. This is a large increase of 439,300 nurses (Rosseter, 2017). The growth is expected to be from 2.7 million to 3.2 million. This is faster than the average for all other occupations (Rosseter, 2017).

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.

There are many issues that affect the profession of nursing, for decades one issue that affects the nursing profession is the nursing shortage in the United States (U.S.). Even though the nursing shortage in the U.S. remains during the Great Recession of 2007 many older nurses did not retire as one normally would have while other nurses came out of retirement to help support their families (Snavely, 2016). According to Juraschek, Zhang, Ranganathan, and Lin (2012), starting in 2003 the age group of forty-five to fifty-four replaced the age group of thirty-five to forty-four as having the largest number of working registered nurses. Furthermore, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (2015) states the number of jobs available for registered nurses (RNs) is expected to grow by sixteen percent by the year 2024, which equals 439,300 RN positions in the United States. However, some regions of the United States are going to be affected more by the increase in need for RNs leading to a nursing shortage in these regions of the U.S. Moreover, the nursing shortage is going to have a negative impact on patient care, nurse satisfaction, and health care cost which further exacerbating the nursing shortage (Snavely,2016). Factors contributing to a nursing shortage in regions across the U.S. are :1) aging nurses retiring as the recession ends, 2) nurses who re-entered the workforce due to the recession are leaving the profession or returning to working part-time, 3) the aging baby boomer

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 United States healthcare industry faces many challenges everyday, such as the rising cost of care, medical errors, access and quality problems etc. Within the next few years, the United States will experience a shortage of Register Nurses (RNs). “Registered Nurses are considered one of the largest health professions in the health care industry. The Nurses duty is to provide direct patient care and can be done in a hospital, public health facility, nursing home and many other different settings. Other services included are patient education on disease prevention, administering treatments and promoting a healthy lifestyle.” ("The Future of the Nursing Workforce: National- and State- Level Projections 2012-2025”) The shortage will occur due to Baby Boomers aging and the demand for health care will dramatically rise. With the baby boomers aging, Registered Nurses are at the top of the list for demand in health care. Unfortunately the supply and demand does not meet. “According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Employment Projections 2012-2022 released in December 2013, RNs will increase of about 526,800 within that time frame but will still have job openings of 1.05 million by 2020)”("Nursing Shortage") Indicating that there is no growth between 2012- 2022. There are multiple factors to this shortage and one of them is that nursing schools across the nation are struggling to increase the capacity of students to meet the rising demand. Considering the fact

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

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.

The nursing workforce shortage is both a current and ongoing problem within the U.S. This is because the overall supply of registered nurses is insufficient to meet the anticipated demand.

Modern nursing is a rewarding, but challenging, career choice. The modern nurse's role is not limited only to assist the doctor in procedures, however. Instead, the contemporary nursing professional takes on a partnership role with both the doctor and patient as advocate caregiver, teacher, researcher, counselor, and case manager. The caregiver role includes those activities that assist the client physically, mentally, and emotionally, while still preserving the client's dignity. In order for a nurse to be an effective caregiver, the patient must be treated in a holistic manner. Within the subject of nursing, there are often times in which different aspects of the practice must be analyzed by using primary research from other scholars. Nursing scholarship is vital to the profession, as we have seen, in order for the modern nurse to remain current with scholarship and practice. At the very core of this paradigm, though, is the manner in which the blend of art and science in nursing will be expressed to others, to the next generation, and through pedagogical theory (Alligood & Tomey, 2002). To do this, however, requires a new approach to the paradigm of nursing leadership strategic thinking, planning and action and above all appropriate integration of a more holistic and multidisciplinary approach to professional nursing.

In recent years, there has been increasing pressure on nurses in hospitals due to the fact there is no enough nurses in the US public and private hospitals. The causes that drove nurses away in the health industry are a lot. The low payment, the hard work condition, and the increasing complex health technology are some examples of these causes. This report has discussed the problem in details and how it is growing and wild spreading around the world. The report also has listed some of the reasons to this problem which many researches and studies have concluded. Finally, the report provides the most effective solutions

The health care industry is experiencing a crisis. In the United States, registered nurses (RNs) are in short supply, and the shortage is expected to increase to 29% by the year 2020 (Akinci & Krolikowski, 2005). Although nursing homes have traditionally utilized Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNs), higher acuity patients have caused nursing homes to rethink staffing levels across the board. Due to demographic changes and an increased population of adults 65 and older, the American Health Care Association projects the need for nursing home personnel to increase more than 60% from 1999 to 2020 (Akinci & Krolikowski, 2005). The need for staff and the amount of staff available are going in opposite directions. Recent studies have

Within the 1990’s hospitals were resourced to reduce registered nurses due to containing spending cost. Once the decrease of nurses occurred hospitals began to realize a demand of nurses had increased. Hospitals were soon faced with increased opening rates for nursing that emphasized a nursing shortage. It has been projected that there could be a nursing shortage that reaches more than 450,000 by the year of 2020. According to the American Nurses Association, the nursing shortage projection will grow to at least one million registered nurses by 2020 that is not destructively dealt with. Thirty-six percent of the surrounding areas, who are struggling to keep the pace with the demand for nurses at all levels of education and practice. With the persist of nursing shortages could be because of experienced nurses retiring.