Nursing staffing shortage essay
Post a description of the national healthcare issue/stressor you selected for analysis, and explain how the healthcare issue/stressor may impact your work setting. Then, describe how your health system work setting has responded to the healthcare issue/stressor, including a description of what changes may have been implemented. Be specific and provide examples.
An ongoing national healthcare issue is the nursing staffing shortage. This has been a known and growing healthcare issue that has drastically worsened with the COVID-19 pandemic. The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic brought increased attention to the long-standing staffing issues, which affect the quality and safety of patient care. These issues have been ongoing for decades and can result in many adverse outcomes. In March 2022, 28% of nursing facilities reported at a staffing shortage. (Ochieng, et. al., 2022). Nursing staffing shortage essay Fewer nurses means that more patients are assigned to each nurse, which can lead to patient safety issues. The pandemic placed a larger strain on healthcare, but it did not create the nursing shortage issue. (Zhavoronkova, 2022).
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This healthcare issue continues to impact my work setting in multiple ways. I currently work in outpatient thoracic cancer research. Due to staffing shortages, patients are experiencing delays in being started on research studies. These delays are in regards to not having the appropriate staff to complete necessary documents and scheduling to begin treatment. With these delays, this fragile oncology patient population can face adverse outcomes such as cancer growth, complications, and mortality while waiting for potential life-saving treatments. The infusion center that administers chemotherapy also continues to face staffing shortages, which means that they are sending all patients with urgent needs to the emergency room and do not have enough nursing time slots to schedule chemotherapy infusions without delays.
My workplace has responded to critical staffing shortages by offering sign-on bonuses to new staff members and referral bonuses to current staff members. My facility has also been asking current staff members if they know of anybody who may be interested in a job, which can streamline the hiring process. The charge nurse in the infusion center has been taking a full patient assignment. Nursing staffing shortage essay This allows more patients to be scheduled and treated, but arises safety concerns as this ties up resources and takes focus away from training new staff, creating daily nursing schedules, and administrative duties. The facility has also allowed overtime to decrease patient acuity and allow for more infusions.
References
Ochieng, N., Chidambaram, P., Musumeci, M. (2022). Nursing Facility Staffing Shortages During the COVID-19 Pandemic. KFF. Retrieved November 29, 2022, from
Zhavoronkova, M., Custer, B., Neal, A. (2022). How to Ease the Nursing Shortage in America. Center for American Progress. Retrieved November 29, 2022, from
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/how-to-ease-the-nursing-shortage-in-america/
Nursing staffing shortage essay response
Respond to at least two of your colleagues on two different days who chose a different national healthcare issue/stressor than you selected. Explain how their chosen national healthcare issue/stressor may also impact your work setting and what (if anything) is being done to address the national healthcare issue/stressor.
Response
Heather, great post this week! I agree that staffing shortages are probably the most significant issue facing healthcare today. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the Department of Health and Human Services reported that approximately twenty-four percent of hospitals in the U.S. were experiencing some type of staffing shortage (Bourgault, 2022). As you stated, fewer staff means that patient loads rise to the point of being unsafe. In your field of thoracic cancer research, it sounds as though staffing shortages can mean that patient treatment gets delayed, and as we know, when it comes to cancer, time is of the essence.
It sounds as though your organization has at least taken the proper steps to try and alleviate the shortage. Incentives such as sign on bonuses and referral bonuses have helped companies recruit new staff, although the market is more competitive than ever Nursing staffing shortage essay. Interestingly, the unprecedented nursing shortage has likely been partially affected by nurses such as ourselves furthering our careers. Between 2010 and 2017, for example, nurses obtaining graduate degrees such as their Nurse Practitioner’s license were responsible for the loss of approximately 80,000 RNs from the workforce (Buerhaus, 2022). Unfortunately, as you and I and the rest of our class continue our education, we will contribute to the nursing shortage when we eventually leave our positions. But at least we can serve our communities in other ways. Great job!
References
Bourgault, A. M. (2022). The Nursing Shortage and Work Expectations Are in Critical
Condition: Is Anyone Listening? Critical Care Nurse, 42(2), 8–11.
https://doi.org/10.4037/ccn2022909Links to an external site.
Buerhaus, P. I. (2021). Current Nursing Shortages Could Have Long-Lasting Consequences:
Time to Change Our Present Course. Nursing Economic$, 39(5), 247–250.
Nursing staffing shortage essay sample post 2
One of the national healthcare issues we are facing is the national nursing shortage. Although there are many schools and programs everywhere teaching nursing students, we often hear of a nursing shortage in many places, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. Even at my workplaces, they recently hired a group of new nurses because they had been chronically short-staffed for quite a while. Many reasons for the national nursing shortage include that baby boom nurses began retiring in 2010’s, which resulted in a loss of 60,000 nurses each year, and the interest in becoming advanced practice nursing, nurse practitioners (NP’s), has grown quickly in the past few years. Wyngeeren and Stuart pointed out that the reasons for newly graduated nurses’ turnover are stressful work environments and lack of support (n.d.).
In this case, because we cannot stop people from retiring, advancing their careers, or changing their career goals, retaining newly graduated nurses is essential for organizations to save money and have quality and safety of patient care. “Organizations must be cognizant of the transition required of new graduate nurses merging into professional practice and implement strategies to support their transition, which can result in increased retention rates” (Buerhaus, 2021). One way to help new graduate nurses with transitioning into professional practice is to provide orientation programs, “such as a preceptor model, and found this to have a positive impact on new graduate nurse retention” (Wyngeeren & Stuart, n.d.).
However, I think most of the time, it is solely focused on new graduate nurses. At the facility I used to work, because they wanted to retain new graduate nurses, they advertised high starting pay, gave comparably easy patients to them, and provided a longer orientation program, which caused the senior nurses to complain that they did not feel like being cared as much as new graduate nurses. They got paid not as much as they deserved with their years of experience and had to take care of patients who were more acute and harder to deal with. We need experienced nurses to train and support new nurses, so supporting them is also important. “Some strategies to support preceptors include strong, evidence-based preceptor development courses; leadership support; collaborative partnerships; and continuing education with a career path” (Bodine, 2022).
Bodine, J. (2022). Supporting Preceptors Through the Nursing Shortage. Journal for Nurses in Professional Development, 38 (5), 316-318. doi: 10.1097/NND.0000000000000928.
Buerhaus, P. I. (2021). Current Nursing Shortages Could Have Long-Lasting Consequences: Time to Change Our Present Course. Nursing Economic$, 39(5), 247–250.
Wyngeeren, K. & Stuart T. (n.d.). Increasing new graduate nurse retention from a student nurse perspective. Journal of Nursing. https://rn-journal.com/journal-of-nursing/increasing-new-graduate-nurse-retention-from-a-student-nurse-perspective Nursing staffing shortage essay