We are currently experiencing a nursing shortage. The demand for professional nurses in both short and long-term futures continues to increase (Huston, 2017, p. 66). The demand has been increasing due to many reasons such as a growing elderly population with extended longevity, a growing population, retiring baby boomer nurses, and medical and technological advances that require more educated nurses. The projections from the US. Bureau of Labor statistics suggests the need for 525,000 replacement nurses in the workforce (Huston, 2017, p. 66). Meanwhile, the supply of nurses has been decreasing because of low salary, long shifts, low autonomy, mandatory overtime, and being forced to work during weekends, nights and holidays prompt many nurses …show more content…
This solution challenges not only the immigrant nurses, but also the health care system (Huston, 2017, p. 88). The foreign nurses have to deal with many new things in the US such as language, culture, advanced technology, and health care policies. The differences in culture, languages, and nursing education require the imported nurse’s enormous efforts and a long time to be able to integrate into the new culture and working environment. This affects the quality of their care practice during the beginning years. Besides, healthcare organizations have to spend a large amount of money for recruitment such as visa, immigration, offering tests; and for English teaching and retraining foreign nurses (Huston, 2017, p. 91). Importing foreign nurses also increases shortage of nurses in those countries they were imported from. Many health officials in countries such as the Philippines suggest that their healthcare systems are on the brink of collapse due to nurse migration. Nurse migration leads to the “brain drain”. This refers to the loss of skilled personnel and the loss of investment in education that is experienced when those human resources migrate elsewhere. (Huston, 2017, p 83). Therefore, I think, though many of foreign educated nurses are professional and skilled, foreign nurse recruitment cannot be the most optimal solution for healthcare
Health care reform has been a major issue over the past decade. The Nursing industry has in particular experienced a period of unpredictable change. On Dec 24, 2009, a landmark measure was passed in the senate by a vote of 60 to 39. This decision to pass the health care reform will change America forever. Nurses will constitute the largest single group of health care professionals. They will have a huge impact on quality and effectiveness in health care. The nursing industry will help hold this new program together by acting as the glue (The nursing industry will be the glue holding the new health care in tact.) It is estimated that by 2015 the number of nurses will need to increase to over 4 million. Nurses are the backbone of the health care industry thus creating better polices for this profession will help ease the workload and high demand. A nurse’s main concern is always to insure quality care and the safety of their patients. Under the new health care reform several new measures have been set into place to ease the transition and improve the quality of care for all patients. One program is designed to fund scholarships and loan programs to offset the high costs of education. Nursing shortages and the high turnover has become a serious epidemic. Health care reform is supposed going to solve many of these problems.
There are several factors that are considered the causes of the nursing shortage. Literature suggests that the shortage is linked to factors related to current population trends and the nature of the health care e...
"Projected Supply, Demand, and Shortages of Registered Nurses: 2000-2020." American Health Care Association. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Jul 2002. Web. 10 Mar 2012.
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...
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistic’s Employment Projections 2012-2022 released in January 2014, the Registered Nursing workforce is the top occupation in terms of job growth through 2022. It is expected that the number of employed nurses will grow from 2.71 million in 2012 to 3.24 million in 2022, an increase of 526,800 or 19 percent. Growth will take place for a number of reasons: demand for health care services due to increasing life expectancy; chronic conditions, such as arthritis, dementia, diabetes, and obesity; and the number of individuals who have access to health services.
I think shortages of nurses can also be a factor in why nurses are overworked and stressed. In most hospitals you can’t even tell if there is a nurse shortage, the nurses run around from patient to patient I’m trying to still provide the same quality care. My aunt is a registered nurse for Northeast medical center and I asked her out of the previously 11 listed reasons nurses are stressed which do you experience the most. She replied, “I have to say that I experience number one which is work overload the most. When I started working as a nurse 37 years ago there were three separate shifts throughout a day and there’s could work instead of the two 7am-7pm. The nursed patient ratio was a lot lower we got to spend time with the patients we had during the day and provide individual attention. You didn’t feel overwhelmed because the hospital had enough nurses. Now they nurses doing e same amount of work as two or three nurses combined, and are still expected to do
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 shortage occurred in the United States and other continents like Asia and Africa. During this time, some of the nursing positions were cut because of the managed care demands that curtailed both the private and public sector about the issue of insurance reimbursement rates in most of the hospitals (MacLean et al., 2014). Most of the decision-makers in the hospitals did not have a good understanding of the issue of nursing, and they implemented plans that increased the workloads of the individual registered nurses. Currently, the nurses that remain underpowered lack professional resources of fighting efficiently against the
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 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
According to the American Nurse Association, nursing has the second greatest job growth in all US professions. However, the number of nursing shortage is only increasing as the years go by. During the hard times that many Americans have been facing in this economy, there have been lots of nurses whom have been let go from their work field, have re-entered their field just so they can provide for their families, or even nursing students whom have felt discouraged from entering their field professionally because of the nursing shortage situations. To specify in a field, the reason for nursing shortage in the OR can be because of lack of peroperative education or experience, nurses wanting to work in other areas, or the trouble of drawing nurses into this field.
Saying that you are a registered nurse is a broad statement. Registered nursing is a job that has many aspects. Registered nurses work in many different settings and they carry out many different routines. As a registered nurse you could be exposed to many different opportunities. My goal is to be a registered nurse but, I need to learn a lot. Becoming a being a registered nurse requires a lot of hard work and effort but, if I focus on my goal I will be able to achieve it.
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
To understand the Saudi shortage in nurses, one has to understand the Saudi dependence on foreign nurses. In a country as young as Saudi Arabia; going from the tribal age to the informational age in less than 70 years was and still considered a dream come true for many people. With a low literacy rates, 15 percent for men and less than 2 percent for women in 1970, Saudi Arabia with its new untapped oil reserved was committed in producing and providing the best for its citizens; schools, hospitals, communities, industries, and jobs. As result, Saudi Arabia has decided that it would import all means and personnel in need to produce a be...
The education standard in India has endured considerable neglect (Tiwari, Sharma, & Zodpey, 2013). Furthermore, the rights to nursing autonomy and professional growth has been slow, even though the profession has demonstrated rapid growth. Insufficient financial assistance from governments and fragile nursing organizations effect the levels of education delivered. Extensive studies into the quality of nursing education in India has indicated sub-standard educational institutions and poorly qualified teaching staff (Evans, Razia, & Cook, 2013). Although the availability of numerous public and private nursing schools and colleges throughout India, the quality of these institutions are questionable and the geographic locations problematic. A negative consequence to having a large quantity, especially in one concentrated area, is the lack of quality teachers. Some faculties recruit retired nurses, many who have had no current in-service training and therefore teaching outdated skills. In addition, graduate nursing students coming straight from university are being lured into teaching positions to fill the shortage of teachers, however the nurse graduates lack the clinical or practical skills acquired from working in the industry. In addition, there are profound teaching deficiencies in retired and graduate nurses due to no formal educational training or registered educator qualifications (Tiwari, Sharma, & Zodpey, 2013). Australian’s outstanding reputation to deliver excellence in superior education allows Australian nurses access to high quality, comprehensive nursing education programs. Australian universities offer a range of in-depth nursing courses delivered by highly qualified lectures and tutors skilled in nursing practices. Support from the government and private nursing organizations allow access to undergraduate degrees