The Effects of Nursing Shortages Term Paper by Quality Writers

The Effects of Nursing Shortages
A paper highlighting the nursing shortage in hospital emergency rooms.
# 102469 | 1,510 words | 9 sources | APA | 2008 | US
Published on Mar 25, 2008 in Medical and Health (Nursing)


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Description:

This paper describes the nursing shortage in the United States and elsewhere, and reviews literature pertaining to the underlying factors behind it. The author also explains how this impacts on the emergency department setting and provides some solutions as to how this factor could be overcome.

From the Paper:

"The nursing shortage in the United States and elsewhere is not a new phenomenon. This shortage can be traced to several factors, including those pertaining to personal and financial equity, the presence of more lucrative career options, high attrition rates of new graduates and personal satisfaction. With the coming realization that the health care infrastructure of the Unites States is less than satisfactory and more and more in danger of collapse as the "baby boomer" generation retires, health care professionals, particularly nurses, face an even bigger dilemma.
"Veteran" nurses in an emergency department setting are invaluable members of this particular department, particularly due to their clinical expertise and knowledge of department operations. They are the long-term staff that man, administer and manage the department even as other transient health care staff such as physicians-in-training come and go, they are indispensable repositories of operational knowledge changed and refined over the years to serve the community within which the hospital is based. While global turnover rates for nurses remain higher than other professions, those that choose to remain within the emergency department have a responsibility to pass on their knowledge to novices working within their department, regardless of profession. Nurses with substantial clinical experience in the same setting for years on end often set standards upon newer staff. These are important when one considers the relatively fast-paced tempo of any given emergency department. Acute patient cases are triaged, seen and examined, assessed, immediately treated, worked up for more diagnostics and discharged or admitted for observation with the intended goal of seeing all consults and giving them a definite disposition. An emergency care unit accomplishes this by ensuring a constant flow of patients in and out of its domain in order to be prepared for more urgent cases. The multiple roles of emergency department nurses, while demanding and at times stressful and complex, require staff that has acquired experience in this field as well as operational experience unique to the department."

Sample of Sources Used:

  • Aiken LH, Clarke SP, Sloane DM, Sochalski J & Silber JH. (2002). Hospital nurse staffing and patient mortality, nurse burnout, and job dissatisfaction. JAMA, 288(16), 1987-93. Retrieved March 10, 2007 from http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/288/16/1987#TABLEJOC20547T4
  • American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN). (2004). Nursing Shortage Fact Sheet. Retrieved March 10, 2007 from http://www.aacn.nche.edu/media/backgrounders/shortagefacts.htm
  • Crouch R & Williams S. (2006). Patient dependency in the emergency department (ED): reliability and validity of the Jones Dependency Tool (JDT). Accid Emerg Nurs., 14(4), 219-29. Retrieved March 10, 2007 from the Pubmed Database.
  • Emergency Nurses Association (ENA). (2003). Emergency Nurses Association position statement. Retrieved March 10, 2007 from http://www.ena.org/about/position/PDFs/Staffing-Productivity.PDF
  • Muntlin A, Gunningberg L & Carlsson M. (2006). Patients' perceptions of quality of care at an emergency department and identification of areas for quality improvement. J Clin Nurs., 15(8), 1045-56. Retrieved March 10, 2007 from the Pubmed Database.

Cite this Term Paper:

APA Format

The Effects of Nursing Shortages (2008, March 25) Retrieved March 26, 2023, from https://www.academon.com/term-paper/the-effects-of-nursing-shortages-102469/

MLA Format

"The Effects of Nursing Shortages" 25 March 2008. Web. 26 March. 2023. <https://www.academon.com/term-paper/the-effects-of-nursing-shortages-102469/>

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