Scarce Resources Paper

Scarce Resources Article Paper

Problem Statement

Nurses have a crucial role in protecting hospitalized patients and keeping them safe. The primary reason for hospitalization is to receive the full benefits of 24-hour nursing care (Grove, 2011). The level of experience and the ability to provide high quality care that nurses demonstrate is critical to patient outcomes, however, now is at risk more than ever. The nursing shortage has become a challenge in hospitals in their ability to provide safe, quality care to acute and critically ill patients.

Influencing Factors

Many factors have been identified to be responsible for the current nursing shortage. One of them could be the aging RN workforce. In ten years the average age of an employed RN will be 45.4 years and 40% of all hired RNs will be in their 50s and 60s (Stechmiller, 2002). In addition, fewer girls and boys after graduating high-school choose nursing as their career, therefore the number of RNs graduating nursing schools decreases in size each year.

Problems in work settings could be another factor leading to current nursing shortage. Heavy workloads, inadequate staffing, increased use of overtime, inadequate support staff, and salary compression are main issues for nurses working in healthcare settings. According to Stechmiller (2002), nurses are among the highest dissatisfied with their job workers in the United States. It contributes to job strain, emotional exhaustion, and burnout, therefore many nurses leave nursing profession and more than 55% would not recommend it as a career.

The hospital practice settings that were reengineered to reduced costs require nurses to be cross-trained. Also, unlicensed personnel are necessary to provide care. Nurses are dissatisfied with the fact that they have to supervise their team members and are being held accountable for the work of the unlicensed workers.

Nonexistent managerial support is another factor affecting nursing shortage. Majority of nurses reports lack of responsiveness to the concerns of nursing stuff from the managers. Nurses also complain that they have not enough opportunities to participate in the process of policy making and that their role in decisions contributing to patient care is not recognized. This stops nurses from advancing in their career.

Job security and financial satisfaction was reported to be responsible for nursing shortage (Clarke & Cheung, 2008). Nurses’ salaries have been flat comparing to the rate of inflation; therefore, nurses are not motivated to keep their jobs and may leave nursing profession entirely. The higher the salary, the more young people will be interested in joining the nursing profession.

Challenges and Consequences of Not Addressing the Issue

The nursing shortage affects both patients and nurses.