Staffing Shortage. Staffing Shortage in Healthcare

Staffing Shortage in Healthcare Name Institutional Affiliation
Staffing Shortage in Healthcare    A recent survey carried out among doctors, nurses, and healthcare managers revealed the deep-seated staffing shortage in health care. Approximately 80% of the respondents expressed fear that there was not enough staff to give quality care to the patient. Moreover, 49% of the respondents felt that no action was being taken to correct the situation. The study also found out that junior doctors were being overburdened by being in charge of more than 400 patients in some instances (Johnson, 2018). This compromised the quality of care that they gave to the patients. Stress, burnout, inconsistent care, and mistakes are bound to occur in such situations. Vacancy figures in nursing are at an all high level, with the available nurses having to manage double the number of patients they are supposed to manage their respective departments. The study gives a picture of the situation in different health institutions across the country. The staffing shortage can be attributed to various factors. First, the population is increasingly aging and hence, placing higher pressure on the existing workforce. The number of healthcare professionals, especially nurses graduating from colleges has declined over the years. This, coupled with the fact that a high number of nurses are retiring or nearing retirement age means that the existing workforce is increasingly getting stretched (MacLean et al., 2014). Also, the financial constraints that health institutions find themselves in make it hard to hire the required number of staff. However, since the staffing shortage has been shown to compromise the quality of care given, which can, in turn, lead to increased expenditure due to readmissions, morbidity, and mortality, there is a need to address the issue. Over time, as well as premium pay and higher rates, offered for temporary staff further inflate the health care costs. This paper seeks to discuss a change that could help address the challenge.  Change to Address Staffing Shortage Health institutions are increasingly getting understaffed as a result of the stress and burnout that understaffing causes, the rate of staff turnover is significantly high further worsening the situation. Therefore, the most impactful solution would be to come up with measures that would enable the institutions to attract and retain qualified staff. Fewer graduates are being obtained from colleges. To successfully attain the required number of health care workers, health institutions should establish stronger collaborations with various training centers and colleges as a way of recruiting future staff. Since the demand for health care workers is higher than the supply, this move would greatly help in the recruitment of staff and hence, bridge the gap. Rigid scheduling is the major reason why healthcare workers, especially nurses, leave their institutions. Lack of independence among nurses is also a major cause for turnover (Mazurenko, Gupte, & Shan, 2015). Shared governance helps give nurses a sense of ownership over their units and lowers the rate of turnover.  This institution strives to provide the highes...