Shortage of Staffing in the Nursing Profession Essay

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Shortage of staffing in the nursing profession is a crucial situation for the healthcare centers that is needed to be addressed in order to get the desired health related outcomes. The increasing trend of burnout among the nursing professionals is found to be the antecedent of poor compensation practices, poor management, workload, demotivating career paths and inappropriate workplace behavior. The concerned authorities should develop such compensatory and workplace policies that not only retain the existing nursing professionals but also attract the potential candidates for nursing in order to address the future demand and reduce the shortage of staffing.

Shortage of Staffing

Antecedents of Shortage in Staffing

Analysis of Nurses' Availability and Requirement

Suggestive Measures

Conclusion

REFERENCES

Shortage of Staffing

Staffing is reflected as the process in which the potential workforce is attracted and after the selection of the best applicants; they are acquired and then retained by means of effective staffing policies. However, the shortage of staffing indicates that the potential supply of workforce is not able to meet the existing demand of the workplace. The phenomenon with respect to the nursing professionals preludes the identical impression where the demand of nursing professionals is not able to meet the existing supply of available nurses. The shortage may prevail either at a specific healthcare center, specific regional, national or at a global extent (Duffield & O'Brien-Pallas, 2003).

The nurses are responsible to develop a systematic plan in accordance with the patients' requirements to provide support in the clinical, surgical and recovery procedures and they also should possess an adequate knowledge which increases the health results. They are respected and dignified in all the cultures with the role they play in the society and are prompted to utilize their professional practices to the fullest while providing services to their patients so that the therapeutic objectives of the workplace can be maintained and the health objectives of patients can be optimized (McHugh et al., 2011).

The shortage in the nursing staff has challenged the healthcare facilities not only to provide a better healthcare facility to patients but the expectancy of patient's improvement is also found to be decreased. The nurses who are experienced in their fields also tend to possess the related qualification which provides them with the opportunity to diversify and work in the fields that are not related to the healthcare. The increasing trend of global migration has resulted in the misbalance of the prior nurses' school enrollment trends and thus the shortage has improvised in an unexpected manner (Duffield & O'Brien-Pallas, 2003). Therefore, it has become very important to analyze the trends about the potential current and future supply of nurses so that that the suggestive measures can be formulated to meet the future demands with respect to the availability of nurses.

Antecedents of Shortage in Staffing

According to the analysis conducted by Kimball and O'Neal (2002)with respect to the shortage of staffing in the nursing professional, the potential shortage in nursing is considered to be the antecedents by several notions and out of the total population of United States, 22.7% of the total population is clustered as baby boomers who are aged above 45 years and hence, the baby boomers population exclusively requires the healthcare facilities with the passage of time. Therefore, the potential increase in the demand has resulted in the shortage of nursing staff to meet these requirements. Moreover, the requirement of the workplace practices indicates that the nursing professionals who are aged in their mid-50s are not able to work according to the working standards and the practice is not considered to be optimized. The nurses' workforce in the U.S. is found to be aged 44 on average which indicates that the existing nursing professionals will be retired in the coming decade and will leave a large gap in the supply side of the workforce. Also, the profession of nursing has been revolving around the services provided by women rather than man but still the change in norms has been occurred and with an increasing opportunity in the other occupational fields; women have become far much diversified in their fields of interests. On the other hand, the change in norms has not impacted the occupational preferences of men who are found to be deprived from the enrollment in the nursing profession.

According to Spence-Laschinger et al., (2009), the workload in the field of nursing is considered to be one of the most significant antecedent which has resulted in the reduced supply of nursing professionals.

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The nurses are often adhered with the workplace safeguard where the harassment is potentially high among all the other workplace professionals. Nurses are provided with the poor schedule of work-life balance which creates clashes with their personal lives and hence, the burnout among these professionals exist. The continuous assignment of back to back shifts has made the situation worsen for the nurses to perform their work related duties at their full potential and has caused them to be unsatisfied with the work they perform. Nurses have often reported the conflicts in the chain of command and poor management systems which makes them less motivated towards their job duties and then they consider the diversification in their field of occupation which results in the increased number of burnouts.

It has been inferred by prior studies that the professional of nursing is being dominated by the large population of women and hence, the women in this field are not provided adequate support with respect to their maternal needs. Nurses who also play their part as mothers in their personal life are not granted with the child-care support at the workplace which makes them to neglect their work schedules and these professionals often consider the termination from their workplace (McHugh et al., 2011). Moreover, the inadequate compensation in the profession of nurses also demotivates the workforce to continue their jobs and it also fails to attract the candidates to be enrolled in the nursing schools.

Analysis of Nurses' Availability and Requirement

The analysis of human resource plan conducted by Rothberg et al., (2005) indicates the effective number of nurses that is being required per patient in order to achieve the optimum reduction in the morbidity rate of patients and to provide them with the best possible healthcare facilities. The results of the study indicated that it is required that the nurses should be available to a 4:1 ratio i.e. one nurse should be assigned for the healthcare facilitation of four patients so that the cost effectiveness for the placement of nursing professionals can be achieved and the optimum level of healthcare services can be provided to the patients. It has also been observed that that the increased workload of patients on the nurses will result in adverse effects on the patient's healthcare. Hence, it has become crucial for the healthcare facilities to monitor the suggested number of patients to be assigned by the nurses so that the provision of services by means of quality from the healthcare centers can be increased.

The healthcare centers faced a fierce competition in the year 2009 due to the increasing number of population and the requirement of healthcare facilities in which the acquisition of nurses took place. The aggression hiring of nursing professionals was due to the shortage of nurses that initiated in the year 2004. It has been predicted that by the year 2020; the healthcare centers will encounter the shortage of about 400,000 to 1,000,000 nursing professionals. According to WHO (2009), there exists twenty-eight nurses per ten thousand population which indicates the crucial scarcity of nursing professionals in the world. Moreover, the trend of scarcity in nursing professional is lowest in the European countries with the availability of seventy nine nurses per ten-thousand-population. The scarcity is highest in the African Region where eleven nurses are available to facilitate the population of ten-thousand and nine nurses per thousand populations in United States. However, it was predicted that the shortage of staffing in the United States will increase by 20% by the year 2015.

Suggestive Measures

The shortage of staffing in the nursing profession is needed to be addressed in order to provide better healthcare facilities and reduce the morbidity rate among the patients. The measures to be implicated as suggested by Nevidjon and Erickson (2000) are discussed below:

1. The public perception towards the profession of nursing should be increased in order to attract the candidates in the nursing schools. The importance of nursing career should be taught in the high schools so that the students consider adopting nursing as their profession. Moreover, the students should be provided with the career development opportunities that they can adhere in the nursing profession in order to motivate them for the enrollment in such programs. The knowledge about the bachelor programs in nursing should be provided to students so that they can perceive the nursing professional as a career path that can provide growth and prospects in their future life......

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