Causes Of Nursing Shortage

The shortage of nurses has been a prevalent factor around the world for decades. Position vacancies and turnover have led to recent restructuring intended to meet the anticipated demands of the aging baby boomer generation. This paper addresses the causes, concerns, and solutions with nursing shortages and how patient safety, job satisfaction, retention, and workload can improve if the necessary steps are taken.

Causes

The nursing shortage can be directly related to how the public views nurses. Traditionally, nursing has been a feminine role and, thus, receives decreased interest from the male population (Zamanzadeh, 2013). Registered nurses (RN’s) are defined as only giving medications, changing linen, and helping with personal care. For

There is a suggestion that there be a ratio system in place which, depending on acuity of the patients, may or may not be beneficial to patient safety (Tallo, 2014). The pervasive thought is that at no time should there be more than eight patients to one nurse (Weeks, 2013). Since there is not a way to produce more nurses and professors any faster than they are right now, there should be methods to provide support for staff and proper care to patients. Magnet hospitals are able to accomplish this better than other hospitals, which is why they are recognized based on exceptional continued nursing care (McHugh et al.,

There is also Releasing Time to Care, which solicits ideas from staff about how to organize the unit to reduce time away from the patients (SUN, 2012). When looking into retention, decreased burnout, increased patient safety, and improved satisfaction on the job, they can all be attained by the use of Spirit at Work (SAW) (Wager & Gregory, 2014). Kinjerski and Skrypnek state that SAW is composed of “four separate concepts of engaging work, sense of community, spiritual connection and mystical experience” (as cited in Wagner & Gregory, 2014, p. 1). The intention is to have the staff excited about work and more mindful with their practice.

The National Expert Commission has challenged the health care system to become one of the top five countries by 2017 (CNA, 2012). The top three health care systems in 2013 were the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and Sweden (“Universal health,” 2014). Since Canada’s ranking in 2013 was 10th with a universal health care system similar to the top three, it is imperative to be accomplished soon (“Universal health,” 2014). This is close to being embarrassing as the privatized United States health care system was 11th (“Universal health,”