The nation’s healthcare system faces many challenges. But one particular challenge has the potential to cripple the healthcare system permanently. This challenge is the worsening nursing shortage. As the baby boomers grow older, the need for more health care services increase. Over the past several years there have been fewer people going into nursing and more hospitals and other healthcare facilities needing nurses. It is estimated that by the year 2025 the shortage of registered nurses could reach as high as 500,000. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, nursing has become the nation’s top profession in terms of projected job growth. But why does this current nursing shortage exist?
A Realistic View of the Nation’s Nursing Shortage
There are several events that have come together to produce the nursing shortage. First of all, enrollment in schools of nursing have steadily declined over the past ten years. This, in addition to an aging population that demands more nursing care, makes for a serious situation. One may think the solution is to just get more people interested in the profession of nursing. But even if there was a huge influx of people wanting to go into the nursing field, there are not enough nurse educators to teach them. Many schools of nursing have a waiting list of several years.
The factors affecting the nursing shortage also include the number of nurses leaving the nursing profession. Insufficient staffing and high stress situations are driving nurses out of the profession in large numbers. As the nurse to patient ratio climbs, the more dangerous it becomes for the patient and the nurse. Higher nurse patient ratios leave the patient at extreme risk for a poor outcome and leaves a nurse open to lawsuit. When a hospital is being sued, the first person the hospital will bring into the lawsuit is the nurse. A nurse must document every day, on every patient, as if she is going to court. This need for extensive documentation takes more time away from the patient.
There is a major lack of understanding from healthcare administrative personnel concerning the role that a nurse plays in a clinical setting. Administrative personnel will focus on the numbers that the financial officer produces. This will most likely be in the form of a productivity chart that says, to make a profit you need x number of nurses for x number of patients. This type of profit centered thinking fails to take into consideration the acuity of the patient load that the nurse is handling. One nurse trying to care for seven or eight critically ill patients is not only extremely stressful for the nurse, but it is also setting the patients up for very poor outcomes. In addition to the increased load of critically ill patients, the nurse is also required to incorporate non-nursing duties into their day. Depending on the facility, these duties could include lab draws, delivering food trays, taking off their own orders, answering the phones that never stop ringing, being a liaison between two doctors who think they are “too busy” to talk to each other, etc.
When the healthcare setting needs to cut costs to turn a profit, one of the first places they cut is the nursing staff. Nurses are considered a large “expense” and are considered expendable. Healthcare settings are a major contributor to the nursing shortage because they do not value the most important resource they have. The LPN role in the nursing shortage is also a factor here. Ultimately, no one wants to enter a profession where they are not valued and the compensation does begin to reflect the stress that is placed upon them. If healthcare administrative personnel has no idea what a nurse does on a daily basis, the public is even more misinformed. A growing lack of respect for nursing is resulting in increasing confrontations and sometimes physical attacks from patients and family members.
So what does the nursing shortage mean to you if you are ever hospitalized? The nursing shortage is a major factor in the increase of medication errors. An overworked, stressed human being cannot function at full capacity and will be prone to errors. The risk for infections are high because the nurse no longer has the time to do a proper dressing change on wounds. Patient falls are increasing because there is no one available to assist the patient when he needs to get out of bed. Patient falls that result in injury will lead to longer hospital stays, surgical procedures and sometimes even death.
Nursing shortage statistics identify a grave situation, and nursing shortage projects are definitely alarming. There is much speculation on how to fix the nursing shortage. It seems that no one has been able to produce a clear, definitive solution to the problem. Grants are being considered that will increase the number of faculty needed to teach nursing. Media campaigns have been launched to try to polish up the image of nursing and make it more attractive for young people. But these solutions will not work unless the nursing profession becomes valued for what it really is. A nurse is the lifeline of the medical profession. She deserves respect, compensation and the opportunity to do her job to the best of her ability.
The Nursing RN to BSN degree completion program at South University allows registered nurses with associate degrees to complete their bachelor’s degrees. The program is offered at three South University campuses and online. Learn more about South University | Request free info
The Nursing RN to BSN degree completion program at South University allows registered nurses with associate degrees to complete their bachelor’s degrees. The program is offered at three South University campuses and online.
