The Nursing Shortage and High Demand for Nurses in America

Nursing shortage is a fact. According to The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) (2012). There will be 1.05 million job openings for nurses due to growth and replacements by 2022. The increase in demand for health care providers puts a great deal of pressure in the current workforce. Many hospitals are understaffed, and most of the nurses tend to work for extended hours, piling up more and more overtime. Nursing is really demanding in both physical and psychological spectrums. This extra pressure affects their quality of work life; the quality of patient care. And the amount of time nurses can spend with patients. Last but not least, the mental and physical exhaustion will potentially lead to lower quality of care and medical errors, which, unfortunately, might be life threatening.

A full time employer in any job is expected to work 40 hours a week. Nurses have two options to meet these requirements. They can work five shifts a week (8 hour shifts) or they can work 3 shifts a week (12-hour shifts). Which was found to be the more prevalent, but, most of the time, they end up working more than 12 hours per shift. According to Aiken (2012), more and more nurses tend to choose to work 12-hour shifts. Because this schedule provides them more flexibility and a better work-life balance. Nursing is not a very well scheduled occupation because of fluctuations in patients needs and understaffing. So, most of the time, nurses tend to work extended shifts beyond their schedules. When overtime is piling up and is combined with long shifts. The risk of fatigue and burnout increases dramatically, which will eventually impact patient outcomes in a negative manner. In addition, from a policy standpoint, there is no national work-hour policies for registered nurses that prohibits them from working overtime compared to regulations on shift length and cumulative working hours for resident physicians and people in other industries (Aiken, 2012).

Nursing burnout is, unfortunately, a fact due to multiple factors and should be addressed immediately because it compromises the wellbeing of the nurses and patient satisfaction. According to Nursing Economic$ (2015), more than 75% of registered nurses (RNs) expressed their beliefs that nursing shortage was one of the biggest issues that influenced their performance, the amount of time nurses can spend with patients, and the quality of their work life. Nurses deal with critically ill patients on a daily basis, and they become attached to them (Wang, Liu, & Wang, 2015). Many patients may deteriorate and eventually die; this can lead emotional distress, which contributes to the emotional aspect of nursing burnout. Caring for more patients in shorter periods of time gives the nurses less time to recuperate and increased grief, “especially now they are faced with consistent loss and given little time to decompress” (Lynch, 2013). The degree of job dissatisfaction and emotional exhaustion is pretty obvious, being expected to be responsible for more patients than they can safely care for is unethical.

The victims of this health care policy are not only the nurses because patients are affected at the same degree, if not more. According to Dr. Jeannie Cimiotti (2012), an increased percentage of patients with acquired urinary tract and surgical site infections was noticed when there was reported high patient-to-nurse ratios. A really intriguing finding of this study was the correlation between a nurse’s patient load, to higher rates of infection. Another point that depicts the importance fully staffed units was a study that published findings in the New England Journal of Medicine by Dr. Jack Needleman and his colleagues. This study examined the records of nearly 198,000 admitted patients and 177,000 12-hour nursing shifts across 43 patient-care units at large academic health centers. The results show that the mortality risk for patients was about 6% higher in units that were understaffed as compared with fully staffed units, mainly due to increased workload.

These issues need to be addressed immediately because the effects can be devastating towards our healthcare system. First of all, it is really important that the nurses be proactive and advocate for their rights and wellbeing. Accepting to work overtime constantly just because you feel like you are letting down your patients will eventually lead to emotional and physical exhaustion. Knowing your limits and setting your boundaries will aid in preventing burnout. Another intervention that would be really beneficial in preventing nursing burnout would be the elimination of the 12-hour shifts, Nursing is a really demanding profession both physically and mentally, especially in critical care setting. Having to handle high work pressure and extensive workload for more than 8 hours, without breaks, will eventually affect your performance and cause serious medical errors, which can be life threatening. Nurses are hard worker who, most of the times do not get the respect they might deserve, and that aspect could be also a serious contributor in nurse burnout. Recognizing and rewarding somebody’s hard work and commitment with bonuses and incentives will illustrate the significance and appreciation of his or her work. This will help nurses to stay motivated and committed to their patients and not on their fatigue. Last but not least, inadequate staffing is probably the most prevalent issue that nurses face. A great way to resolve this problem would be by supplementing the full time nurses with temporary healthcare staff, like Per Diem or traveling nurses. Temporary staff will step in when there are openings so the nurse to patient ratios is kept under control, which prevents the current staff being overworked.

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