Introduction
In light of the nursing positions in various health faculties, shortage, and nursing retention are significant problems. Many relevant resources offer credible insights to explain the lack of nurses in most health institutions. These academic sources try to get the background information that leads to these shortages. In addition, these reviewed articles also offer some credible information regarding ways hospitals can maneuver around ensuring that nurses are retained, mainly concerning obtaining graduates (Ackerson and Stiles, 2018). Having the nurses would only create one major problem for the hospitals: adding another workforce to curb the shortage. The presence of depreciated human resource management can serve as one of the significant factors that lead to the nursing shortage.
It is worth noting that this literature review focuses on the key concepts leading to the qualified nursing shortage. The key concepts tied to the deficit include employee retention, aspects of apt conflict resolution, proper workflow, the hospital’s management system, and the entire organizational policies.
Literature Review
Employee Retention
Retaining the current nurse workforce proves to be a challenge in most hospitals. The idea of prospects such as better pay continuously drives most nurses in public hospitals to end up at private institutions. Therefore, public hospitals have less workforce to handle the patients. According to the various reviews, several attempts to retain the nursing workforce involve solving the issue from the top of the food chain. The idea that nurses are undervalued suggests that most governments do not see the importance of nurses in the healthcare delivery system (Shamsi and Peyravi, 2020). Since most nurses know the idea of being undervalued, they leave their jobs for either better ones or a change in the course they engage in for better pay. Human resource management should be crucial in ensuring the nursing workforce is retained. The human resource’s sole duty is to provide a healthy relationship between the nurses and the entire organization. They should be in charge of noting the various issues of concern that the nurses try to raise before they get out of hand and decide to go for other jobs.
Apt Conflict Resolution
Most organizations can survive and last due to extraordinary measures of handling conflicts. Both locally and globally, organizations have conflicts that arise either between members or the workers and their employers. The nursing shortage can be linked to the fact that most hospitals do not have proper systems and ways to deal with disputes (Marć et al., 2018). Conflicts that might arise in the working setup include issues with a pay rise, patient-related quality standards in the type of treatment, or even the operating hours. These are just a few potential cases that might lead to conflicts within the organization. Most hospitals lack the proper ways to deal with these problems, which makes nurses need to look for better working environments (Wan, 2018). Retaining nurses becomes a significant problem, culminating in an increased workforce shortage.
Proper Workflow
Hospitals must always have a detailed schedule for taking care of the patients, which necessitates proper workflow. Patients stream the hospital at random times during the night and the day. Both doctors and nurses are always present to ensure that the patients receive the best health care in an emergency. The nursing shortage is attributed to the fact that most nurses get overworked in these hospital setups (Marć et al., 2018). The nurses work extensively and past their stipulated working hours, disrupting the workflow (Wan, 2018). A shortage of nurses would mean that the nurses would be working when they are supposed to be taking a rest from their shifts. The primary concern is that they work extra shifts without any pay rise, making them leave their jobs for places that value proper workflow and provide better pay.
Hospital’s Management System
Another major cause leading to the nursing shortage is poor hospital management. A flawed management system would mean that issues regarding the nurses’ welfare are not discussed. Poor hospital management remains a global issue that serves as the major factor behind the nursing shortage in most hospitals (Drennan and Ross, 2019). An organization that does not support the entire workforce is always subject to losing most of the crew (Keith et al., 2021). The nurses end up leaving this kind of hospital to go work for other employers who are willing to look after their needs. Neglecting their rights and demeaning them is a significant way most hospitals suffer from a nursing shortage.
Organizational Policies
Poor policies within an organization primarily drive the employees away. A lack of defined organizational policies that stipulate how an organization runs most definitely leads to nurses leaving for other serious firms. Policies dictate compensations, relations, working environment, and different case scenarios that create a better and more conducive working environment (Keith et al., 2021). Poor policies such as lack of compensation or even frequent recognition of highly performing nurses lead to losing the workforce to other institutions offering these privileges. Better policies hence attract the nurses to other institutions while at the same time creating a problem in shortage of the nursing workforce where they have left.
Ethical Perspective
The nurses are morally obligated to ensure that patients receive the utmost healthcare delivery system. They must ensure that they uphold the safety of the patients and their co-workers. As much as the nurses work to better the patients’ lives, they also need the care to make this happen. There should be no doubt in catering to the needs of the nurses. In this manner, most nurses would feel their importance in a healthcare institution, leading to nursing retention and no nursing shortage (Gan, 2020). Hence in matters dealing with ethics, one must see just beyond the patients as they must also cater to the needs of the nurses. Nursing retention in most hospitals remains one of the challenges due to the various problems that lead to its occurrence (Niskala et al., 2020). Downgrading them and not respecting their views only creates problems in the relationship between their employers and them. In the long run, healthcare institutions lack the proper workforce to care for patients in hospital setups.
Synthesis of Reviewed Literature
In an attempt to review various literature concerning the shortage and retention of nurses, several articles provide perfect examples of the significant causes. In addition, these articles also give different credible remedies to each case involving a shortcoming that might lead to the shortage. The presence of a better hospital management system would mean that there are better policies. Better policies, however, would also mean better pay and the workflow is distributed to the nurses according to shifts to give room for resting. In this manner, the hospital will not only retain the nurses but also attract some other new staff (Gorman, 2019). Existing research denotes the various problems that are accurate in most hospitals. To create change, these health institutions must ensure that they meet all the criteria that will allow nursing workforce retention but not drive them away.
References
Ackerson, K., & Stiles, K. A. (2018). Value of Nurse Residency Programs in Retaining New Graduate Nurses and Their Potential Effect on the Nursing Shortage. The Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing, 49(6), 282–288. Web.
Drennan, V. M., & Ross, F. (2019). Global nurse shortages: The facts, the impact and action for change. British medical bulletin, 130(1), 25-37. Web.
Gan, I. (2020). A scoping review of the nursing workforce’s changing demography: Supporting Baby‐Boomer nurses. Journal of Nursing Management, 28(7), 1473–1480. Web.
Gorman, V. L.-A. (2019). Future Emergency Nursing Workforce: What the Evidence Is Telling Us. Journal of Emergency Nursing, 45(2), 132–136. Web.
Keith, A. C., Warshawsky, N., & Talbert, S. (2021). Factors That Influence Millennial Generation Nurses’ Intention to Stay. JONA: The Journal of Nursing Administration, 51(4), 220–226. Web.
Marć, M., Bartosiewicz, A., Burzyńska, J., Chmiel, Z., & Januszewicz, P. (2018). A nursing shortage – a prospect of global and local policies. International Nursing Review, 66(1), 9–16. Web.
Niskala, J., Kanste, O., Tomietto, M., Miettunen, J., Tuomikoski, A., Kyngäs, H., & Mikkonen, K. (2020). Interventions to improve nurses’ job satisfaction: A systematic review and meta‐analysis. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 76(7). Web.
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.
Wan, Q., Zhou, W., Li, Z., Shang, S., & Yu, F. (2018). Work engagement and its predictors in registered nurses: A cross-sectional design. Nursing & Health Sciences, 20(4), 415–421. Web.