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Shortage Of Nursing And The Nursing Profession
Shortage Of Nursing And The Nursing Profession
Nurse shortage usa
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During my time in practice placement I worked on an elderly dementia ward I noticed there was a lot of shortage in staffing levels. Registered nurses had to work overtime as there were not many qualified on the ward; there was also a shortage of healthcare assistance on most of the shifts I witnessed. At times I felt like a burden to the nursing staff, there were times when I felt the need to ask a question but the nurses were so busy and snowed under with paper work and attending to the patients that they simply did not have time to give me attention as a student nurse. Whilst I was on placement on the ward there was 4 arm’s length observations on the ward, due to lack of staff the nursing team did not get a break from constant observations …show more content…
So there is a higher demand for nurses due to more demand for health care services (Hessler, 2005). Working overtime is very common in hospitals from my own experience due to shortage in staff. With not having any time to recover after shifts fatigue and stress could potentially cause human errors which is very hazardous for nurses especially with medical and decision making issues. This affects patient safety and the reputation of nurses Andrews (2005). Due to working overtime a lot of nurses become unwell therefore shortage of staff increases even further. Temporary staffing is commonly used in hospital as a quick fix, however the temporary staff may not be familiar to the patients on the ward or they may not have the same level of skills as the organization staff. Nurses should work together in order to support each other in finding approaches to resolve problems which can drive nurses away from the nursing field and discourage people from entering it (Cohen et al., …show more content…
Ideally nursing managers should try their best in order to improve the workplace environment in order to decrease stress and fatigue in order to improve nurse’s ability to provide quality care and to ensure their health and safety. By doing this I feel that job satisfaction would increase in nursing and there would be less staff members becoming ill or wanting to leave the field. However due to working full time on an elderly acute ward and on placement I know from experience this never really happens. I feel that staff members feel pressured to work over time when short staffed. For me, I used to worry about the staff on shift and how they would be struggling due to being short staffed, therefore I would go on shift on my day off and it seems this is the case with most staff members. Yes I have found out ways to improve staffing levels, but it’s nothing I didn’t know before and I don’t feel as though there is anything I can do to improve this apart from not working overtime. However obviously by working overtime there isn’t any time to recover which leads to staff members becoming
In the case of nurse staffing, the more nurses there are the better outcome of patient safety. When there enough staff to handle the number of patients, there is a better quality of care that can be provided. The nurses would be able to focus on the patients, monitor the conditions closely, performs assessments as they should, and administer medications on time. There will be a reduction in errors, patient complications, mortality, nurse fatigue and nurse burnout (Curtan, 2016). While improving patient satisfaction and nurse job satisfaction. This allows the principle of non-maleficence, do no harm, to be carried out correctly. A study mentioned in Scientific America showed that after California passed a law in 2014 to regulate hospital staffing and set a minimum of nurse to patient ratios, there was an improvement in patient care. Including lower rates of post-surgery infection, falls and other micro emergencies in hospitals (Jacobson,
Jeon Y.H. et al.(2012) told that There is an increase demand for care and help
This brings on a great deal of problems and still shows our shortage of nurses is not going to get better anytime soon. With this shortage of nurses, it brings on the issues of fatigue and injury. Fatigue and injury can make nurses more prone to making errors during the work day, which in the long run is not a good environment for patients to be in. Increasing the nurse-to-patient ratios can help with increasing a nurse’s job satisfaction. In my opinion, if nurses are happy, their patients will be happy too. With their greater job satisfaction, it brings along the increase in call bell efficiency, which then brings along greater patient satisfaction.
...hological preparation. After a nurse is done working their regular shift being forced to work overtime can out them a greater right of medical mistake in part due to fatigue and tiredness consequently putting the patient at high risk of complications.
The human brain is extraordinary organ. It stores our memories, vision, hearing, speech, and capable of executing executive higher reasoning and functions setting us apart from animals. Today we know more about the human brain because of medical advances and the development of technology. These brain disorders have been studied for years and many others would classify dementia as a mental illness because it causes cognitive impairments. The following paragraphs will discuss what dementia is, what the types of dementia are, perspectives of patients with dementia as well as the perspective of a caregiver to a dementia patient.
