The Nursing Workforce Shortage: A Case Study

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Recommended: Impact of the aging population on health care

Impact of the trends on the overall quality care in the state of Pennsylvania One of the negative trends heighted by HAP (2014) was that the number of licensed general acute care hospitals has declined by 13 percent since 2003. Unfortunately, this trend can increase the likelihood of adverse patient outcomes as there will be a lot of pressure on the hospitals. The number of acuity patients would outweigh the number of available hospitals needed to treat patients. Consequently, there would be poor patient outcomes. Keenan and Kennedy (2003) in the research, The Nursing Workforce Shortage: Causes, Consequences, Proposed Solutions, argued that acuity patients who in the past would have continued the early stages of their recovery in the hospital will now be discharged to skilled nursing facilities or to their homes as a result of the decline in acute care hospitals. …show more content…

Thus, there will be a gap between the number of available health care workforce and the needs of today’s patients for care. According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (2015), “hospitals with low staffing levels tend to have higher rates of poor patient outcomes like affecting labor and delivery and general medical surgical units as well as intensive care units and operating rooms. More so, HAP highlighted another trend of uncompensated care in Pennsylvania hospitals which ultimately results in a decrease in health care services and access as they struggle financially in the hospital operations. This should not be overlooked as it has magnitude of repercussions in the health system. Actions must be taken to tackle this concern in order not to shift the primary focus of health care system of providing health care needs to patients to uncompensated care

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