Nursing Shortage: Addressing Events, Solutions, and Legislation Role

This report addresses the critical issue of the nursing shortage, examining the events that have led to this crisis and proposing various steps to mitigate its effects. It explores strategies such as onboarding programs, nurse internship programs, and incentives to improve nurse retention. The report also analyzes the factors contributing to the shortage, including an aging workforce, population growth, and constraints in nursing education. Furthermore, it reflects on the role of a healthcare employee in managing the shortage, emphasizing flexible shift times, skill enhancement, and advocating for improved working conditions. The report concludes by detailing the role of legislation in ensuring safe staffing levels, including the promotion of nurse-to-patient ratios and the use of staffing solutions to maintain quality patient care and prevent nurse burnout. The report emphasizes the importance of balancing patient safety, workforce productivity and financial considerations. The report also references several research articles to support its findings.

Running head: NURSING SHORTAGE
NURSING SHORTAGE
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

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Introduction
Nursing shortage is defined as the condition where the request or the demand of the
nursing professionals increases that includes Registered Nurses (RNs) globally or nationally.
The extent of nursing shortage can be calculated by evaluating the nurse-to-patient ratio, total
number of new job openings for hiring the nurses or nurse-to-population ratio (Breda, Barbee
& Zadoroznyj, 2018). The condition of nursing shortage is increasing world-wide and
developing all around the nation. This study will address the situation of nursing shortage by
highlighting the series if events that resulted in nursing shortages, the steps that can be taken
to address the situation of nursing shortage. The study will conclude by exhibiting the role of
legislature in addressing safe staffing during the nursing shortage.
Answer 1
According to the Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS), the amount of existing nursing
occupations is likely to develop by approximately 16% till 2024. With the total quantity of
nurses estimated to vacate the jobs in the subsequent few years will also increase and hence
there will be approximately 1 million vacant job lead-ins for the nurses by 2024. Due to
nursing shortage, the effective balance between the patient care and the medical facility is
hampered. The steps that can be taken to address the nursing shortage are as follows
(Nursesource.org, 2019):
 An on boarding platform, can be used to make the new nurses feel comfortable and
welcome. This will include nurse autonomy, group and community cohesion that will
primarily reduce the employee turnover between nurses and they will exhibit higher
job satisfaction. Nurse internship program can also be used that will help the used to
take up their nursing responsibility and acquire the nursing skills.

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 The hospital should provide attractive incentives to the nurses that will motivate them
to work hard and earn more amount of money. Incentive should be based on the point
system like the nurse who take up the extra shift, bad shift or acquiring new skills
will help the nurse to earn incentives and help in the employee retention
(Truthaboutnursing.org, 2019).
 The medical facilities who are keen to keep their nurse and staff must focus on
providing professional development and long-term teaching for the nurses where the
nurses will learn and acquire novel skills sand knowledge and therefore boost
employee retention.
 The medical facility should convert the nurses into recruiters and executive recruiter
who are talented and can speak and understand the language of the nurse and
therefore, highlight the most important factor of being an excellent nurse. The nurses
who refers other nurses within the facility should be given with monetary
compensation to keep them motivated and involved (Buchan et al., 2015).
 Understanding the professional and personal need of the nurses is very important for
increasing employee retention and decreasing the rate of nursing shortage.
Answer 2
The current issue of nursing shortage is blooming world-wide and affecting the high
quality of patient care. Nursing is considered as an autonomous and distinct scientific
profession. That involves highly skilled practitioners for improving the health condition of
the patient. There are various factors that result in nursing shortage are explained as follows
(Edmonson et al., 2017):
 Nursing shortages is directly related to the relationship between the demand and
supply of the highly skilled professional nurses as large number of nurses ate taking

