Shortage of staffing in the nursing profession is a crucial situation for the healthcare centers that is needed to be addressed in order to get the desired health related outcomes. The increasing trend of burnout among the nursing professionals is found to be the antecedent of poor compensation practices, poor management, workload, demotivating career paths and inappropriate workplace behavior. The concerned authorities should develop such compensatory and workplace policies that not only retain the existing nursing professionals but also attract the potential candidates for nursing in order to address the future demand and reduce the shortage of staffing.
Shortage of Staffing
Antecedents of Shortage in Staffing
Analysis of Nurses' Availability and Requirement
Suggestive Measures
Conclusion
REFERENCES
Shortage of Staffing
Staffing is reflected as the process in which the potential workforce is attracted and after the selection of the best applicants; they are acquired and then retained by means of effective staffing policies. However, the shortage of staffing indicates that the potential supply of workforce is not able to meet the existing demand of the workplace. The phenomenon with respect to the nursing professionals preludes the identical impression where the demand of nursing professionals is not able to meet the existing supply of available nurses. The shortage may prevail either at a specific healthcare center, specific regional, national or at a global extent (Duffield & O'Brien-Pallas, 2003).
The nurses are responsible to develop a systematic plan in accordance with the patients' requirements to provide support in the clinical, surgical and recovery procedures and they also should possess an adequate knowledge which increases the health results. They are respected and dignified in all the cultures with the role they play in the society and are prompted to utilize their professional practices to the fullest while providing services to their patients so that the therapeutic objectives of the workplace can be maintained and the health objectives of patients can be optimized (McHugh et al., 2011).
The shortage in the nursing staff has challenged the healthcare facilities not only to provide a better healthcare facility to patients but the expectancy of patient's improvement is also found to be decreased. The nurses who are experienced in their fields also tend to possess the related qualification which provides them with the opportunity to diversify and work in the fields that are not related to the healthcare. The increasing trend of global migration has resulted in the misbalance of the prior nurses' school enrollment trends and thus the shortage has improvised in an unexpected manner (Duffield & O'Brien-Pallas, 2003). Therefore, it has become very important to analyze the trends about the potential current and future supply of nurses so that that the suggestive measures can be formulated to meet the future demands with respect to the availability of nurses.
Antecedents of Shortage in Staffing
According to the analysis conducted by Kimball and O'Neal (2002)with respect to the shortage of staffing in the nursing professional, the potential shortage in nursing is considered to be the antecedents by several notions and out of the total population of United States, 22.7% of the total population is clustered as baby boomers who are aged above 45 years and hence, the baby boomers population exclusively requires the healthcare facilities with the passage of time. Therefore, the potential increase in the demand has resulted in the shortage of nursing staff to meet these requirements. Moreover, the requirement of the workplace practices indicates that the nursing professionals who are aged in their mid-50s are not able to work according to the working standards and the practice is not considered to be optimized. The nurses' workforce in the U.S. is found to be aged 44 on average which indicates that the existing nursing professionals will be retired in the coming decade and will leave a large gap in the supply side of the workforce. Also, the profession of nursing has been revolving around the services provided by women rather than man but still the change in norms has been occurred and with an increasing opportunity in the other occupational fields; women have become far much diversified in their fields of interests. On the other hand, the change in norms has not impacted the occupational preferences of men who are found to be deprived from the enrollment in the nursing profession.
According to Spence-Laschinger et al., (2009), the workload in the field of nursing is considered to be one of the most significant antecedent which has resulted in the reduced supply of nursing professionals....
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