Nursing Shortage Essay

The impact of nursing of nursing shortage on the provision of quality healthcare and patient safety was discussed in this paper. The negative impact of nursing shortage on the quality of care and patient safety is that when nurses are few, patient safety is threatened and health care quality is diminished. This can incur high cost to hospitals. Nurses who have heavy workload are more likely to experience burnout and intend to leave their job within the next year causing high turnover rate. When nurses leave their job, an additional cost is needed to hire and train new nurses and the nurse shortage can increase overtime pay and heavy workload to those that are currently employed. Increasing job satisfaction within the hospital units, improving method used to manage nurses after they are hired, increasing nursing candidate, making jobs more attractive to nursing candidate, and increasing nursing faculty and members are some the solution. The
With this in mind, this paper will include causes of nursing shortage, solution to the causes, and what it cost to make a change. The principal factors contributing to nursing shortage are high turnover rate, burnt out nurses, heavy workload, an aging nursing workforce, a diminishing pipeline of new student in nursing, steep population growth resulting in a growing need for health care services, nurse short-staffing, poor work conditions, inflexible schedule, lack of adequate administrative support, and stress. According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) 2010-2011 reports 67, 563 qualified applicants were turned away from baccalaureate and graduate nursing programs due to lack of available faculty and resources (AACN, 2011). In addition to factors affecting the U.S nursing shortage is the nursing schools’ inability to increase enrollment due to scarcity of nursing school faculty