National Nursing Shortage Leads to Inadequate Staff

• A national nursing shortage has been a persistent problem of our healthcare system. The nursing shortage is still on the rise as baby boomers are retiring. 
• With the average turnover rate being 17.8% of the last five years, this leads to numerous positions open and little filling of them. 
• Overworked, understaffed, and feelings out burnout lead to poorer quality of care, and questions about patient safety. 

Overview of National Nursing Shortage

The staffing shortage in nursing has always been a major concern in our healthcare system. The national nursing shortage has been escalating over the past decade.  

Baby boomer nurses are at the age of retirement, which is further increasing the national nursing shortage.  

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 194,500 average annual openings for registered nurses between 2020 and 2030, with employment projected to grow by 9%.  

On average 17.8% of registered nurses’ turnover is reported every year of full-time employees. There are numerous reasons behind increased nurse turnover. It includes workplace violence, lack of support and motivation, pandemic, job dissatisfaction, low nurse-to-patient ratio, etc.

Due to these and many other reasons, many nurses decide to quit, and the jobs remain unfilled. In turn, the nurses who are on job feel overworked, stressed out and dissatisfied. When healthcare organizations have inadequate nurses, the well-being of patients becomes compromised.  

National Nursing Shortage and Patient Safety

The national nursing shortage is directly related to patient safety. The less time a nurse spends with their patient due to overwork, or staffing shortage, the more negatively the patient safety is impacted.  

The national nursing shortage impacts the patient safety in several ways;  

• It decreases the quality of care a patient receives 
• It lowers the patient satisfaction scores  
• Increase the patient mortality rate  
• Emergency rooms become overcrowded with patients  
• Medication errors are increasing and are the third leading cause of patient death in the United States 

Patient safety is a collaborative effort of all healthcare workers. Patient safety means there should be no harm to the patient, by focusing care delivery system that ensures the prevention of errors.  

Nurses constitute a major part of our healthcare system. We are directly interacting with the patients, by repeatedly monitoring the patient’s condition, communicating with them, administering medicines, and filling in the discharge information.  

This one-to-one interaction of the nurse with the patient is highly important to provide accurate and quality care to the patient.   

But when nurses are overworked, they have lesser time to interact with the patients due to short staffing and become at risk of committing medical errors. 

National Nursing Shortage and Quality of Care

How does understaffing affect the nurse’s quality of care?  

• Additional interruption during work, being overworked or exhausted can increase the chances of patient safety errors.  
• An understaffed healthcare facility puts the same amount of workload on fewer nurses, and they end up working longer shifts and overtime.  
• Overworked nurses are more prone to mental breakdown, emotional downfall, and compromised physical health. It directly impacts their ability to provide care to individual patients.  
• Nurses working under constant stress can develop psychological and muscular disorders such as; anxiety, stress, depression, and musculoskeletal disorders.   
• Nurses with poor mental and physical health more often ask for leaves and remain absent from work. It contributes further to already occurring staffing issues and eventually impacts patient safety.  
• Overwhelmed nurses can overlook details or not fully engage with patients. This can leave patients feeling dissatisfied with nurse performance and can even lead to the death of the patient. 
  

Why Organizations Should Address the National Nursing Shortage

The national nursing shortage needs to be addressed before it gets progressively worse. Poorer quality of care and patient outcomes come with hefty price tags, even legal trouble.

Below are additional consequences if the shortage remains unaddressed.

• A shortage of nurses can result in missed care to the patient due to poor interaction between patient and nurse.  
• Patients become dissatisfied when they don’t get quality care.  
• Patients can lose their trust and confidence in the care provided by nurses.  
• Patients are the ultimate consumers of the healthcare industry. An increased number of dissatisfied patients can damage their reputations.  

The Bottom Line

Therefore, healthcare organizations should prioritize and focus on retaining their nurses by providing them with an effective and supportive work environment. Employers should allow registered nurses to work together by creating a flexible staffing schedule for their units.  

It’s time for them to acknowledge the need to implement effective measures to ensure nurse retention and satisfaction in their positions. It will in turn benefit both the patient outcomes and organizational goals. 

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