Assignment on Critical Analysis - Staff Shortage in Nursing

Running Head: CRITICAL ANALYSIS 1
Critical Analysis
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CRITICAL ANALYSIS 2
Nurse staffing
Staff shortage in nursing has been one of the most significant issue facing nursing in
the world for a long time. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), nursing
continues to face shortages around the world due to lack of educators. In an article written by
Snavely, the need for more nurses in the world has been stirred by; increase in the complexity
of patient needs, and decisions to cut costs (Snavely, 2016). The shortage of nurses in
America does not only affects patients but also the nurses themselves, whereby nurses have
had to either overwork or work in some deplorable conditions. By ensuring safe distribution
of nurses, America will be able to provide better healthcare to the growing long term need for
healthcare in the country.
Nursing is one of the profession that require a lot of government oversight as it
provides services for the good of everyone. In this text, a critical analysis of an article written
by the American Nurses Association (ANA) about the staffing issue facing nurses today has
been conducted. The article talks about reasons that may be leading to this shortage and
policies the organization is putting in place to ensure that this issue is solved. The impact that
these policies have created in the past few years is also reviewed.
According to Nurse Staffing by American Nurses Association, staff shortages today in
nursing may be caused by the growing number of the aging people in the world (Anderson,
2019). In the united states, the number of individuals over the age of 65 has hit all-time
highest. Due to the overall increase in the number of aged people, the need for more
healthcare practitioners’ sets in (Blouin, & Podjasek, 2019). This is because often, older
people are faced with more than one illness or condition that requires a lot of medical
attention. This population is faced with several terminal diseases that tend to strain the
healthcare workforce (Juraschek .et al 2019). The article states that ANA is committed to
help increase the number of nurses by providing legal evidence on policy, product, advocacy,

CRITICAL ANALYSIS 3
and professional development to ensure the transformation of healthcare delivery in the
country.
The second factor that has led to inadequacy in nursing, as outlined by ANA, is
violence in the healthcare sector. A research carried out in America shows that only 35% of
abused nurses report the incidents to the authorities, over half of the nurses who are abused
by patients or their relatives considered leaving the profession as they felt undermined
(Weech-Maldonado et al 2019). According to Nurse Staffing, research shows that nurses are
the most vulnerable to aggression from people inside the healthcare setup (Gutsan et al.
2018). People tend to speak, especially when they are in a panic or are shocked; this happens
a lot in hospitals. According to research, 9% to 40% of all workers are subject to violence
either from their clients or the authorities. This factor has demotivated many young people
who had the intention of taking nursing as their career.
Nurse burnout is where graduate nurses get some jobs, and after a while, they realize
that nursing was not all about what they thought it is. This leads to people leaving nursing for
other professions. Burnouts also happen when a nurse works for some time and gets bored
with the job and decides to quit. Nurse staffing reveals that 3% to 5% of nurses who left the
job do so due to burnout. The article also blames nursing ratios to the shortage of nurses in
some regions of the country (Estenssoro et al. 2017). This shows that there are regions in the
country that have an abundance of nurses while other underdeveloped areas remain with a
shortage. In the last two years, about 30% of nurses have thought about quitting the
profession due to burnout, overwork, and harassment. This shows that a considerable number
of practicing nurses are not happy with the job, and some end up resigning, adding on to the
shortage.
The article goes further to explain principles by the American Nursing Association to
identify ways in which it can archive optimum staffing in the American healthcare facilities