Global Nursing Shortage: Causes, Impacts, And Solutions - An Essay.

You then need to prepare a report to the head of an organisation, e.g. a hospital, CEO, local government or relevant non-governmental organisation (NGO), with recommendations about how best to address the issue.  

You will need to clearly outline the issue, identify key factors or influences as well as impacts of the issue (on patients, nurses, hospitals and/or the community), discuss one existing approach to dealing with the issue, and suggest two (2) improvements to the approach.

Claims and suggestions in your essay should be supported by relevant evidence from the peer-reviewed academic literature (at least 15 sources). You may also, where relevant, refer to other sources such as government and NGO reports.  

Ideally, there is no doubt that the overall perspective on nurses has changed in recent times. Although the overall roles that are performed by nurses are critical in the healthcare settings, there has been a rather increasing trend of nurse’s shortage in contemporary society (Pinsonnault, 2018). Consequently, many nursing schools are beginning to close a while various hospitals do not admit more patients. In addition, it is anticipated that the overall nurse shortages are as a result of poor payments, advancement in technology, as well as continuously being sued by patients. Today, nurses are often operating in a “sue-happy” society, thus causing many nurses to be fired or even resign as a result of outrageous rates of liabilities in hospitals. Notably, the rampant shortages of nurses are resulting nurses to treat more patients at a go, thus increasing their overall chances of making errors during their operation.

With the increasing cases of liability, nurses are beginning to shift professionals thus causing more shortages in recent times. Another issue that may be leading to the decline in the numbers of nurses in the healthcare sectors is the fact that nurses have never been compensated for their hard work According to existing researches, the aspect of nurse’s shortage is likely to continue due to the fact that students are considering majoring in other professional fields (Crevacore, Duffield, & Twigg, 2018).  The health care system is persistently facing a momentum of shortages particularly that of registered nurses. While this is an old crisis, it continues to turn out to be a great threat to the overall nursing career (Wang, Whitehead, & Bayes, 2017). Nonetheless, there are varieties of studies that have been done too with an aim of finding out the reasons behind the increasing shortages in nursing practices considering that it has become a global problem. The purposes of this paper are to highlight as well as analyze the global nurses’ shortage while discussing the causes and solutions to this problem. Additionally, the paper will set out recommendations to deal with the issue surrounding the shortage of nurses across the globe.

In essence, the aspect of nursing shortage has no doubt attracted various discussions in contemporary society. Notably, the shortage of nurse’s ranges from the limited capacity of accepting new recruitment to the retention factors (Aggar, Gordon, Thomas, Wadsworth, & Bloomfield, 2018). Essentially, recruitment factors include students, the overall cost for the academic fees as well as the low salary when these students get to graduate. In this light, the overall increasing nursing shortage has turned out to be a global issue in contemporary society. In fact, the rate of turnover as well as migration by the means of health care system professionals is hugely increasing thus causing a shortage in some of the countries across the globe or rather hospitals (Xerri & Reid, 2018). The overall shortages of nurses are considered vital has it tends to affect the health status of patients as well as the quality of health services.

Key Factors or Influences to Shortages of Nurses

While the aspect of nursing shortage remains a debated topic, it has resulted in various problems in the health care system and the overall societal settings. Apart from the overall financial loss that is likely to be experienced in times of nursing shortage; limited nurses have negatively impacted the quality of health care that is received in hospitals (Bodak, Harrison, Lindsay, & Holmes, 2018). As a result, this has become a huge problem for both the patients as well as the entire hospital community. Various researches have suggested that there is a rather direct correlation between the escalating patient’s mortality rate as well as the shortage of nurses in the healthcare systems. As a result, hospitals that have few nurses have been tipped to have witnessed an increased mortality rate in recent times. This shows that the shortage of nurses no doubt has a huge impact on the overall mortality rate in the societal settings, particularly in recent times.

Furthermore, the reduced number of nurses in the healthcare system has been tipped to have caused overcrowding of the hospital’s emergency rooms. In recent times, at least ninety percent of the entire emergency rooms have been thought to have reported the problems of overcrowding which if not attended to can result to the overall increase in the session or rather the duration of hospitalization, permanent disability as well as the performance of other additional procedures (Gilmour, Huntington, Slark, & Turner, 2017). In this light, the aspect of overcrowding often increases the risk of medical practitioners committing more errors. Moreover, the lack of nurse has resulted in cases where patients have to wait for many hours to get access to the first consultation particularly with the doctors in the emergency chambers. In fact, there have been reported cases where patients had to wait for more than three hours before they could get a consultation with the nurses.

Primarily, the aspect of nursing shortage has also led to various problems such as the overall increase in the workload in the health care system, thus leading to a predictable increase in the patient’s medication errors. Consequently, several of the nurses who are employed in health care systems have virtually admitted having initially committed medication errors (Longmore, 2017). Notably, these errors might vary from giving a wrong medicine to infusing medicine at a wrong rate or even mixing up medicines between various existing patients in a particular hospital. All these errors lead to fatal consequences on the patients. What even worries is the inadequate education as well as training that most nurses get in medical schools and has been tipped to be the main reasons for the increased medication errors while fatigue is as well another reason for such problem. This aspect is, therefore, an indicator of a more serious problem of inadequate nursing and the overall healthcare infrastructure in recent times (Sutcliffe & Dhakal, 2018). While there are various interventions that have been set aside to curb the aspect of the nursing shortage in the healthcare facilities, this issue remains to pose a great danger among the patients across the globe.

