A Report on Addressing the Issue of Nurse Shortage in Healthcare

This report addresses the critical issue of the nurse shortage in healthcare settings. It begins by identifying the competing needs of quality patient care and organizational effectiveness, highlighting how shortages negatively impact nurse-to-patient ratios, leading to potential medical errors and departmental closures. The report examines a current organizational policy requiring nurses to work over 40 hours per week, critiquing its origins in ethical considerations and its unintended consequences, such as high turnover rates due to occupational stress. A recommended policy is presented, advocating for the hiring of more qualified nurses to balance competing needs and improve patient-centered care by normalizing nurse-patient ratios. The report supports this policy with findings from scholarly sources, including studies on hospital responses to nurse staffing shortages and the impact of addressing nurse shortages on patient care quality. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of addressing the nurse shortage to ensure quality healthcare delivery.

Running head: ADDRESSING THE ISSUE OF SHORTAGE OF NURSES 1
Addressing the Issue of Shortage of Nurses
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

ADDRESSING THE ISSUE OF SHORTAGE OF NURSES 2
Addressing the Issue of Shortage of Nurses
Identification and description of the competing needs to the proposed issue in the
organization
The competing needs that affect the healthcare issue of the shortage of nurses include
the need for patients to receive quality care when they visit the hospital and the need for the
organization at large to perform effectively. Shortage of nurses negatively affects the quality
of care delivered to the patients. Normally the nurse to patient ratio is 1:2 where one nurse is
supposed to care for not more than two patients (Coventry, Maslin‐Prothero & Smith, 2015).
However, due to the issue of shortage of nurses in a healthcare organization, this ratio is
affected and one nurse can be assigned to care for more than 10 patients sometimes. As a
result, the quality of care delivered is affected since nurses working in this environment are
prone to make medical errors that affect the quality of care delivered (Cheng et al. , 2016).
Meanwhile, the performance of the organization at large is also affected by the issue of a
shortage of nurses. This is so because some sensitive departments in the healthcare
organizations will have to be closed because there are no nurses to work in those
departments. This will negatively affect the performance of the healthcare organization.
Description of relevant policy in the organization that influences the issue
There is a policy in our organization that requires nurses to serve more than 40 hours
a week. This policy may influence the issue of shortage of nurses in the organization because
nurses are forced to work for a long time without a rest. This subjects the nurses to
occupational stress and since most nurses cannot work in this environment, they will prefer
quitting to work for another organization that provides better working environments for them.

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The critic of the policy described above
The origin of this policy in our organization was based on ethical consideration. This
is so because, in the past, many patients were complaining of not receiving adequate attention
from the nurses that were assigned to care for them in the healthcare organization. For that
reason, this policy was put into effect to guarantee adequate attention and quality service for
all the patients in the organization. One of the strengths of this policy is that it helped
eliminate the patients complains of not being attended to. However, many challenges are
facing this policy. For example, it has resulted in high turnover in the organization. This is so
because working for long hours without a rest is known to subject employees to occupational
stress where they cannot effectively perform their duties (Moreland & Apker, 2016). Since
most of the nurses are not comfortable working in this environment the organization has seen
many nurses resign from their jobs. As a result of this challenge, it’s evident that the results
of this policy are not promoting ethical behavior at work. Ethically, nurses are supposed to
work a total of 36 hours (American Nurse Association, 2015). Since the policy requires the
nurses to work for more than 40 hours a week, it's justifiable to say that it does not promote
ethical behavior. Also, for quality delivery of healthcare, ethics dictate that a nurse must be
well both physically, mentally and spiritually (Lubbe & Roets, 2014). By working many
hours as required by the policy, nurses are subjected to occupational stress which is not good
for their health.
A discussion of the policy recommended
The policy I recommend to balance the competing needs of resources in the
organization is the hiring of many qualified nurses. Hiring more qualified nurses will help
balance the competing needs of resources, workers and patients that the current policy has not
been able to address. This is so because by hiring many qualified nurses, the need to deliver

