Capstone Project: Addressing the Issue of Nursing Shortage

Capstone Project Change Proposal Name Institutional Affiliation Date
Background
The nursing shortage in the US is one of the greatest issues affecting the healthcare industry. The World Health Organization(WHO) points out that there are about 29 million nurses and midwives across the world CITATION WHO18 \l 1033 (WHO, 2018). Out of the total population of the nurses in the world, 3.9 million of them are found in the US. WHO approximates that about 1 million nurses will be needed by 2020. The American Nurses Association also approximates that there will be more jobs available in the nursing field by 2022 than any other field CITATION Ame18 \l 1033 (American Nurses Association, 2018). In 2018, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics said that about 1.1 million nurses are needed to avoid nursing shortageCITATION USB18 \l 1033 (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2018). The above information serves to show the growing issue of the nursing shortage in the US. There are so many factors associated with the nursing shortage in the US. One of the common factors associated with the shortage is the ageing population. There is an increase in the baby boomers who need the nursing healthcare service while on the other side there is an ageing workforce. This means that addressing the issue of nursing shortage requires you to take into account a number of factors. According to research carried out by Hayward and Wolf (2016), one of the factors that contribute to the nursing shortage is the nursing workload CITATION Dan162 \l 1033 (Dana & Angela, 2016).
Problem Statement
Nurses play a critical role in the healthcare system. If the necessary measures are not put in place, the US healthcare system will experience a shortage of about 1 million nurses as indicated by the US labour statistics report by 2020. This would lead to the delivery of poor healthcare services. While most of the healthcare professionals are aware of this predicted shortage, most of them seem unconcerned. There are also a number of practices which have been put in place to curb the shortage CITATION The15 \l 1033 (Therese, Kris, Katharina, Koen, & Rene, 2015). Others have worked while others have failed to resolve the issue.
Purpose of the Change Proposal
The purpose of the change proposal was to address the issue of workload among the nurses to increase the quality of services they are offering and reduce incidences of their shortage. A heavy workload for the nurses often leads to burn out. Burn out is associated with other common factors in the healthcare setting such as decreased patient satisfaction, delivery of poor quality services, urinal tract infections and respiratory infections CITATION Kih15 \l 1033 (Kihye, Alison, & Ayse, 2015). When most nurses are faced with such health problems, most of them consider resigning or retiring CITATION San14 \l 1033 (Sang‐Sook & Jeong‐Won, 2014). This further deteriorates the situation. This proposal seeks to resolve all these issues by focusing more on reducing the workload for the nurses. To reduce the workload, the proposal contains two approaches; reducing the number of duties assigned to nurses and opening up nursing training schools at health facilities. The strategies proposed in the proposal ca...