Nursing Shortage and How It Affects Patient Safety

Nursing Shortage and How It Affects Patient Safety
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Nursing Shortage and How It Affects Patient Safety
Introduction
The shortage of nurses in healthcare facilities presented as the nurse-patient ratio is primary among the challenges facing healthcare presently. The amount of work that nurses have to endure directly affects the quality of care and patient safety by extension. A high nurse-patient ratio has been linked to adverse outcomes, including burnout among nurses, increased stress among nurses, decline in the possibility of survival among patients in intensive care, and increased patient mortality. Conversely, there is published evidence indicating that low nurse-patient ratios lead to better patient outcomes. Hence, the PICOT statement for this presentation asks: among nurses with chronic burnout, what would enhance nurse retention strategies be compared to increasing nurse enrollment to address the nursing shortage challenges affecting the US healthcare facilities in the next ten years?
Problem Statement
There is an increasing challenge of nursing shortage in most healthcare facilities. In the US, registered nurses are the largest group of healthcare professionals. This number stems from the multiple roles, including caring for the patients, developing ideal clinical settings, and disseminating information that nurses must execute to ensure proper operations in healthcare settings. Despite the high number of nurses employed presently, the NSI report indicates that the vacancy for registered nurses continues to rise and stands at 7.2% presently (Tang et al., 2018). There is a possibility that the US will find it challenging to match the demand for registered nurses in the future. That is because the healthcare setting is facing a new strain of challenges. For instance, there is an increase in the aging population numbers. Bearing that the aging population needs more attention from healthcare professionals considering their unique health challenges, the nation will struggle to match the demands. Soon, even more, nurses will be needed to care for and educate patients suffering from chronic conditions. It is also worth remarking that a complete implementation of a healthcare policy such as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) should steer more challenges to healthcare facilities. ACA has opened avenues for more people to access health insurance and stay eligible for quality healthcare services (Tang et al., 2018), and as such changes occur, nurse shortages increase. Unfortunately, not many efforts have been put to address the shortages, which has led to the emergence of the recoil effects. Part of the challenge stems from the understanding that healthcare facilities are not ready to approach the issue with the vigor that it demands. As a result, stakeholders in healthcare must endure the impacts such as poor staffing, burnout among nurses, increased stress among nurses, a decline in the possibility of survival among patients in intensive care, and increased patient mortality. Therefore, proactive measures must be taken to deal with nursing shortages.
Organizational Culture and Readiness
Readiness for a change from an organizational perspective stems from multiple facto...