DQ 1
Impact of Projected Nursing Shortage
The Registered Nurses are considered the largest single unit of healthcare professionals within most of the labor industry across the globe for instance the U.S. currently the nursing profession is already experiencing a shortage of the Registered Nurses, the shortage is projected to continue being experienced as a result of the drop in the number of people entering the profession ("Nursing Shortage", 2016). The cyclic shortage is expected to affect the nursing profession by 2020 in various ways. First the shortage affects the quality of care offered by nurses, resulting from a few nursing handling too many patients. It also affects the long-term care delivery quality especially in nursing homes. The nursing profession will however have a large employment opportunity available (Needleman et al., 2011).
The projected decline of the available nurses will be parallel to an increased demand for the nursing services as a result of the aging baby boom generation, therefore it will be much more difficult and costly to respond to the future changes and these effects will be felt more by the customers who require the nursing services. The nurse staffing and quality of care will also have a great impact on the public in terms of delivery of services to the public ("Nurses Address Shortage Effects on Public Health", 2002). If there are fewer nurses serving many patients, then the quality of care will be compromised because of the limited and strained time allocated per patient-nurse interaction.
Ways That the Nursing Profession Is Working Toward a Resolution of This Problem
The nursing profession is working to resolve the issue of nursing shortage by ensuring that they recruit the workforce for the future. The profession is raising the funding directed towards the faculty of nursing and also that of the students education. The profession is subsidizing the nursing training in order to raise the number of Registered Nurses. In addition to this, there is a change in RN training which is meant to prepare the current workforce on ways in which they can respond better in their healthcare delivery in the future (Needleman et al., 2011).
References
Needleman, J., Buerhaus, P., Pankratz, V., Leibson, C., Stevens, S., & Harris, M. (2011). Nurse Staffing and Inpatient Hospital Mortality. New England Journal Of Medicine, 364(11), 1037-1045.
Nursing Shortage. (2016). Nursingworld.org. Retrieved 21 June 2016, from http://www.nursingworld.org/nursingshortage
