Interprofessional Organizational and Systems Leadership

Please respond to the below discussion post, 1/2-3/4 page will surfice with 2 references 7th APA edition. Thanks. Week 1 Main Post Discussion Nursing Shortage.

This health care issue selected for this discussion is the overwhelming nursing shortage. The Nursing profession is rapidly growing in the United States; however, with normal attrition and many baby boomers fading into retirement, there is a huge deficit of qualified nurses to fill the available vacant positions.

According to Marc, Bartosiewicz, Burzynska, Chimiel & Januszewicz (2018, p. 10), Human resources for Health estimates that by 2035 the nursing deficit will reach an astounding 12.9 million mark.

This deficit will progress because of our aging population, and the absence of nursing instructors, high turnovers due to an overly taxed workforce. As a growing concern of the American health care system and the supply of available nurses, they cannot meet the growing demand.

This will also expand the pressure on medical schools to increase their output of qualified medical professionals. Another aspect is the increased health care costs. In the 1990s, many hospitals tried to cut costs by reducing staff and instituting mandatory overtime policies to meet community needs; in turn, there was an increase in nursing workloads.

The unfortunate aspect of these mandatory overtime policies is that it ultimately brings about injury, job dissatisfaction, increased pressures, and stress, which leads to nursing errors and mistakes that result in a reduction in patient quality of care and satisfaction. According to the American Nurses Association (ANA), the growing nursing shortage has resulted in being a contributing factor of cases that have resulted in injury, death, and /or permanent loss of function.

Many institutions have implemented large sign-on bonuses and advertised generous salary increases to entice qualified nurses to apply to their institutions and fill their needs.

Unfortunately, this is not always beneficial because nurses after the baby boomer age tend to follow the money and lack loyalty to their present facility. So, nurses from one hospital in town will transfer to another hospital in town for financial gain and wait for the next offering to move again and makes these short-term solutions.

A more effective measure to address these issues would be to review internal policies and procedures for improved productivity, improved utilization of medical assistants, and upgrading new and innovative technologies to improve efficiency. Organizations may also offer paid training opportunities, tuition reimbursement, comprehensive compensation packages, and increasing advancement and growth opportunities.

Marshal and Broome (2017, p.72) stated that “the nursing supply between 2013 and 2025 is expected to exceed demand within a projected 3,849.000 nurses available for 3,509,000 positions and excess of 340,000 nurses.

As nurses, we must work together to remedy the nursing shortage issue, and dangling carrots is fine for a short-term fix; however, this situation requires a long-term sustainable fix.  The key is becoming innovative with our nursing practices and be creative with streamlining quality policies that will help nurses do their jobs better with improved patient outcomes and reduced costs.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               References: American Nurses Association (ANA) (n. d.). Workforce. Retrieved from     Marc, M., Bartosiewicz, A., Burzynska, J., Chimiel, Z., & Januszewicz, P. (2918). A nursing shortage – a prospect of global and local policies. International Nursing Review, 66(1), 9-16. Retrieved from . Marshall, E. S., & Broome, M. E. (2017). Transformational leadership in nursing: From expert clinician to influential leader (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Springer