Healthcare facilities face many challenges and issues; one of the biggest issues seen today is a nationwide nursing shortage. Nurses are the forefront of healthcare and a critical to patient care. They make up the biggest portion of the health profession. Some statistics found from StatPearls (Haddad, 2020): There are approximately 3.9 million nurses in the United States (US) and in 2020 it was estimated that 1 million additional nurses would be needed. In the US, More RN jobs will be available in 2022 than any other profession. To avoid a further shortage, 11 million additional nurses are needed COVID-19 pandemic and Nursing Burnout discussion essay.
Nursing shortage has been a topic for many years, but it appears to be an increasingly progressive issue. There are many potential reasons why the shortage is worsening such as, aging population, aging work force, nursing burnout, negative work environment, and poor staff ratios (Haddad, 2020). One of the biggest, current reasons today is COVID-19 causing stress and fatigue on nurses in and outside the healthcare setting. With the increased demand in many hospitals due to COVID-19, staffing ratios are increasing and nurses are burning out wanting to look elsewhere for work. Many nurses are feeling there was a lack of pandemic preparedness, which ultimately resulted in anxiety and fear among the workplace (Nyashanu et al., 2020).I work at a small, community hospital on the med/surg/telemetry floor where we have 99 inpatient beds. Our hospital has not been immune to the nursing shortage. We struggle most days to safely staff our floors. Often, nurses are working overtime each week to help fill the void. We have faced the issue of nurses feeling burnt out and have left the facility working in a non-hospital setting. Our hospital has implemented some changes over the last year to help with the staff shortage. These changes are listed:
• Have become affiliated with local colleges to improve student nursing clinical experience. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN, 2020) recommends that nursing schools form partnerships and seek support from healthcare facilities to expand their student capacity in order to properly train new RN’s COVID-19 pandemic and Nursing Burnout discussion essay.
• Nurses are precepting nursing students along with clinical leader.
• Bonuses offered to employees who recruit nurses who stay employed for a certain amount of time.
• Housing and a relocation stipend is offered to those who relocate to the area and remain employed.
• Longer new graduate orientation period for new nurses with improved educational materials and resources through the nurse educator.
Healthcare facilities need to be creative in finding ways to meet the needs of nurses, especially their current employees, not just potential new ones. Becoming a leader in your workplace you can encourage coworkers and give ideas to administration on how to retain employees.
References
AACN. (2020, September). News & Information. American Association of Colleges of Nursing: The Voice of Academic Nursing. https://www.aacnnursing.org/News-Information/Fact-Sheets/Nursing-Shortage.
Haddad, L. (2020, November 16). Nursing Shortage. StatPearls [Internet]. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK493175/.
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