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up retirement at an early age associated with factors such as job dissatisfaction or job
burnout when the demand of nursing job opportunities are increasing world-wide
resulting in huge number of turnovers.
 The increasing population growth in various states is another major cause of nursing
shortage as the population is very huge and thus the requirement is also high that is
not fulfilled by the hospital acuity. According to the Bureau of Labour Statistics, the
total number of vacancies for the registered nurses will be 1.2 million between the
time periods of 2014 to 2022 and therefore nursing shortfall will be expected as the
vacancy is very high (Yeager & Roberts, 2015).
 The third factor that might lead to nursing shortage is lower or decreased
baccalaureate enrolment and lack of novel graduate pipeline. The number of
enrolment for the entry level BSN has decreased or reduced by 2.1% due to lower
skilled teaching staff, insufficient faculty, lack of proper class room space, clinical
site sand budget constraints. Hence, lack of proper education with developing
technologies is lacking in various countries that ultimately result in nursing shortages
(Zhang et al., 2018).
 The major factor that is also responsible for nursing shortage is that there are large
number of nurses who join the profession at an older age approximately after 50 or so,
which states that the one-third of nursing population will achieve retirement in next
succeeding 15 years and the young nurses are not preferred by many hospital due to
lack of skill and experience due to lack nurse-education openings (Berkowitz, 2016).
 The last factor that might be responsible for nursing shortage is increased hospital
census and acuity. The hospital administration are enhancing their healthcare activity
everyday by increasing the care facility and pushing the competitive quality by
increasing the patient’s length of hospital stay that demands high nursing care and

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effort. This increasing demand is not fulfilled by majority of registered nurses that
ultimately result in shortages of registered nurses.
Answer 3
Being a healthcare employee my primary duty will be to provide effective and holistic
care to the patient and understand the responsibility of the profession during the era of
nursing shortage. Being a registered nurse, I will focus on the flexible shift time and try to
earn the incentive by working for extra shift or bad shift. I will try to learn and acquire the
modern technologies and strategies that will enhance my nursing skills and I can handle the
patient effectively. As there is huge crisis of registered nurses I will try to refer my colleagues
and convince them to join the hospital and work as the registered nurse (Laurencelle, Scanlan
& Brett, 2016). I will also highlight the advantages or benefits that is put forward by the
hospital so that the other nurses are convinced and motivated to work as the nursing
professional.
Additionally, I will try to understand and highlight the issue that is the major factor
for nursing shortage and put forward the issues in front of the hospital administration, so that
they can work on the factor and decrease employee retention with lower job dissatisfaction,
disillusionment and disappointment. I can suggest the hospital administration to develop a
retention committee, who will primarily focus on improving the expectation and job
satisfaction among the nurses and recognize the steps for positive and encouraging employee
branding (Boamah, & Laschinger 2015). As the large number of nursing shortage takes place
due to lack of efficient training and education, therefore I can request and recommend the
hospital administration to initiate a training program, which will focus on providing efficient
training and guidance to the newly registered nurse therefore enhancing their skills and
knowledge. Being an experienced registered nurse, I will guide and appreciate the new

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nurses, so that they are motivated and happy to be a part of the healthcare industry (Dreher &
Uribe, 2016).
Answer 4
The primary role of safe staff legislation is to improve the condition of nursing
shortage by promoting effective staffing. Effective staffing will prevent the situation of nurse
burnout and enhance the patient care. The government is promoting and proposing more safe
staffing legislation. The safe staff legislation would involve the hospitals to preserve
minimum level of nursing staff for maintaining an effective nurse-to-patient ratio. The ides of
installing and practicing the nursing staffing solution is also recommend by the legislation
that will safeguard that enough number of nurses are programmed during the highest patient
times (Pearce et al., 2018). This healthcare facility will assist the hospitals to optimize their
productivity and performance of the workforces and also be sure that the hospital is not
spending high amount of money in the labour cost. Hence, the legislation permit the hospital
to maintain a balance between patient care and safety and number of nurses. The nursing
shortage will be maintained and managed by the legislation by implying the nursing staffing
solution. The Affordable Care Act is suggested by the legislation that will focus on the
nursing requirement and patient care and also determine and apply more judicial technique of
solving the issue of nursing shortage. The nurse staffing associated with the scheduling
solutions, will help the legislation to inhibit patient present within the hospital to feel any
negative vibe or effect due to nursing shortages (Theodoulou, Reddy & Wong, 2018).
Conclusion
From this study it can be concluded that nursing shortages are one of the major issues
that is increasing day by day and affecting the healthcare industry. Nursing shortage is
defined as the condition where the request or the demand of the nursing professionals

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increases that includes Registered Nurses (RNs) globally or nationally. The study had
explained in detail the events that lead to nursing shortage and what measures can be taken to
address the shortage. The study had also highlighted the responsibility of a registered nurse
towards the era of nursing shortage with possible contribution form the legislation that will
aim to prevent the condition of nursing shortage.

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References
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