Students will develop a 1,250-1,500 word paper that includes the following information as it applies to the problem, issue, suggestion, initiative Students will develop a 1,250-1,500 word paper that includes the following information as it applies to the problem, issue, suggestion, initiative, or educational need profiled in the capstone change proposal Students will develop a 1,250-1,500 word paper that includes the following information as it applies to the problem, issue, suggestion, initiative, or educational need profiled in the capstone change proposal.

Students will develop a 1,250-1,500 word paper that includes the following information as it applies to the problem, issue, suggestion, initiative Students will develop a 1,250-1,500 word paper that includes the following information as it applies to the problem, issue, suggestion, initiative, or educational need profiled in the capstone change proposal Students will develop a 1,250-1,500 word paper that includes the following information as it applies to the problem, issue, suggestion, initiative, or educational need profiled in the capstone change proposal.

Capstone Project Final

BackgroundThe nursing shortage is one of the major issues that need immediate attention in the US and other parts of the world. According to Kim, Park, Han, Kim and Kim (2016), the US government employed more than 100,000 new nurses in 2002. However, the demand for nurses in the c

ountry was not affected by the move. The author argued that the government should do more to combat the problem in a move to improve patient outcome. One of the issues that were found to cause a nursing shortage in healthcare facilities is low employee satisfaction.Lisa, Cydne, Altair, Paul and Michael (2017) mentioned that the majority of nurses who leave the healthcare industry often do that because they are not happy with their current working environment. Also, low wages can be another key factor that leads to a nursing shortage within healthcare facilities.

Lack of motivation programs in the facility can also be linked to the high rate of nurse shortage in the health care sector. The ever-increasing world population also causes the nursing shortage. The population of the world is growing, but few people are joining the nursing profession.

Nurse shortage has many drastic effects on patients and hospitals. Alharbi (2017) reports that nurses often work for long hours without rest due to nurse shortage, and this can cause injury, fatigue, and tiredness among the nurses. Another effect of nurse shortage is employee dissatisfaction. Kim et al.

(2016) argue that nurses are always dissatisfied in a working environment where they are overworked.

Nursing shortage can also lead to medical errors and missed events because of fatigue and tiredness. As a result, care quality can be affected, and this can lead to patient dissatisfaction. Lastly, nurse shortage can cause an increased mortality rate and overcrowding of the emergency rooms (Tacy, 2016).

Clinical Problem Statement

The nursing shortage is one of the major problems affecting the healthcare sector. According to Nantsupawat et al. (2017), the nursing shortage causes the health industry about $400 million every year. Apart from the economic effect, the nursing shortage can lead to nurse burnout because the available few nurses are forced to work for long hours without rest.

McKechnie (2016) argues that nurse shortage is the main reason for several cases of medical errors across healthcare institutions. When the nurses are fatigued and tired, they are most likely to conduct activities that may lead to medical errors and missed events. Thus, the healthcare sector should strive to reduce nurse shortage in a move to improve patient care.

Changing health care system

Purpose of the change proposal concerning providing patient care in the changing health care system.

The sole purpose of this capstone project is to propose solutions that can be used to improve the number of nurses in the healthcare sector so that they can improve patient care by providing quality care.

PICOT Question

For patients admitted in ICU (P), does putting in place a fixed nurse staffing ratios (I) as compared to not having fixed nurse staffing ratios (C) affect patient outcomes(O) during their hospitalization period under intensive care (T)?

Literature search strategy employed

The search for articles published not later than five years were conducted via Grand Canyon University online library. These databases include the Wiley online library, National Institutes of Health library (NIH), and National Center for Biotechnology Information library (NCBI). Google Scholar was also used to search for the articles. Nursing shortage, staffing ratios, and nurse burnout are some of the search terms used in the strategy. To ensure that the search was exhaustive, variations of the terms were used. After the search for the articles, the resources found were evaluated.

Evaluation of the Literature

Eight articles were used to answer the PICOT question. An article by Alharbi (2017) concluded that