The global trends in the field of nursing indicate a rapid shortage of staff in all types of healthcare facilities. Such a situation implies a range of difficulties resulting in unsatisfactory patient outcomes. The reducing number of nurses causes more responsibilities for the professionals and leads to the diminished safety of medical interventions. There are several reasons that influence the emergence of the shortage problem, the most crucial of which is the aging population.
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The world’s population is becoming older as the generation of baby boomers reaches their retirement age. According to Haddad and Toney-Butler (2019), the number of Americans in the age of more than 65 is the highest in US history. It is logical that the older the people, the more health problems they have. Another side of the event of the aging population is the consequent aging workforce. More nurses retire, leaving more vacancies available and not taken. Therefore, the nurse to patient ratio increases imposing impeded healthcare for the aging patients and more workload for nurses (Haddad & Toney-Butler, 2019). Specific measures are needed to be taken to avert the adverse tendency of the nursing shortage and to improve the quality of healthcare services.
Since the aging trends impose more workload and more severe working conditions for nurses, it is essential to implement some efforts aimed at simplifying their job. According to the World Health Organization (2020), systematic work is being done in this field in the world, in general, and in the USA, in particular. Specific measures are applied to enhance the professional potential of the nurses employed in the hospitals, namely, management methods improvement, leadership effectiveness fostering, and optimizing the work with technological advances (WHO, 2020). Thus, although nursing encounters significant problems caused by staff shortage, systematic efforts contribute to the elimination of the difficulties.
Haddad, L. M., & Toney-Butler, T. J. (2019).Nursing shortage. Web
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