Last, The Magic of Chaos, that’s every as nurse. Around five am my phone rings, Good morning Ms. Bushnell, “I can’t work today”. That’s usually how my day begins eighty percent of the time. Those phone calls would not have been so bad, if I was working with a full deck of cards. My organization is not the only one with this dilemma of being short staffed, this has become the normal for healthcare. For nurses, this can have profound impact on day-to-day work causing burn out. As a leader, I had to accept the reality that being short staffed was not going to change and adapt accordingly. When leaders are innovative, empower others and promote shared decision, individuals are more likely to embrace the change. Keeping a positive attitude, recognizing others for their hard work and letting them know their valued can increase staff performance. The first thing that came to mind for me in this situation was how we can work smarter and not harder. With staff involvement, we re-evaluated our work flow and redefined some of the roles of nurses in our department for better utilization of time and nursing skills. The change was embraced and staff engagement in the new work flows have been
However, no one seems to understand the detriments that come with mandatory overtime in the health care setting. Due to a high patient loads and exhaustion from working long hours, nurses start to drain and start to become incompliant with medical procedures and looking after the residents. The American Nurses Association (ANA), in a national survey of 7,300 of its members, found, disturbingly, that 56% of nurses believe that the time they have available for care for each patient has decreased, and 75% feel that the quality of patient care at their own facility has decreased in the last two years. (Golden) The quality of a patient’s care should not suffer, because someone needs to make a little extra
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.
Poor staffing stresses every nurse and makes them despite what they once loved to do. Nurses are overworked and because of that they may not provide adequate patient care.
Gordon, S., Buchanan, J., & Bretherton, T. (2008). Safety in Numbers: Nurse-to-Patient Ratios and the Future of Health Care (pp. 1-2). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Nurses Joe and Sarah have been working in a medical surgical unit that has been experiencing a nursing shortage, which has led to an increase in the workload. Sarah has been feeling the physical effects of the stress and feels there is a lack of management support, while Joe experiences some feelings of being overwhelmed, but tries to use it as learning experiences. Joe has developed positive methods of coping, while Sarah is quickly heading towards burnout. Implications and Conclusions The information provided in the literature has great implications for practice in many units, including the writers. It is with great hopes that the research published can be presented to the committees on the unit in hopes that some of the workloads can be decreased to help with staffing and retention rates.
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
In conclusion, nurses are overworked. They are overworked due to long twelve hours plus shifts, shortages of nurses whether they call out sick or the hospital did not hire enough nurses and even stress from the job. Being overworked is not good for anyone and with nurses, it can affect them physical, mentally and emotionally. The negative effects not only affects the nurse but can also affect their
Nurses are working under in a variety of shift work systems to be able to provide continuous care for patients. However, 24 hours workplace organizations are now very common, such as in the healthcare and industrial sectors. This requires the staff to be adapted with many various forms of shift work schedules. In terms of healthcare sector, the shift work schedules are considered shift duration which highlights two main categories of shift systems, each system provides 24 hours of care. The shift work can be three eight hours shift, or two twelve hours shift. Eight hour shifts can be divided as morning/afternoon/ and evening shifts for five days in a week. On the other hand, a twelve-hour shift is widely popular and characterized by a compressed working week which is more than eight-hour duration but less than five days in a week. Applying 12- hour shifts can result in a benefit by having more days off. Moreover, in response to nursing shortage and cost effectiveness, twelve-hour shifts are widely been applied in the hospitals. However, despite of the advantages of applying twelve-hour shifts, there are many disadvantages. Long working hours have an impact on nurse’s health and wellbeing. It found that long hour shifts are associated with fatigue which can increase the risk of nursing errors and affects the quality of nursing care. Additionally, the level of job satisfaction and stress among the nurses are affected (Scott et al.,2006).
When hospitals do not have enough staff to care for patients, nurses are required to work overtime and because of that, 50% of nurses quit their job (Martin). This is not healthy for nurses and not safe for patients because if nurses are constantly working overtime, they can become tired and dissatisfied with their job. Moreover, when nurses are dissatisfied with their job because of always working overtime, it lead nurses to quit their job which can become a problem for hospitals because it is hard to keep training new nurses all the time. This can cost money and effort. In addition, it will affect patients because it nurses are tired from working overtime, quality of care for patients can suffer. According to Sung-Heui Bae, author of “Nursing Overtime: Why, How Much, and Under What Working Conditions?”, When a nurse works for over 12 hours or more than 60 hours a week, nurses are more prone to making medical errors which can compromise a patient’s safety (Bae). Like what Fackelmann says, “Overworked nurse may not get to a patient quickly enough to catch a subtle sign of a potentially deadly complication”. This can be one of the reason of 20,000 death of patients each year because of overworked nurses