Effective Approaches in Leadership and Management in Healthcare

Effective Approaches in Leadership and Management in Healthcare

Nursing shortage and nurse turn-over

One of the biggest problems that most of the organizations are facing these days is recruiting new employees and keeping them retained within the organization. Healthcare industry is also facing the same problem and most of the issues are found in nursing profession. Nursing shortage and turnover is effecting the health care organizations. This needs to be controlled before it becomes an unsolvable mystery. Healthcare organizations are facing extreme difficulty in retaining quality nursing staff.

The United States bureau of Labor Statistics has predicted that the demand for the registered nurses will keep on growing from 2 million to more than 3.2 million between 2008 and 2018. Almost 60% increase will be seen in this period, this need can be only accomplished in an effective way only if qualified nurses are produced in a similar trend. There is still a huge shortage of nurses in nursing field that needs to be managed by the healthcare sector in an effective way. It has been found that after graduation almost half of the nurses leave their first job just after two years.

An increasing age of the nursing population is also one of the reasons behind shortage in nursing profession. The shortage of nursing staff is affecting the patient outcomes and healthcare quality. It is expected that the demand of baccalaureate level nursing staff will also increase and this need can be only accomplished with enough nursing graduates. Quality nursing education can be the only way out for delivering quality healthcare services. From an extensive study it was found that with the nursing supervision of highly qualified nursing staff most of surgical patients get well soon (Beu, 2004).

The shortage in nursing field can reach to 500,000 by 2025 because more of the nurses will retire and the demand for the nurses will also grow accordingly. Only 3.8% of the students got enrolled in entry-level baccalaureate nursing programs in 2010, which was too low according to the current requirement of the nursing graduates. The nursing schools are not expanding fast enough to manage the shortage in the nursing field. There is a lack of facilities and instructors found in the nursing schools, this is mainly due to the budget constraints (Carper, 1978).

Nursing turnover is more often related to the insufficient benefits both monetary and non-monetary the nurses receive within a healthcare organization. There are other reasons for employee turnover such as working conditions, nursing career development, other incentives etc. it is found that more than one third of the newly hired nurses want to change their job this shows their intent to work and work attitude.

Most of the registered nurses are found following this strategy that wherever they find better opportunity they switch. The nursing staff is found moving to those healthcare organizations that are providing then better work-life balance along with other incentives. The organizations need to manage all these ...