Nursing Shortage Solutions

The major concerns in relation to the nursing shortage are the lack of available nurses, nurse burn-out/job dissatisfaction, and decreased patient quality of care. Some proposed solutions for the nursing shortage are: 1) “retainment of experienced nurses”, 2) “recruitment of new graduates”, 3) encouragement to obtain double (or dual) degrees, and 4) positive depiction of the nursing field (Hickey Sumison & Harrison, 2010). Keeping a hold of experienced nurses in the health care setting is an effective solution to correcting the nursing shortage. To begin, experienced nurses offer knowledge and familiarity to both patients and new staff that keep the facility running smoothly (Gillen, 2013). This decreases the risk for codes and adverse events. Different strategies can be implemented into the hospital policy to increase the likelihood that experienced news stay around longer. These include recognizing the strain multiple 12+ hour days place on the nurse and employing flexible scheduling and structure into the work environment, providing incentives and positive feedback to nurses who go above and beyond to keep quality patient-centered care at top of their priority list, and offering an appropriate balance between increased pay and time-off as needed (Hickey Sumison & Harrison, 2010). With these …show more content…
The nursing shortage alone is extremely based around the burn-out and job dissatisfaction of nurses. When the nurse speaks of the job negatively, this deters people from wanting to join the nursing profession. In order to fix the negative image, one must show the public that nursing is a valued and respected job. This will in turn encourage people to consider nursing as a future job option thus allowing for more nurses to be employed. A surplus in nurses means a decline in the overall nursing shortage (Littlejohn & et. al