Nursing Shortage Solutions: States Propose New Measures To Support Nurses - NurseJournal (2023)

FAQs

What's really behind the nursing shortage? ›

Facts About the U.S. Nursing Shortage

More than half of current RNs are over the age of 50. In 2021, U.S. nursing schools turned away more than 91,000 qualified applicants due to a lack of faculty, education space, and resources.

Nursing shortages lead to errors, higher morbidity, and mortality rates. In hospitals with high patient-to-nurse ratios, nurses experience burnout, dissatisfaction, and the patients experienced higher mortality and failure-to-rescue rates than facilities with lower patient-to-nurse ratios.

There's a direct link between patient mortality, or risk of death, and a shortage of nurses. Facilities with fewer nurses tend to witness a 2-7% increase in mortality. When there are fewer nurses caring for patients, there's reduced patient safety, more medical errors, and failure-to-rescue situations.

Aging Nurse Population

Nurses retire at a higher rate as they get older. This causes a nursing shortage and makes it difficult for hospitals to find replacements. The average age of nurses in the United States is 52, implying that many will retire soon.

Faculty shortages at nursing schools across the country are limiting student capacity at a time when the need for professional registered nurses continues to grow. Budget constraints, an aging faculty, and increasing job competition from clinical sites have contributed to this crisis.

North Dakota saw an increase from 12.80 nurses per 1,000 people in 2020 to 15.24 in 2021, while California went from 7.77 per 1,000 people in 2020 to 8.27 in 2021, gaining over 17,000 more nurses over the year – the largest increase across states.

About 100,000 registered nurses left the workforce during the past two years due to stress, burnout and retirements, and another 610,388 reported an intent to leave by 2027, according to a study released by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing.

Inadequate or insufficient nurse staffing levels increase the risk of care being compromised, adverse events for patients, inferior clinical outcomes, in-patient death in hospitals and poorer patient experience of care.

What factors are contributing to the nursing shortage quizlet? ›

The nursing shortage is limited primarily to the United States. Downsizing for cost containment by hospitals contributed to the shortage. The use of unlicensed assistive personnel helped to supplement staffing shortages. Increasing the supply of nurses is an easy resolution to the shortage.

California has the worst nursing shortage in the United States. It's predicted that by 2030, California will be in need of over 44,000 nurses. Other states with major hospital staff shortages include New Mexico, Vermont, Rhode Island, West Virginia, and Arizona.

Health care staffing shortages lead to poor patient outcomes that can include hospital-acquired infections, patient falls and increased chances of death, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.

Not surprisingly, the shortage persisted. In fact nurse shortage conditions existed well into the 1960s. At that point the federal government again took action, passing the 1964 Nurse Training Act intended to increase the supply of nurses by providing significant funding for nurse education.

Some of the most common reasons for nurse burnout include long work hours, sleep deprivation, a high-stress work environment, lack of support, and emotional strain from patient care.

Burnout reduction programs can lead to more sustainable professional lives for nurses, less turnover, and positive impacts on the quality of patient care. Learn how integrated, evidence-based solutions at the point of care can support nurse leaders and their clinical staff.

What factors hinder nurses from carrying out nursing research? ›

“The lack of sufficient time for reading the studies,” “the lack of sufficient time to implement the new ideas,” “the lack of adequate facilities to implement the ideas,” “nurses' little interest in conducting studies,” and “the lack of authority to change the methods and patterns of care” with, respectively, 85%, 84.6 ...

Six factors were identified that affected the development of nursing competence in our systematic review: (1) work experience, (2) type of nursing environment, (3) educational level achieved, (4) adherence to professionalism, (5) critical thinking, and (6) personal factors.

Sources of external factors in a nursing program include financial funding, rules and regulations, accreditation, availability of clinical sites, and institutional factors. Let's look at these in more detail.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics expects nursing job growth of 12 percent through 2028—much faster than the average occupation. That's around 200,000 new RN positions that will need to be filled every year through 2026.

The COVID-19 pandemic pushed these shortages to crisis levels, with demand outweighing supply nearly everywhere.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects 9% job growth for registered nurses (RNs) and 45% job growth for nurse practitioners, nurse midwives, and nurse anesthetists between 2020 and 2030. Both percentages are significantly higher than the 8% average growth projected for all professions for the same period.

The nursing industry is changing at a rapid rate. With shifting technology, an aging patient population and new challenges brought on by federal legislation, the nursing industry is being forced to evolve to ensure that hospitals and other organizations are able to continue to provide the best possible care.

The nursing shortage affects patients, which has long been a problem for medical facilities. Patient care is frequently compromised due to nurse shortages and increased workloads. This can result in treatment delays, longer appointment wait times, and other issues with patient satisfaction.

The literature indicates that nurses value EBP; however, its implementation is inconsistent because it is often obstructed by many factors, such as paucity of facilities, time, resources, support, knowledge and skills, autonomy, and funding, as well as access limitations, which have been reported in several studies ...

Dig Deeper. Researchers estimated that the US will have a 10 to 20 percent nursing gap by 2025 as the number of patients needing care exceeds the number of nurses. The RN supply could potentially see a low of 2.4 million, while the RN demand could be a low of 2.8 million nurses.

What factor has had the greatest impact on the current nursing shortage quizlet? ›

The shortage of nursing faculty and clinical sites contributed significantly to the shortage.

None of the other options were significant contributors to the nursing shortage that began in the late 1990s. Which factor is considered the greatest obstacle to solving the projected nursing shortage? Feedback: The nursing faculty shortage will likely be the greatest obstacle to solving the projected nursing shortage.

The government can address the nursing shortage by dealing with the workforce issues that contribute to the nursing shortage. Increased training and support for nurses is one way to accomplish this. It will provide opportunities for professional development and growth.

Line chart showing that the number of registered nurses per 1,000 people in the United States age 65 and older has declined from 68.9 in 2003 to 73.2 in 2021.

The nursing process is a systematic problem-solving approach used to identify, prevent and treat actual or potential health problems and promote wellness. It has five steps; Assessment, Diagnosis, planning, implementation and evaluation [5].

The best way to manage nurse burnout is through prevention. Learning to identify the early warning signs is the first step toward avoiding a problem that puts you and your patients at risk.

The national nursing shortage dates back decades, but the COVID-19 pandemic pushed it to crisis levels. One study predicts that, in the next two years, there will be a shortage of up to 450,000 bedside nurses in the U.S. In countries around the world, medical workers are pleading for more support.

However, there is an estimated shortage of up to 13 million nurses around the world. The world would need millions more nurses to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 3.

California has the worst nursing shortage in the United States. It's predicted that by 2030, California will be in need of over 44,000 nurses.

But as inflation peaked, nursing and health unions demanded as much as a 14% pay rise for 2023/24, which would now be an above-inflation pay rise. With inflation having recently stopped, and with the government confident about halving it from 10% to 5%, this pay rise now looks to be in line with inflation.

What is an example of problem-solving as a nurse? ›

We use problem-solving approach in daily activities and nursing practice. For example, you use problem solving in deciding what to wear, when it is raining or while nursing a tracheotomy patient how to communicate. The problem solving process and the nursing process are cyclic (Burns and Grove, 1987).

Continuing professional education is an excellent way to manage stress and other challenges in nursing. Upskilling and training can offer fresh perspectives to health care practices and new career opportunities. Nurses who learn new skills, or invest in their careers, are typically more engaged with their work.

These are assessment, diagnosis, planning, implementation, and evaluation. Assessment is the first step and involves critical thinking skills and data collection; subjective and objective.