While the issue regarding the shortage of nursing continues to become more serious in contemporary society, there are various factors or rather influencers that are leading to these problems across various healthcare systems. Various expansions have been done in the medical discourses to reduce the aspect of the nursing shortage (Thomas & Courtney, 2018). However, all this expansion and legislation has coincided with the increased nursing shortage across the globe. The following are the main factors that have hugely influenced the ever-increasing issue of the nursing shortage in the medical fields:

Although the issue regarding nursing shortage has been a known fact for the last couple of decade now, nursing faculty of higher education has no doubt been structurally unprepared in meeting the huge demand of nurses even after the passage of various acts in Australia (Mar?, Bartosiewicz, Burzy?ska, Chmiel, & Januszewicz, 2018). Lack of qualified professors to teach nurses is a major element that has contributed to this shortage. Additionally, lack or limited facilities, equipment as well as funding to hire more faculty members in nursing schools have become a contributing factor to the shortage of nurses. Due to the overall decline in enrollment at the state universities and community colleges, various institutions have often found themselves strapped financially thus decline in the state contribution in Australia.

Fluctuation enrollment of the nursing students has no doubt become a contributing factor to the overall increase in the shortage of nurses in the healthcare systems. Notably, this has been caused by the overall rise in managed care leading to a number of layoffs thus making nursing a less viable option for the majority of the students who might be seeking a professional employment immediately after graduation (Taylor, Angel, Nyanga, & Dickson, 2017).

Primarily, nurses have undergone a lot of workload in the healthcare systems without a proper recognition for the last couple of decades now.  Consequently, this has led to many potential nurses shying away from the nursing profession and instead opting to take on other professionals (Wang, Whitehead, & Bayes, 2017). While there have been a lot of interventions across the healthcare system to motivate nurses, most of them have in most cases experienced underpayment thus leading to job dissatisfaction particularly in recent times. Notably, this has led to a declining interest in the nursing profession by various students. As a result, it has contributed to the current nesting shortages in society.  

An Approach to Curb Nursing Shortages

In essence, there are various approaches that can be used to fix the problem of nurse shortages across the globe, particularly in Australia. Notably, some of the existing approaches are making sure that there are enough facilities in the nursing discourses as well as ensuring that they receive fair remuneration to reward their hard work. None the less, the main strategy that has been proven to work on the line of reducing nursing shortage is recruitment and retention policy (Wang, Whitehead, & Bayes, 2017). In this light, the healthcare system employs competent nurses on a regular basis while retaining the already existing ones by the provision of fair working policies. According to researches, many people especially students tend to shy off from pursuing a nursing career on the basis of a poor payment or remuneration. As a result provision of a fair working policy will no doubt attract more students to pursue the same while still retaining those that are already working in the healthcare system.

While there are various strategies that have been tipped to curb the aspect of the nursing shortage, career shadowing is no doubt an ideal technique that the Australian government has for a long time now set aside to help students pursue nursing through interaction with the already existing nurse's professionals (Squires, Jylhä, Jun, Ensio, & Kinnunen, 2017). Engaging various students in career shadowing particular in nursing gives them a chance to track what exactly is working as a nurse. Through career shadowing, more students can be encouraged to pursue nursing as a profession thus helping solve the aspect of nursing shortages.

In essence, facilitating clinical placement is no doubt an ideal strategy for those countries that face rather severe nursing shortages. In responses to the increasing nursing shortages across the globe, various healthcare institutions require nursing education partnership that is aimed at assisting in the implementation of an online placement program specifically for nurses. Such a strategy is as well likely to establish a rather appropriate training of nurses thus capacitating them in handling advances in advances in technology within the nursing discourses (Wang, 2017). In essence, clinical placement is appropriate in exposing future nurses as well as building their overall experiences while helping them to overcome various challenges that they are likely to face in their line of duty.

Conclusion

Ideally, the nursing shortage is no doubt an existing problem and need to be solved. Consequently, the aspect of nursing shortages has posed a great challenge to the overall efficiency in the healthcare provision and thus has affected the health care system in a negative way. Notably, a wide shortage of nurses has loomed a threat in the provision of a rather effective health care in the global population in recent times. The question posed for this report is whether there is a shortage of nurses in the healthcare system or surplus. This research report chose to focus on the shortages of nurses in contemporary society. The research report as well identified the problems caused by the shortage of nurses, and the people this shortage tend to affect. Additionally, the report focused on the contributing factors of nursing shortage which include limited resources in nursing, job dissatisfaction, and fluctuating enrollment. To sole the aspect of the nursing shortage, the report identified recruitment and retention approach as a relevant method for the same. Moreover, the report recommended two strategies to help facilitate the chosen approach. The main strategies that were chosen include facilitating clinical placement and career shadowing in the nursing profession.

References

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Pinsonnault, E. (2018). Étude phénoménologique sur l'expérience de la violence horizontale chez les nouvelles infirmières diplômées (Doctoral dissertation, Université du Québec en Outaouais).

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