The Addressing Nursing Shortage Essay Example

affordable healthcare. An overload and fatigue to the healthcare professionals are already starting to be experienced in hospitals. The nurse-patient ratios are worsening on the daily basis as more patients stream into the hospitals to other community healthcare institutions to seek healthcare services. These include the existing and newly insured but nurses and other health professionals are getting pushed beyond their abilities to offer quality healthcare that clients deserve (Juraschek et at., 2012).

Nurses and other professionals in the healthcare industry undergo difficulties and stress due to heavy workloads. Eventually, a fatigued health professional may not be able to offer quality service, and this goes against the spirit of affordable healthcare Act. Several factors continue to contribute to the shortage of nursing professional key among them a low level of nursing program enrollments. The nursing school enrollment rates do not match the future demand for the professionals (Buerhaus, Auerbach&Staiger, 2009). For instance, between 2012 and 2013 more than seventy-nine thousand qualified students to study nursing were turned back due to lack of resource capacities such as classrooms, insufficient faculties, and budget constraints. In a country that is already facing a nursing shortage crisis, this points out some serious shortfalls that will continue to cripple the quality of healthcare delivery in future.

The distribution shortfall also affects the delivery of healthcare services. Despite the enactment, HPEAA to help improve the distribution of nurse’s country wide statistics still indicate that there is a great nursing distribution shortfall. Access to equal and quality healthcare services between urban and rural areas has continued to remain wide. The statistics also indicate that only eighteen percent of registered nurses operate in rural settings

despite a quarter of entire U.S population residing in same rural locations. The socio-economic status of people living in remote rural areas is low and such people are expected to participate in government assisted healthcare insurance programs. This makes the rural people experience delays in access to health service. The dangers to these increasing shortages are that they are likely to result in higher mortality and morbidity levels. There are legal reforms that need to be addressed to help unlock the challenges that hinder nursing profession from attracting interests from various students. This would require a paradigm shift in recruitment procedures of nurses, the friendly nursing profession regulatory framework as well as payment reform in both private and public sectors.

This is the most important time to revisit the existing laws so that the Congress can pass a legal framework that will allow for a continuous improvement in the admission of nursing and physician and doctors courses. There is the need to set up a special budget that offers scholarships through fully funded nursing and medicine funded degree programs to help offer incentives to the course. The issue of the nursing shortage is real in communities where nurses serve. There are programs and legal provisions that have been enacted in the past to address the shortage issues in rural areas and disproportionate distribution, but they seem to be ineffective in addressing the challenge. Affordable care act puts more emphasis and focuses on patient-centered treatment methods, and this makes a nursing profession and primary caregivers be of utmost importance to the implementation of the policy. This problem will also be compounded by looming crisis after more existing

nurses are expected to retire. The national statistics project a shortage of more one million registered nurses by 2020 (Buerhaus, Staiger&Auerbach, 2009).

The shortage of nurses affects the quality of care provided to the patients adversely. When the number of qualified nurses cannot meet the demand of the patient, the quality of care is compromised (Huston, 2014). This means that one nurse has to attend to many patients. Nurses do not have enough time with their patients to provide the required treatment. Some of the individuals may need more attention than others, and if there is a shortage of the staff, it’s hard for the available nurses to spend a lot of time providing care to one patient since others are in need of care. Other patients may be forced to seek the treatment elsewhere if the healthcare staff is not enough to meet the demand. If some of the patients require urgent treatment, they are likely to suffer. Even if they are given first aid sometimes, it may not be of much help since they may require enough adequate care.

Due to the shortage of the staff, nurses are overworked such that they hardly have time to have a rest and relax. Besides, as a result of heavy workload, nurses’ stress and burnout are common in healthcare settings. Having time to rest is important as it improves the health of the healthcare personnel and this has an effect of improving care delivery to the patients. However, when nurses suffer from stressful situations and burn out, their health is affected negatively such that they are not able to provide care the patients. Moreover, stress and burn out

deteriorates their health and they also seek medical treatment. Nurses who become much stretched are prone to making mistakes when attending to the patients, and this has a significant outcome on the health of the patient (Huston, 2014).

Lack of adequate experienced nurses affects the professional development, especially of the new nurses. There is a vicious cycle that has been noted whereby with working conditions that is inflexible and too much work. Consequently, most the experienced nurses opt to leave this profession. Those who are left find themselves with heavy workloads such that they lack time to work with the newly recruited nurses. The inexperienced nurses lack the role models to guide them to gain the relevant experience to provide quality services to the patients (Buerhaus, Auerbach & Staiger, 2009). The inexperienced nurses feel frustrated due to the lack of support to enable them to develop and hence leave the workforce, and this forces the remaining nurses to work extra hard. Due to the workloads, most of the nurses lack time for professional development by furthering their studies. They feel dissatisfied with the profession and hence opt to leave, and this creates a vicious cycle of the nurse shortage in the healthcare, and this negatively affects the quality of care provided to the patient.

The legal reforms ought to address the staffing needs of the nurses. The bill ought to propose for the reduction of nurse-patient ratio to avoid giving health care workers too much to take care of many patients. The bill should provide that the staffing planning to set the maximum number of the patients that one nurse can attend to depending on the situation.

When the patient-nurse ratio is maintained appropriately, healthcare workers would have enough time with their patients, and this will help to improve the quality of care (Black& Chitty, 2014).

As many people continue to fall sick, the number of patients seeking health care is ever increasing. This makes increases the number of hours that nurses work. The bill ought to propose the staffing planning to take into considerations the number of hours that each healthcare performs his or her duties. Mandatory overtime causes the staffs to suffer from the stress and burn out. To avoid this scenario, nurses ought to work in shifts to enable them have a rest and be able to attend to the patients without compromising the quality of care. When the nurses are stressed, they also need attention since their well-being is affected negatively(Black & Chitty, 2014). Thus, the bill should recommend that staffing planning should ensure that nurses do not work for long hours to remain healthy.

The bill should propose for the increase in the nursing colleges to educate more students to join the nursing field. When many health workers are educated, they would be able to reduce the patient-nurse ratio. They will also reduce the amount of task assigned to one individual and hence lead to an increase in the number of patients that receive care every day, and this would have a positive outcome on both patients and the healthcare workers.

Conclusion

A crisis is looming in the healthcare sector based on the increasing shortage of nurses and healthcare professionals in the health sector. Legal reforms are required to establish mechanisms that will create incentives to allow for more nurses and

healthcare professionals to register the courses and help to bridge the projected gap in future.

References

1. Black, B. P., & Chitty, K. K. (2014). Professional nursing: Concepts & challenges. St. Louis, Mo: Elsevier.
2. Buerhaus, P. I., Auerbach, D. I., &Staiger, D. O. (2009). The recent surge in nurse employment: Causes and implications. Health Affairs, 28(4), w657-w668.
3. Buerhaus, P. I., Staiger, D., &Auerbach, D. I. (2009). The future of the nursing workforce in the United States: Data, trends and implications. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
4. Huston, C. J. (2014). Professional issues in nursing: Challenges & opportunities.Baltimore, MD ; Philadelphia, PA : Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
5. Juraschek, S. P., Zhang, X., Ranganathan, V., & Lin, V. W. (2012). United States registered nurse workforce report card and shortage forecast. American Journal of Medical Quality, 27(3), 241-249.