Summary
In healthcare settings, nurses constitute the core professionals that facilitate the provision of patient care services. Their overall contribution is essential to the well-being of sick individuals and the country as a whole. As a profession, nursing is attracting a large number of employment opportunities since the need to promote proper and quality healthcare practice is fundamental. However, despite the increasing number of people physicians in the sector, the rising rate of provider turnover across the globe is alarming and proper intervention is required. A shortage of nurses and other practitioners will lower the quality of care services thus leading to high morbidity, errors, and more deaths.
Relevance of the Topic
The role nurses play in the health care setting is crucial and their primary contribution saves many lives across the world. A decrease in the number of providers will imply a shortage of practitioners to attend to the needs of sick individuals including the aging population (Shamsi & Peyravi, 2020). Understanding the negative impacts associated with having a limited physicians in healthcare facilities will portray the bigger picture of the role nurses play in nursing practice. The purpose of the paper is to explore the limitation that relates to the decreasing number of providers and how the effect will shape the nature of care provision in the near future.
The need to improve the status of healthcare provision is the primary concern for many countries. The wealth of the nations is based on the health of the people therefore effective care delivery is necessary to enable individuals to overcome various health conditions that might hinder their productivity. Similarly, to deal with emerging diseases, adequate competent physicians must be available to ensure proper diagnosis and management of the conditions. The nurse beginners will require experienced practitioners to guide them through technical practices which might be a challenge provided such professionals are lacking in the facilities. The patient-nurse ratio will increase leading to poor care delivery because the number of providers will be less than the population of patients.
There are several challenges associated with the shortage of nurses in healthcare facilities. For instance, if competent practitioners resign from the nursing practice, the likelihood of incurring event errors might be higher leading to deaths (Spurlock, 2020). Similarly, patient satisfaction will be low because most sick individuals will not receive the attention of providers due to scarce doctors. This will affects the delivery of quality care to enhance the safety of patients.
Intended Goal
By addressing the issue, the focus is to induce change into the healthcare system that will ensure the increasing turnover being witnessed currently is curbed. For instance, research studies indicate that most professionals quit their professions due to burnout problems. In such a scenario, introducing changes that lower exhaustion will save the situation. By properly analyzing different causes of the problem, it will be easier to formulate a long-term solution to ensure the sustainability of practitioners for better and improved care services. Based on the resources and abilities of governments and healthcare organizations, achieving the goal of evoking change in the sector to curb the shortage factor is probable provided the institutions commit to implementing solutions.
Solutions
To overcome and reduce the nursing and physician challenges, a number of practices can be implemented by both the government and healthcare facilities. For instance, hospitals should formulate better ways to empower the practitioners as they offer their services to patients. This will make them feel valued hence lowering the nursing turnover. Moreover, applying effective staffing ratios is essential in lowering the nurse-to-patient ratio leading to reduced workload necessary for low work-related pressure.
References
Shamsi, A., & Peyravi, H. (2020). Nursing shortage, a different challenge in Iran: A systematic review. Medical journal of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 34, 8. Web.
Spurlock Jr, D. (2020). The nursing shortage and the future of nursing education is in our hands. Journal of Nursing Education, 59(6), 303-304. Web.