Analysis of the Nursing Workforce Projection

Nursing Workforce Projection NY
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Nursing Workforce Projection NY
According to a report by the American Journal of Medical Quality, the current shortage of registered nurses is expected to continue until 2030, with RN shortage projected to be most intense in the western and southern states. This prediction is despite reports by the Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting that registered nursing is one of the fastest growing occupations in terms of job openings. The bureau calculates that the industry will have 179,900 openings for RNs annually through 2029, after factoring workforce exits and nurse retirements into the number of RNs needed in America (AACN, 2020). However, the recent calls for a higher proportion of baccalaureate-trained nurses to 80 percent of the workforce and doubling of clinicians with doctoral degrees is projected to exacerbate the existing RN shortage challenge.
The inability of nursing schools to meet increasing educational demands coupled by an expanding ageing population means that those on the workforce are facing increasingly heavy workloads to make up for the national nurse shortage. Heavy nursing workload has been associated with adverse impacts on patient safety, nurse safety, and job satisfaction. Nurses’ attentiveness at the bedside, especially in acute care settings, is crucial to safeguarding patient safety and a heavy workload compromises the clinician’s ability to provide safe care. Nurses with huge workloads and working in hard-pressed environments are quickly overburdened and experience burnout (Fagerstrom et al., 2018). They are also likely to under-report and several studies show that patient safety incidents increase as their workload goes above optimal levels.
Overburdened nurses are also unlikely to rigorously follow safety procedures and procedures in their work practices: because of the high-pressure environment they are operating in, they may choose to forego certain precautions and endanger their own safety. They may be forced to work in awkward positions, spend significant amounts of time walking and standing, and do a lot of heavy manual liftin...