The Issue of Nursing Shortage in the United States

The nation’s shortage of nursing staff is something that touches the lives of virtually all of its citizens in one way or another. While the lack of working nurses does of course affect the activities of those nurses. Who are working, it most importantly detracts from the care that is provided for anyone. Who has ever been in need of any type of medical attention. It is a never-ending battle which will be fought in order to recruit individuals to the nursing profession. As well as provide the support that is much needed to those nurses. Who are working so that they may continue to be a part of this very necessary population.

Granted, the most obvious solution to the current nursing shortage is to increase the population of working nurses. Although many efforts are currently being taken to obtain this goal, this will be a lengthy process and likely one that is never fully achieved. With this said, healthcare facilities are ultimately left with two options given the current situation. Healthcare institutions may either continue to grow and expand thus creating the need for more nurses. Or they can make an effort at downsizing which will increase the overall nursing-to-patient ratio.

Although there are advantages and disadvantages to both of the aforementioned avenues, one must consider the long term effects of this shortage. This becomes even more pertinent when one considers the fact that the United States has become an increasingly unhealthy country with the frequency of chronic care conditions on the rise each and every year. As wonderful as it is that the people of this country are living longer lives, this in turn results in an increased need for medical intervention.

As healthcare organizations continue to expand, the direct result is an increased need for nursing staff to cover their facilities. The benefit of this expansion lies in that more care will be available to more individuals in more areas across the country. However, one may argue that the care that these individuals receive may be less than adequate if there are not enough nurses to attend to the increased patient population. On the other hand, if these facilities make a decision to downsize, nurses would have more time and resources to address each patient as a result of having better shift coverage. The downside to this of course being that this would also mean that less space would be available for patients to receive the care that they need and are entitled to.

The World Health Organization reports that every human being has an intangible right to be as healthy as he or she is able to be (American Nurses Association, 2015). With this idea in mind, it is of vital importance that health care organizations think critically when it comes to the ideas of expansion and staffing. Is it better to provide less help to more patients or more help to fewer patients? This is a question that possesses not only moral implications but those of a financial and legal nature as well. Ideally, administrators of a healthcare institution find some type of middle ground which allows for gradual and needed growth but growth that also takes the well-being of patients and future patients into consideration.

Nursing as a profession has an obligation to ensure that its members act in the best interest of the public (American Nurses Association, 2010). Every nurse has a duty to observe non-maleficence but can every nurse truly act in a patient’s best interest if there is not an adequate nursing population to ensure proper patient care? Certainly nurses cannot be spread so thin that each patient only receives a modicum of care. Conversely, healthcare as it is known today must not remain completely static as this would potentially result in many people not being able to receive the medical care that they possess the right to have. Research that was conducted at the University of Washington concluded that the fewer patients a nurse has or the more hours that a patient has with a nurse is associated with fewer negative outcomes (Huber, 2014). These results suggest that having a narrower nurse to patient ratio benefits not only the patient but also the nurse as well as the healthcare organization as a whole.

Healthcare facilities that struggle with adequate nurse staffing would likely benefit from doing resource utilization audits. Ensuring that all non-nursing employees are being employed to the full extent of their scope of practice would allow nursing personnel to potentially be responsible for additional patients. Additional options that facilities have at their disposal are to entertain the idea of working with staffing agencies under times of shortage or to offer current nurse employees additional wages as an incentive to cover more shifts. These are just a few of the methods which health care administration may employ in order to secure additional shift coverage.

All in all, the current nursing shortage is a complex issue and although many individuals are taking up nursing as a profession, it still is not certain that there will be enough nurses to care for the future generations that are becoming larger and living longer. Much of the responsibility lies in the hands of the nurses of today in order to set an example and to showcase the great career that it can be for so many people.

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