Analysis of A Pertinent Healthcare Issue

Analysis of A Pertinent Healthcare Issue

The healthcare system encounters a host of pertinent issues that require interventions to improve the quality of care offered to patients and reduce costs. The Quadruple Aim framework focuses on ensuring quality access to care that leads to better patient experience, improvement of population health, reduced costs and enhancing the work life of healthcare providers (Arnetz et al., 2020). However, a pertinent healthcare issue that can impact this framework and public health in general as well as care delivery is personnel shortages, especially nursing shortage. The purpose of this paper is to discuss nursing shortage as a pertinent health issue and its impact on the organization.

Nursing Shortage and Impact on the Organization

Nurse staffing shortage is a critical issue that requires interventions because of its effects. Organizations and evidence from federal agencies like the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the American Nurses Association assert that there will be a significant increase in nursing jobs over the next five years compared to any occupation or profession. The Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that over 176,000 openings will be available for nurses in healthcare due to newly created roles as a result of advanced education and the need to address physician shortage, nurses leaving the profession and those retiring because of their age (Broome et al., 2022). The BLS assert that the nursing shortage will continue to bite the healthcare delivery as more Americans with diverse needs get access to care due to reforms through legislations at both state and federal levels.

Nursing shortage has serious implications on the organizations, especially in critical care situations and the need to deliver quality patient-centered interventions. The increased number of patients per nurse means poor quality of care due to strain and associated fatigue. Nurse shortage is a leading cause of burnout and nurse turnover. For instance, figures from the organization’s leaders show that over ten nurses left the facility in the last two years due to working on long shifts. Data also indicates a rise trend of missed nursing care in the facility due to the shortage (Tamata et al., 2023). The implication is that nursing shortage in any facility leads to increased cost of care and high turnover rates. Having limited nurse of nurses also leads to increased risk of patients to adverse events like medication errors and falls which the organization cannot get reimbursed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). As such, the entity loses funds when patients miss care or experience adverse events that preventable like falls, healthcare associated infections, and medication errors.

Summary of Studies on Nursing Shortage

In her article, Bourgault (2022) focuses on the issue of nursing shortage and work expectation for nurses caring for patients in critical care conditions. The article asserts that the COVID-19 pandemic, especially at its height during the Omicron wave, demonstrated the crisis of nursing shortage due to thousands of missed nursing care moments. Further, the article highlights the long hours that nurses are working, increased workload and patient acuity while others have to endure with mandatory overtime while also nursing health issues like COVID-19. The paper also highlights the unsafe conditions for nurses and other health care workers without protective personal equipment despite the heightened risk of infections. The implication is that the article highlights the current state of nursing shortage and need for innovative approaches to handle the situation. The article explores the need for policies to help organizations manage safe nurse-to-patient ratios.

The second article by Griffiths et al. (2018) identifies the association between nurse staffing and adverse patient events or outcomes, including mortality. The article asserts that by measuring the number and level of missed care, healthcare organizations can determine the adequacy of their nursing staff and develop innovative interventions to address the situation. The findings from the study indicate that low staffing levels lead to increased prevalence of missed care that result into poor patient outcomes.

Organizations Handling Nurse Staffing Shortage

Organizations are employing innovative approaches to deal with the nurse staffing shortage. These include a collaborative approach to ensure that nurses and their leaders can develop innovative approaches to improving care as opposed to all patients coming for physical visits. For instance, the integration of technologies like telehealth and telemedicine can help organizations address the issue. Nurses are on demand because of increased access to care through health care reforms and partly due to an aging population (Spurlock Jr., 2020).