There is a great need for nurses all over the world — specifically, 13 million by 2030. The International Council on Nurses (ICN) aptly calls this massive nursing shortage a global health emergency, with health systems all over the world needing to invest in a robust nursing workforce to continuously support patient safety and well-being.
The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated the challenges that have been plaguing the nursing profession for decades. Nurses are feeling tired, stressed, and burned out, and are continuing to leave the profession in droves. In fact, in three years’ time, some 600,000 nurses are projected to call it quits.
As the number of nurses continues to dwindle in the country, patient demand is expected to rise. The aging population, or Americans ages 65 and older, will reach a staggering 80 million in 2040. This population is heavily dependent on healthcare professionals to help them with their physical and mental needs, including activities of daily living and medication administration.
As the aging population continues to grow and more and more nurses retire, what will happen to patients across the country?
This article aims to shed light on what will happen to healthcare facilities and hospitals when they lack enough nurses to keep things afloat and what nursing shortages mean for the country’s sick, vulnerable, and aging population.
Nursing shortage: The adverse effects
Hospitals, nursing homes, and healthcare facilities that lack nurses will run into various challenges that will inevitably negatively impact the well-being of nurses and the safety of patients:
Nurse burnout
As more nurses say goodbye, those who will be left will need to deal with longer shifts and higher patient-to-nurse ratios. Research has shown that understaffed nursing units lead to increased stress and burnout in nurses.
Increased medication errors
It’s been reported that nurses are three times more likely to commit medication administration errors when they’re working shifts longer than 12.5 hours each on more than two consecutive days. Because the number of patients outnumbers that of nurses, nurses have less time to spend with each patient, which can lead to medication errors and lapses in judgment.
Higher morbidity and mortality rates
Based on a 2020 study conducted by the Asia Pacific Journal of Allied Health Sciences, when fewer competent nurses are tending to patients, there is a higher number of mortality and morbidity cases, as well as failure to recover rates. Patients who don’t get proper nursing assistance post-surgery are also more likely to have higher mortality rates.
Readmission rates are also higher when facilities are short on nurses. It’s been reported that there was a 21% greater chance for readmission due to nursing shortages.
Novice nurses don’t get the support, training they need
As more experienced nurses leave the profession, newer nurses don’t get the support and training they need to navigate the challenging profession. And when new nurses don’t get the training, constructive feedback, and emotional support they need, they’re more likely to leave. In fact, a 2021 study has found that 47.7% of new nurses had difficulties adapting to the profession and 42.5% had considered leaving the profession.
What facilities can do to battle the nursing shortage
Healthcare facilities can’t afford to have high nursing turnover rates, which is why they should do all they can to have a robust nursing workforce to ensure patient care continuity and a healthier community.
Facilities must create a positive working environment for their nurses through communication and engagement programs and the creation of policies that will ensure that nurse-to-patient ratios are kept to a minimum.
They can also make sure that they hire skilled and experienced nurses via a trustworthy healthcare staffing agency that can help address fluctuations in patient demands and alleviate workloads. At Oculus Health, we try our best to keep nurses happy and motivated by offering competitive wages, hiring new grads and nurses with minimal experience, providing training and buddy-up support systems, conducting frequent in-services to review policies and procedures to minimize clinical errors, and keeping shifts at 12 hours or shorter.
