Nursing Shortage and How it Affects Patient's Safety

Nursing Shortage and How It Affects Patient Safety
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Nursing Shortage and How It Affects Patient Safety
Introduction
The shortage of nurses in healthcare facilities presented as the nurse-patient ratio is primary among the challenges facing healthcare presently. The amount of work that nurses have to endure directly affects the quality of care and patient safety by extension. A high nurse-patient ratio has been linked to adverse outcomes including burnout among nurses, increased stress among nurses, and decline in the possibility of survival among patients in intensive care, as well as increased patient mortality. Conversely, there is published evidence indicating that low nurse-patient ratios lead to better patient outcomes. Hence, the PICOT statement for this presentation asks: among nurses with chronic burnout, what would be the effects of enhancing nurse retention strategies compared to increasing nurse enrollment to address the nursing shortage challenges affecting the US healthcare facilities in the next ten years?
Organizational Culture and Readiness
Healthcare organizations have a primary role in addressing nurse shortages stemming from their culture and readiness to address the challenge. Superficially, organizational culture implies marks the practices, expectations, and values that guide activities within specific organizations (Sadati et al., 2021). In addressing the nursing shortage, healthcare organizations must begin by assessing their practices, expectations, and values and gauging them against their resources. From such an analysis, the organizations should be ready to implement newer strategies in taming nursing shortages. Based on how organizations define their cultures, they should understand the most appropriate option between retaining nurses and opting for a larger influx from the learning institutions.
Problem Statement and Literature Review
Problem Statement
There is an increasing challenge of nursing shortage in most healthcare facilities. Part of the challenge stems from the understanding that healthcare facilities are not ready to approach the issue with the vigor that it demands (Sadati et al., 2021). Stakeholders in healthcare must understand the impacts of poor staffing, including burnout among nurses, increased stress among nurses, and decline in the possibility of survival among patients in intensive care, as well as increased patient mortality.
Literature Review
Presently, there are a few strategies that such facilities can employ to address the issue. Primary among the strategies would be implementing an aggressive retention strategy (Van der Heijden et al., 2019). With such a strategy, healthcare organizations will employ nurses and create a valid workplace environment for them. Part of the inputs includes implementing proper performance appraisal. Healthcare facilities can as well collaborate with other stakeholders to increase enrollment in learning institutions. The choice of strategy should depend on the needs of healthcare facilities (Otto et al., 2019). Implementing retention strategies seem more valid for both short-term and long-term s...