ADDRESSING THE ISSUE OF SHORTAGE OF NURSES 4
quality care in the organization will be addressed. Quality care is timely and unique to patient
needs (McHugh & Ma, 2014). By hiring many nurses, the organization will be able to
provide quality care since there will be adequate nurses to deliver care at the required time.
Also, the patients’ needs will be addressed through the provision of patient-centered care.
Patient-centered care involves prioritizing patients in care delivery. This is possible with the
new policy because many nurses hired will normalize the nurse-patient ratio. Which means
that every nurse will be attending to the required number of patients giving every nurse
enough time to attend to each patient. By implementing this policy, the shortcomings of the
previous policy, for example, high turnover as a result of a harsh working environment will
be addressed. This is so because, with many nurses that have been hired, the pressure of one
nurse handling many patients will be reduced since the work will equally be divided among
all the nurses. This will help create a dynamic work environment which will help in retaining
the skilled staff in the organization.
A description of the two scholarly sources that support the proposed policy
A study entitled “hospitals Response to Nurse Staffing Shortages” was done by
authors Jessica May, Gloria Bazzoli, and Anneliese Gerland. In this study, the authors
analyzed the most ideal measures for healthcare organizations to respond to the issue of the
shortage of nursing. The study found out that hospitals respond to the shortage of nurses
using both long term and short term strategies. A quarter of the hospitals studied reported
using short term strategies such as hiring per diem nurses and hiring nurses on short term
contracts. Regarding long-term strategies, all the hospitals that were studied apart from one
reported investing in nurse education. The findings of this study are in line with my proposed
policy because by hiring nurses per diem and investing in nurse education, the hospitals are
agreeing that the best way to respond to the shortage of nurses in the health organization is
hiring qualified nurses.

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Another study entitled “Addressing the Nurse Shortage to Improve the Quality of Patient
Care” was done by Susan Hassmiller and Maureen Cozine. The study aimed to investigate
how hospitals address the issue of shortage of nurse to improve quality of care. The findings
of the study revealed that many hospitals are hiring temporary nurses through staffing
agencies to address their shortages. The findings of this study are consistent with the policy
proposed above because it encourages the hiring of many nurses to address the shortage.

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Reference
American Nurse Association. (2015). Code of ethics for nurses with interpretive statements.
Silver Spring, MD: Author. Retrieved from https://www.nursingworld.org/coe-view-only
Coventry, T. H., Maslin‐Prothero, S. E., & Smith, G. (2015). Organizational impact of nurse
supply and workload on nurses continuing professional development opportunities: an
integrative review. Journal of advanced nursing, 71(12), 2715-2727.
Cheng, C., Bartram, T., Karimi, L., & Leggat, S. (2016). Transformational leadership and
social identity as predictors of team climate, perceived quality of care, burnout and
turnover intention among nurses. Personnel Review, 45(6), 1200-1216.
Hassmiller, S. B., & Cozine, M. (2006). Addressing the nurse shortage to improve the quality
of patient care. Health Affairs, 25(1), 268-274.
Lubbe, J. C., & Roets, L. (2014). Nurses’ scope of practice and the implication for quality
nursing care. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 46(1), 58-64.
McHugh, M. D., & Ma, C. (2014). Wage, work environment, and staffing: Effects on nurse
outcomes. Policy, Politics, & Nursing Practice, 15(3-4), 72-80.
Moreland, J. J., & Apker, J. (2016). Conflict and stress in hospital nursing: Improving
communicative responses to enduring professional challenges. Health
communication, 31(7), 815-823.
May, J. H., Bazzoli, G. J., & Gerland, A. M. (2006). Hospitals' Responses To Nurse Staffing
Shortages: Hospitals' actions are having a positive impact, but can it be sustained for
the long run?. Health Affairs, 25(Suppl1), W316-W323.

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