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How Shortage of Nurses Reduces the Quality of Patient Care

Nekeshia Stevens

Rasmussen University

G171/COM1388 Communicating in Your Profession

Gabe Stenzel

2/5/2023

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How Shortage of Nurses Reduces the Quality of Patient Care

Table of contents

Table of contents 1

APA Outline 2

Introduction 3

Proposal Purpose 4

Proposal Problem 5

Proposal Solution 6

Proposal Conclusion 7

References 8

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APA Outline

Proposal Purpose:

A. To get more nurses recruited and offer a quality caregiving environment to ensure a

constant flow of patient care services in the medical facilities.

a. To decrease nurses’ workloads to ensure one nurse focuses on a single patient

to provide quality care is attained.

b. Increase the medical learning facilities to ensure that there are many prepared

nurses to fill the gaps of the retired nurse.

Proposal Problem:

A. The reduced number of nurses has led to a decrease in quality patient care, thus

increasing death rates in hospitals.

B. The poor environments in health facilities drive nurses away from certain institutions,

leaving a shortage of nurses.

C. A shortage of nurses increases the nurses’ workloads, thus reducing their efficiency in

providing quality care.

Proposal Possible solutions:

A. Recruitment of freshly graduated nursing practitioners to try to cover the gaps left by

retired nurses to reduce the excess workload on nurses.

B. Funding nursing education and research all over the country ensure quality training is

accorded to the nursing task force, thus, quality maintenance.

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Proposal Conclusion

A. Health care is essential in life, leading to the increased demand for nursing practitioners

to carter for patients.

B. Reduced task force leads to increased workload, reducing the patient quality of care.

C. The best solution to the nursing shortage is educating more nurses, equipping the learning

facilities, and employing freshly graduated nurses to reduce the Shortage.

Proposal Introduction

The all-time demand for health care increases the need for nurses, and despite this, in the

last few years, the number of nurses in the U.S has declined immensely (Johnson et al., 2016).

To prevent nurses Shortage from becoming a critical issue in the U.S., the American Association

of Nurses is required to recruit more than one million nurses in the coming few years. The

reduction of nurses changes the scope of health care, thus reducing the quality of patient care

offered, and impromptu solutions to the problem are necessary, as displayed by this proposal.

Proposal Purpose

Enough nursing personnel in medical facilities are an assurance of quality care among the

patients. This is mainly applicable in a patient who needs immediate care and monitoring as this

is the primary function of the nurses; they are mainly focused on offering direct patient care, and

thus past studies have linked quality patient care to the general performance of the nursing

department (Hassmiller & Cozine, 2006). The nurses’ performance is mainly influenced by the

quality of the institution’s environment. Thus, this calls for the facilities to play their role in

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improving the hospitals’ environment to ensure they retain nurses who are the backbone of the

medical facilities. This paper aims to assess how the reduction of nurses caused by factors such

as the ageing of former nurses has affected the provision of quality patient care. The aim is to

assess the relationship between nurses’ reduction and low-quality in-patient care, an essential

aspect of effective interventions introduced to the patient.

Proposal Problem

Nurses, the backbone of medical institutions, thus play a key role in maintaining quality

patient care, which is the measured value of a productive hospital. The reduction of nurses in

America and the world at large thus obstructs the provision of quality patient care within

facilities; this, in turn, reduces the patient’s chances of recovery. Nurses engage directly with the

patient in caregiving, and thus reduced number of nurses means the existing practitioners hold

many patients, which means a drop in the quality of the care provided (American Journal of

Nursing, 2022). Therefore, it is crucial to understand the causal effects of reduced nursing

practitioners and low-quality patient care to develop the best models to solve the problem. In the

past, the issue of a lower number of nurses has affected the care given, which to some extent

leads to loss of life; for instance, during the Covid-19 pandemic, some third-world countries ad

to get medical assistance because the lower number of nurses created a challenge to cater for the

Covid-19 patients (American Journal of Nursing, 2022). Thus, Shortage of nurses is a menace to

the provision of patient care, and thus solutions to curb the issue should be developed.

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https://www.nationalnursesunited.org/ratios

Proposal Solutions

Having established the effects of a low number of nurses on quality patient care, there is

an opportunity to develop programs that would curb the menace. To begin with, the correlation

between nurse shortage and poor patient care is based on overloading the nurses. Therefore, one

recommended solution is an increase in nurses’ intake rate. The demand for nurses, as shown in

the problem statement of this paper, shows a gap in employing nurses, and the situation is worse

in marginalized regions, which demand more nurses. At the same time, there are a large number

of nurse graduates from colleges and higher learning institutions which means that using the

right programs and selection criteria, the Shortage of nurses can be reduced by employing fresh

graduates (Littlejohn et al., 2012).

In addition, there is also a need to invest in nursing and medical institution to provide the

country with adequate qualified nurses to replace the ones retiring from practitioners. Another

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solution to the nurse shortage is correcting the environments that may drive out nurses from their

facilities. Littlejohn et al. (2012) postulate that one of the reasons why facilities lose nurses is

poor working conditions. Therefore bettering the medical facilities ensures the nurses remain

within the facility and have adequate equipment to provide quality patient care.

Proposal Conclusion

In conclusion, health care is essential and compulsory, thus the increased demand for

nursing practitioners. Nurses interact one-on-one with the patients and are thus considered

primary patient caregivers. Reducing nurses leads to increased burdens and workloads for the

available nurses, making it hard for them to tend to all the patients effectively. Therefore patient

care quality is reduced due to the increased workloads resulting from reduced nursing

practitioners; a correlation between the Shortage of nurses and poor quality of patient care is

hence seen. The problem affects marginalized areas with fewer nurses, and this is risky in times

of national or international health pandemics. The possible solutions to reduce the menace of

nurse shortage on quality of patient care includes recruiting more nurses who are freshly

graduated from higher learning institutions; it is also recommended to invest in nursing

education to ensure a larger population has knowledge in the field of nursing to curb shortage

effects. Also, creating suitable and conducive hospital environments is a solution to ensure that

facilities retain their nurses to reduce the chances of shortages. A nurse in a good working

environment is likely to stick to it and give their best performance.

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References

American Journal of Nursing. (2022). Nursing shortage or exodus? AJN, American Journal of

Nursing, 122(3), 12-13. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.naj.0000822928.16774.9a

Hassmiller, S. B., & Cozine, M. (2006). Addressing the nurse shortage to improve the quality of

patient care. Health Affairs, 25(1), 268-274. https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.25.1.268

Johnson, W. G., Butler, R., Harootunian, G., Wilson, B., & Linan, M. (2016). Registered nurses:

The curious case of a persistent shortage. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 48(4), 387–

396. https://doi.org/10.1111/jnu.12218

Littlejohn, L., Campbell, J., Collins-McNeil, J., & ThembisileKhayiled. (2012). Nursing

Shortage: A Comparative Analysis. International Journal of Nursing, 1(1), 22–27.

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