Health Care Policies and Economics

Running Head: HEALTH CARE POLICIES AND ECONOMICS 1
Health Care Policies and Economics
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HEALTH CARE POLICIES AND ECONOMICS 2
Health Care Policies and Economics
Introduction
The healthcare discipline heavily relies on nursing – a section that makes up the largest
part of the discipline. The World Health Organization’s statistical report showed that there were
more than 2.9 million nurses around the world. The report noted that the United States alone was
responsible for more than 3.9 million nurses out of the total worldwide number (Andrew
Scanlon, Denise Hibbert, Freda DeKeyser Ganz PhD, Linda East PhD & Debbie Fraser, 2014).
There has been a prospective expectation of an increase of nurses with the increase of need for
their services. The American Nurses Association prospectively posited that more job
opportunities are likely to increase for the registered nurses through 2022 than other professions.
The shortages that have been experienced have been taken as a possible indicator of the growth
of job opportunities in the discipline. This paper seeks to explore the causes of the nursing
shortage, the interventions that a nurse would take while working in a nursing shortage
environment, and the impact of role legislation on the trends of the nursing shortage.
Factors that Lead Nursing Shortage
The nursing shortage has been impacted by multiple factors. The stunted growth of the
nursing school enrolments could be tightly linked to the shortage of nursing. The rate at which
the population grows is not relatively associated with the rate at which nursing school enrolls
students. According to a report by Williams (2018), there was a 3.7% increase in enrollment in
the school of nursing. The increase is drastically low and is not sufficient to meet the demand for
nursing services.

HEALTH CARE POLICIES AND ECONOMICS 3
There is a significant shortage of facilities in the nursing school faculty which leads to
restrictions in the enrolment of nursing students. A report by Meyers, Mor & Rahman (2018),
posited that the 2018-2019 enrollment of nursing students in the US turned away more than
70,000 applicants that were qualified for nursing programs. This was attributed to the shortage of
clinical sites, clinical receptors, and classroom space as well as the constraints in budgeting. 75%
of the nursing schools that responded to the survey articulated their shortage of faculty as the
main reason for failing to enroll qualified students into their programs.
Most registered nursing practitioners are of an old age that is nearing retirement. A
survey conducted by the National Council of Nursing showed that 50.9%r of the registered
nursing workforce was of 50 years and more (Spector, 2015). This projection shows that more
than one million nurses will retire in the next ten years which would lead to a hiring shortage
regarding the low intake.
There are major changes in the demographics with a higher number estimating the
growth of the aging population. The United States Census Bureau issued a report on the older
population in the US estimating that the US will have more than 83.7 million citizens aged over
65 (Snavely, 2016). This estimation was almost double of the population of aged people in the
2012 report that was 43.1 million. A bulging number of older adults increase the need for
geriatric care – including care for individuals with comorbidities and chronic diseases.
There is an increased level of nurses leaving the profession due to stress and lack of
satisfaction that is caused by insufficient staffing. A study by Sutcliffe, Paine & Pronovost
(2017), recorded that better outcomes in acute care hospitals were associated with the availability
of more nurses at the bedside. The reduction of nursing skills by addition of assistive personnel