Nursing Shortage Analysis

Nursing shortages are seen nationwide with a strong correlation between nurses leaving the bedside and a decrease in nurse satisfaction, which furthermore impacts patient outcomes (Cicolini, Comparcini, & Simonetti, 2014). According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, by the year 2025, there will be a shortage of over 260,000 nurses (Hunt, 2014). “A lack of job satisfaction is one of the most common reasons nurses leave their jobs and was, in many reports, negatively influenced by such factors as administration, the amount of time available for clinical duties and job security” (Hunt, 2014, p. 573). Understanding opportunities for improvement within individual facilities is essential to develop and implement a process improvement

46.8 million Americans were reported as uninsured in 2013, which equivocates to one sixth of the population. Those without insurance have revealed that they risk “more problems getting care, are diagnosed at later disease stages, and get less therapeutic care” (National Health Care Disparities Report) and those insured risk losing their insurance. Inadequately covered citizens are often working-class individuals who simply cannot receive insurance due to uncontrollable inconveniences and therefore jeopardize having medical coverage. In these instances, Americans have a chance of being diagnosed with diseases that they had no opportunity to prevent or could not diagnose them at an early stage of the illness. Patients have suffered unnecessarily due to lack of health care, and “18,000 Americans die every year because they don't have health insurance” (PNHP).

Albeit, there were times throughout Kat’s illness when she felt even her family thought she was crazy and the pain was in her head. She felt judged because she was not able to do normal things like clean house or go on family outings without doubling over in pain. Kat felt the medical establishment never fully met her needs. The doctors never ordered an ultrasound or an exploratory procedure until her fibroids filled her uterus and her stomach was physically bulging out. During her illness Kat felt inadequate as a mother and a wife because she could not carry out the household and motherly duties that she felt needed to be accomplished, as stated by Lorber and Moore (2002), the social construction of illness is shaped by our cultural and moral values, in many societies women are expected to care for the children and their spouses (pp.

Nurses fatigue is growing problem nurse face each day in the healthcare environment, and he can be caused by long hours, sleep deprivation, and possibly by accepting extra assignments can be dangerous for both nurses and patient. These inadequacies can result in major implications for the health and safety of registered nurses and can compromise patient care which can lead to fatalities. (American Nurses Association, 2014). In my experience, being fatigued from working much 12-hour shifts consecutively was very difficult as I felt extremely tired, resulting in lack of focus, missing important details during the handing over the process with impaired cognitive functioning. This I found was detrimental to the patients and myself as it impedes quality and has a deleterious effect on patient safety.

Dorothea Orem’s self-care deficit nursing theory is one such nursing theory that has been reworked to take into account the changes in our world, while still maintaining the initial framework (Taylor & Renpenning, 2011). Purpose of Self-Care Deficit Nursing Theory Dorothea Orem (as cited in Taylor & Renpenning, 2011) described her purpose in formalizing the Self-Care Deficit Nursing Theory as a way of defining the structure of nursing and explaining knowledge, rules and roles of nursing. Orem was attempting to answer the question of why, when and how a nurse is needed in the care of a patient (Smith & Parker, 2015). According to Younas (2017), self-care deficit nursing theory is also a practical effort to delineate the patient role along with that of the nurse. The purpose of this theory, being to define both nurse and patient roles and nursing as a profession, is seen as a strength of the self-care deficit nursing theory.

Ethical Issues in Nursing: Nurse-Patient Ratios Megan Harvey, Katie McKelvery, Erica Robbins & Cassandra Tingley St. Johns River State College March 2018 Ethical Issues in Nursing: Nurse-Patient Ratios Every day nurses are faced with ethical dilemmas. Challenges in these situations are becoming more and more complex due to increasing workload and sicker patients. When a nursing unit is understaffed not only are nurses more likely to become burnt out, but their patients are far less likely to receive the quality of care they deserve. The problem is that the Federal regulations require hospitals who participate in Medicare to “have ‘adequate’ numbers of licensed nurses (RN, LPN, CNA) to provide care to all patients as needed,” but the regulations

Furthermore, the lack of being employed affects a family, Britney’s mother was affected tremendously and caused her hospitalization because she couldn’t deal with the stress of her family lacking an income. While homeless shelters have long waiting list and middle-income families are losing their homes with just a few days’ notice. Britney and Johnny’s families both were doing well until the recession hit and companies began to lay people

Both terms are powerful terms and these terms explain the mental processes nurses use to make certain that they are doing their most excellent thinking and decision making for their patient’s better outcomes. Nursing practice requires both critical thinking and clinical reasoning. Critical thinking is the process of deliberate higher level thinking to define a patient’s problem, examine the evidence-based practice in caring for the patient’s, and make options in the delivery of optimal care. Critical thinking involves the demarcation of statements of fact, judgment, and opinion. The progression of critical thinking requires the nurse to think imaginatively, use reflection, and engage in logical thinking (Alfaro-LeFevre, 2013).

The nursing shortage is one major issue that was presented in chapter 60. According to Mason, researchers predicted the nursing shortage will reach between 300,000 to nearly 1 million nurses by 2030. This issue still persist in today’s workforce due to the high population of the baby boomers retiring and the sudden increase in longevity of geriatric population. As a result, this causes the demand for nursing care to exceed the supply of nurses. In addition to increased demand created by an aging U.S. population, many patients are living with chronic conditions (Mason, Leavitt, & Chaffee, 2016) which further add to the demands.

Furthermore, there is a shortage in nursing school faculty which restricts the number of students allowed to enroll in nursing programs. In a report on the 2012-2013 Enrollment and Graduations in Baccalaureate and Graduate Programs in Nursing, 79,659 qualified applicants were turned away due to insufficient number of faculty, clinical sites,classroom space, clinical preceptors and budget constraints. Another factor that impacts the nurse shortage is that a large portion of the current nursing workforce is nearing retirement age. About 55% of the RN workforce is of the age 50 or older according to a survey conducted in 2013 by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing and the Forum of State Nursing Workforce Centers. Also, it is projected that more than 1 million registered nurses will reach the age of retirement in the next 10 to 15 years according to the Health Resources and Services Administration.