Nursing Shortage
Scarcity of Resources: Nursing Shortage
Scarce Resources
According to Hanson and Stenvig (2008), nursing educators attributes on the phases of clinical experience process and also form the foundation for the praxis of clinical experience. Clinical education can improve by the clinical educators by developing strategies in teaching and tool evaluation that can build positive and good attributes and phases of the clinical experience. The question is, how are we going to improve nursing education if there is shortage on nursing educators? How are we going to have quality of care if there is shortage in nurses?
Definition of the Issue
According to Allen (2008), the shortage of the nursing faculty impacts the shortage of baccalaureate-prepared Registered Nurses (RNs) and affects the patient care safety. The shortage in nursing has emerged in 1998 to 2002 (Buerhaus, Donelan, Ulrich, Norman, & Dittus, 2006). According to American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN, 2006), reasons of faculty shortage includes lack of funding, lack of clinical preceptors, and lack of clinical sites. In year 2005, there are 41,683 qualified applicants that are turned away by nursing schools across the nation due to shortage of faculty (AACN, 2006).
Influencing Factors
There are many reasons to consider why there is lack of faculty to meet the demand for more nurses naming expected increases in faculty retirements, increased age of the current faculty and declining number of years to teach, inadequacy on master’s and doctoral-prepared nurses to fill the needed nurse educator positions, and decrease compensation for academic teaching than positions in clinical areas for master’s-prepared nurses (Allen, 2008). The top four reasons for nursing shortage in year 2004 and 2005 includes undesirable working hours, benefits and salary issues, more career options for women, and negative work environment (Buerhaus et al., 2006).
Challenges and Consequences of not addressing the issue
Scarce Resources
According to Hanson and Stenvig (2008), nursing educators attributes on the phases of clinical experience process and also form the foundation for the praxis of clinical experience. Clinical education can improve by the clinical educators by developing strategies in teaching and tool evaluation that can build positive and good attributes and phases of the clinical experience. The question is, how are we going to improve nursing education if there is shortage on nursing educators? How are we going to have quality of care if there is shortage in nurses?
Definition of the Issue
According to Allen (2008), the shortage of the nursing faculty impacts the shortage of baccalaureate-prepared Registered Nurses (RNs) and affects the patient care safety. The shortage in nursing has emerged in 1998 to 2002 (Buerhaus, Donelan, Ulrich, Norman, & Dittus, 2006). According to American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN, 2006), reasons of faculty shortage includes lack of funding, lack of clinical preceptors, and lack of clinical sites. In year 2005, there are 41,683 qualified applicants that are turned away by nursing schools across the nation due to shortage of faculty (AACN, 2006).
Influencing Factors
There are many reasons to consider why there is lack of faculty to meet the demand for more nurses naming expected increases in faculty retirements, increased age of the current faculty and declining number of years to teach, inadequacy on master’s and doctoral-prepared nurses to fill the needed nurse educator positions, and decrease compensation for academic teaching than positions in clinical areas for master’s-prepared nurses (Allen, 2008). The top four reasons for nursing shortage in year 2004 and 2005 includes undesirable working hours, benefits and salary issues, more career options for women, and negative work environment (Buerhaus et al., 2006).
Challenges and Consequences of not addressing the issue
References: Allen, L. (2008). The nursing shortage continues as faculty shortage grows. Nursing Economics, 26(1), 35-40. American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN). (2006). Nursing faculty shortage fact sheet (September) American Nurses Association (ANA). (2006). ANA calls on policy makers to act on nurse staffing legislation Buerhaus, P.I., Donelan, K., Ulrich, B.T., Norman, L., & Dittus, R. (2006). State of the registered nurse workforce in the United States, Nursing Economics, 24(1), 6-12 Hanson, K., & Stenvig, T. (2008). The good clinical educator and the baccalaureate nursing clinical experience: attributes and praxis Mathews, M. B. (2003). Resourcing nursing education through collaboration. The Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing, 34(6), 251-257. National League for Nursing (NLN). (2003). Innovative programs to address the nurse faculty shortage: NEWDAC at work Schober, M. (2010). APN development: strategies to conquer the challenges. Singapore Nursing Journal, 37(2), 16-18. Stanton, M.W. (2004). Hospital nurse staffing and quality care. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality [Issue 14]