University Healthcare Staffing Report: Challenges and Recommendations

This report analyzes the critical issue of inadequate healthcare staffing, specifically focusing on the disproportionate number of nurses relative to patients. It explores the adverse consequences of this issue, including increased risks for patients and nurse burnout, emphasizing the crucial role of nurses in providing care and treatment. The report describes the problem, its importance, and the groups affected, including nurses and patients. It provides examples from research, potential solutions such as improved management and training, implementation strategies, and the ethical implications of nurse shortages. The report also discusses the pros and cons of proposed solutions and concludes with a call for simultaneous efforts from nurses, patients, and hospital management to address the issue and enhance both nursing skills and patient care. Several references are included to support the analysis.

Running Head: HEALTHCARE
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Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

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Analysis
The health issue that is prominent in the healthcare sector is the disproportionate
number of nurses. Staffing is a serious issue that needs to be tackled with care in order to
increase the positive patient outcome. This issue occurs when the number of the patients to
that of the nurses is too high. If a nurse has to look for about more patients who are all
suffering from urgent needs then it will create burnout among the nurses that can have
adverse consequences (Stinson, 2016). The adverse results can impact on the quality of care
being delivered to the patients and thus increases the risk for the patients.
Description
As nurses play an important part in the healthcare system by providing care and
treatment to the patients thus, it is important to maintain correct order and adequate ratio of
the nurses to that of the patients. The adequate staffing of the nurses is a key for the
improvement of the patient care as well as retention of the nurses. On the other hand, poor
number of nurses can endanger the patient and also causes burnout of the nurses (Low et al.,
2015). It is clear that the problems with the staff gets worse as there is an increase in the
number of the new nurses along with the increase in the healthcare services. This makes
staffing a great concern for the patients as well as the nurses.
Importance
The proper and adequate staffing of the nurses is an important issue for the
improvement of the outcomes of patient care. When there are more number of nurses, then it
helps for the improvement of the working conditions for the nurses. The improvement of the
nursing environment is emphasized by the positive relation between the doctors and nurses,
active involvement of the nurses in the decision making process, respond of the management

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to the patient care, education programs for the nurses and the constant improvement in the
quality of nurses for the enhancement of the patient care activities (Williams, Ilten & Bower,
2016). Therefore, it is an important issue as inadequate number of nurses can endanger the
nurses as well as the patients.
Target group
The groups of people who are affected by the inadequate nurse ratio includes nurses
and patients. This is because as the number of nurse decrease, it leads to an increase in the
amount of work that has to be done by the other nurses and that ultimately causes the job
dissatisfaction among the nurses causing them to leave (Fasanya & Dada, 2016). On the other
hand, inadequate nurses also affect the patient as it increases the risk of the patient by the
decrease in patient care.
Examples
According to a study that has been published in the American Journal of Infection
Control it has been shown that as more number of patients are being assigned to each nurses,
it increases the risk of the infection per patient. The researchers also concluded that if the
healthcare organization reduces the nursing burnout to 10% from 30% then it might prevent a
huge number of infections (Graham et al., 2016).
Potential solutions
The solution for this problem lies in the fact that there is poor management of the
nursing staff by the hospitals. This can be thus solved by the identification of the various
factors that include poor pay, inadequate structure of career, lack of opportunity, risk of
violence and so on. If these problems are being addressed by the help of providing nurses

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with better work quality then it will help to reduce the burnout among nurses (Williams, Ilten
& Bower, 2016).
Implementation
This can be implemented by first fixing the time for the nurses who work in shift.
This will provide the nurses with the required amount of rest and thus help them to work
efficiently. There can be interaction between the nurses to the other healthcare staff in order
to make sure that the nurses are getting enough support for the performing their responsibility
(Epstein & Turner, 2015). Apart from this, the solution should also include the chance for
further education for the nurses and the involvement of the interprofessional skills that will
help the nurses to learn and enhance the communicative skills. The plan for the maintenance
of the nursing staff should also include the fact that the wage for nursing is less and thus,
there has to be proper salary structure in order to make the nurses willing to work in this
environment (Moss et al., 2016).
Consequences
The consequences of ignoring the problems will cause an increase in the risk of the
life of the patients and will also threat their recovery rate. This can even cause the neglect to
the quality of the patient care as well as increase the burnout of the patients (Low et al.,
2015). These aspects can lead to adverse effects to the safety of the patient as well as increase
the burnout of the nurses.
Pros and cons
One of the solution is the use of the interpersonal training for the improvement of the
communicative skills among the patients. This advantage of the process is that it helps in
training the nurses about the communicative skills. However, it has a disadvantage as a

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number of senior nurses are not interested in sharing the information or skill to the other new
nurses (Williams, Ilten & Bower, 2016).
Ethical implications
The ethical implications should include maintenance of proper nursing guidelines
while dealing with nurse shortage in the hospitals (Epstein & Turner, 2015). After the
implementation of the interpersonal skills as a solution for nursing shortage the ethical
implications will include proper behaviour and attitude towards the nurses by the
management during job hours.
Examples
This is shown by the previous research in which it has been highlighted that the
constant moral ethical conflicts at the workplace creates huge amount of mental and physical
stress for the nurses (Moss et al., 2016). Thus, it will help the nurses to maintain the
emotional stress of job dissatisfaction.
Pros and cons
The advantage of the ethical implication is the maintenance of the nursing guidelines
for the improvement of nurse staffing as well as the patient care. The disadvantage of the
implication is that the process will be narrowed down to the ethical considerations and this
will put up a restriction to the nurses working in that organization (Lasala, 2017).
Requirements
In order to implement the solution it is required that the nurses, patient and the
hospital management work simultaneously. This will help in the identification of the factors
that will help them to move forward and also to find a solution for the enhancement of the
nursing skills and care (Lasala, 2017).

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References
Epstein, B., & Turner, M. (2015). The nursing code of ethics: Its value, its history. OJIN: The
Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 20(2), 1-10.
Fasanya, B. K., & Dada, E. A. (2016). Workplace violence and safety issues in long-term
medical care facilities: nurses' perspectives. Safety and health at work, 7(2), 97-101.
Graham, C. L., Phillips, S. M., Newman, S. D., & Atz, T. W. (2016). Baccalaureate minority
nursing students perceived barriers and facilitators to clinical education practices: An
integrative review. Nursing Education Perspectives, 37(3), 130-137.
Lasala, K. (2017). Nursing workforce issues in rural and urban settings: Looking at the
difference in recruitment, retention and distribution. Online Journal of Rural Nursing
and Health Care, 1(1), 8-24.
Low, L. F., Fletcher, J., Goodenough, B., Jeon, Y. H., Etherton-Beer, C., MacAndrew, M., &
Beattie, E. (2015). A systematic review of interventions to change staff care practices
in order to improve resident outcomes in nursing homes. PloS one, 10(11), e0140711.
Moss, M., Good, V. S., Gozal, D., Kleinpell, R., & Sessler, C. N. (2016). An official critical
care societies collaborative statement: burnout syndrome in critical care health care
professionals: a call for action. American Journal of Critical Care, 25(4), 368-376.
Stinson, K. J. (2016). Nurses’ attitudes, clinical experience, and practice issues with use of
physical restraints in critical care units. American Journal of Critical Care, 25(1), 21-
26.
Williams, K. N., Ilten, T. B., & Bower, H. (2016). Meeting communication needs: topics of
talk in the nursing home. Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health
Services, 43(7), 38-45.