Essay Example - Analysis of Nursing Shortages

Nurses are a crucial aspect of the professional 'front line' in the majority of healthcare systems and institutions as they contribute to the achievement of development goals as well as delivering effective and safe healthcare to the patients. According to Buchan and Aiken (2010), the shortage of qualified nurses, such as nurses, can be emphasized as one of the most significant obstacles to attaining effective healthcare systems. However, in our organization, an acute shortage of nurses has been identified as one of the healthcare stressors. This stressor is severe as there is a significant impact on the organization regarding the care delivery and performance of nurses in the hospital.

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Impact on the Organization

The nursing shortage has a severe impact on the quality of care delivered to patients. A low number of nurses translates to inadequate attention given to patients since the nurses are necessitated to check on many patients at a given shift. Additionally, there is increased documentation of errors that jeopardize patient safety and would have been overlooked easily if the nurses had spent more time with the patient. Therefore, the nurses were not able to detect early signs of deterioration of the patient's health.

Nurse shortage in the organization is critical as it affects the performance of the nurses. An inadequate number of nurses in the hospital results in increased nursing shifts, which further translates to fatigue and burnout. As a result, the performance of the nurses is reduced, which also contributes to further deterioration of the hospital's performance. This issue further contributes to absenteeism as well as nurse turnover since the nurses feel that they do not get sufficient time to rest before they can begin their shifts.

Summary of Articles

Article 1:

The journal by Buchan and Aiken (2010) aims to explain the extent of the challenges created by the shortage of nurses while at the same time providing a policy agenda that identifies possible solutions to these challenges. The article is essential as it highlights the impact of nursing shortages on health service delivery as well as in general clinical practice. The paper indicates that the nursing shortage may not necessarily mean that there is an inadequate number of nurses with adequate qualifications. The article further points that nursing shortage may be a result of a lack of nurses who are willing to work in the present conditions and is prevalent, especially in the African and Asian parts of the world. The authors also note that the most significant cause of the nursing shortage is inadequate planning and allocation mechanisms. Other factors include poor recruitment, poor incentive structure, as well as the ineffective use of nursing skills using utilization and skill mix of nurses that are available in the organization.

Article 2

The journal by Kieft et al. (2014) attempts to explain the impact of the work and work environment of Dutch nurses on the experiences of patients. The article articulates that nurses are expected to identify and utilize the areas of their work that are of influence since they spend more time with patients as compared to other clinicians. They are at a higher position of providing positive patient experiences. Additionally, the paper indicates that factors such as adequate staffing, clinically competent nursing staff, autonomous nursing practices, managerial support, as well as developing a patient-centered culture greatly help to improve patient experiences. Moreover, the authors explained that nurses often feel the pressure to increase productivity as well as report a higher administrative workload. These factors, combined with inadequate staffing, fatigue, and burnout, consequently reduce the quality of care service delivered to patients, which in turn reduces positive patient experience.

Strategies to Address Nursing Shortages

The most effective solution to the issue of nursing shortage would entail the recruitment of new nursing staff as well as the improvement of incentive strategies that are allocated for the nursing staff. One of these strategies would include the promotion of qualified nurses to fill the supervisory position vacancies and offering overtime payments as well as sufficient days off to the nursing staff. However, this strategy would be time-consuming as the board would need to review the current incentive strategy as well as plan and successfully execute a recruitment plan. Nevertheless, the hospital would enjoy increased benefits such as enough time off for resting as well as reduced workload since there would be many nurses to divide the workload. Additionally, the hospital would benefit from improved performance among the nurses due to incentives that motivate them to ensure patient satisfaction through delivering quality care services.

The hospital can also consider partnering with a nursing school and help by providing a hands-on experience for the students as a mode of enticing them to join the organization. This method will be beneficial to the students, the nurses, as well as the organization at large. The students will get hands-on training that will help them to gain more experience and even employment according to their performance. The nurses will be able to get additional support from the students concerning duties such as administrative work. The hospital will benefit from the constant availability of nurses as well as saving resources that would have been used to train new nurses after recruitment. However, the disadvantage with this strategy is that the student may decide to switch careers after receiving training, thus resulting in wasted time. For example, the student may undergo the necessary training with the hospital and then change their minds when presented with the offer to work with the hospital as part of the nursing staff.

References

Buchan, J., & Aiken, L. (2010). Solving nursing shortages: A common priority. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 17(24), 3262-3268. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2702.2008.02636.x

Kieft, R. A., De Brouwer, B. B., Francke, A. L., & Delnoij, D. M. (2014). undefined. BMC Health Services Research, 14(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-14-249