Describe at least three challenges nurses face today in care delivery. These can be ethical, legal, financial, or social. Provide at least one way to successfully overcome each challenge.

Describe at least three challenges nurses face today in care delivery. These can be ethical, legal, financial, or social. Provide at least one way to successfully overcome each challenge.

One of the biggest issues facing nurses today, even though it is an issue that has been coming for many years; is the nursing shortage. Even with the 3.9 million nurses that are currently employed in the US, an additional 1 million nurses will be needed in the next 2 years (Haddad et al., 2020). There are so many reasons for this, but two main reasons are that the population is aging quickly with 73% increase in people over the age of 65 in the US by the year 2019, bringing the total to 71 million vs 41 million less than 10 years ago (Haddad et al., 2020). Secondly, nurses are aging too, with one third of the workforce being within retirement position within the next 10 years (Haddad et al., 2020). This also begs the question of, “who will train the nurses that are up and coming?” One way to overcome these issues is to make the profession more desirable for young men and women who may want to pursue a career in nursing. Offer education incentives, increase the pay, increase the vacation time, have options for full-time work instead of having to work 2 jobs with no benefits. By doing some or all these things, we may be able to attract more young adults to the profession (Haddad et al., 2020). If we are going to be successful in attracting more young adults to the profession, we need to be sure that the harassment and bullying that is rampant in nursing, is not tolerated. 3 Reports show that more than 78% of nursing students report being bullied in nursing school with another 60% of working nurses leaving their job choice in the first 6 months of their career because of bullying in the workplace (Edmonson & Zelonka, 2019). This is an unacceptable practice that needs to stop if we are ever going to be successful in attracting more nurses to the workforce. Low staff morale, staffing shortages, a predominantly female workplace, and a desire to be “top dog” by some nurses all contribute to this egregious behavior (Edmonson & Zelonka, 2019). Workplaces need to adopt a zero-tolerance policy for this type of behavior by its nurses. Only then will some nurses realize that their behavior may have dire consequences. Lastly, especially now with the pandemic going on; workplace hazards are at the top of the list for professional challenges. Not only are nurses exposed to potentially life-threatening illnesses like COVID, but they are also exposed to violent patients, injury to themselves due to the demands of the job and other hazards like risk of needle stick injury (Haddad et al., 2020). Workplaces must ensure they are providing proper protection from these types of hazards by having policies in place to reduce risk, offer education programs so that nurses have the education they need to be protected, and make sure enough (and proper) PPE is available so that nurses aren’t exposed unnecessarily to pathogens.