HEALTH SCIENCES AND MEDICINE - Essay Example

Implications of Nurses’ Shortage to the Stakeholders of Affiliation: Implications of Nurses’ Shortage to the StakeholdersIntroduction Shortages of clinical nurses in healthcare facilities possess great challenges towards the delivery of service to the patients. In Hallways Hospital, the shortage of clinical nurses has contributed significantly to the poor service delivery in the institution. Research has shown that a number of factors have contributed towards the reduction and subsequent shortage of clinical nurses and other healthcare professionals, an aspect that has contributed significantly towards the poor performance of many healthcare facilities.

With increased shortage, service delivery is seen to be on the decline. Based on such a perspective, this paper analyses the extent and impact that the shortage of nurses has caused to Hallways Hospital, and most especially on the stakeholders, with specificity on patients. A number of reasons have been stated to contribute towards the shortage of clinical nurses and other professionals in Hallways Hospital. These include early retirement for the nurses as a majority of them seek to get involved in other activities, considering that the profession is considered t lack profitability by a majority of the professionals.

Additionally, poor working conditions have also contributed towards a number of nurses leaving the hospital and seeking for other greener pastures (Huston, 2009). Poor remuneration is also a contributing factor towards the shortage of nurses in the hospital (Buerhaus, Straiger and Auerbach, 2009). The shortage of nurses in Hallways Hospital has significantly had severe consequences on service delivery in the hospital, with the greatest affected stakeholders being the patients who are ideally directly affected by the shortage.

Instances in which there is increased shortage of nurses, it is obvious that there is a successive reduction in the quality of service delivery as the few nurses have to perform extra tasks, thereby causing them distress, which then results to poor performances (Cowen, 2011). Motivation is usually a very important element in every profession and in healthcare facilities, one of the best means to motivate nurses and other healthcare professionals is to provide better remuneration in terms of wages and pay.

Currently, healthcare facilities are some of the institutions where workers receive the least of wages and pays. These ideally, are a demoralization of the nurses, making them perform poorly in their duties. With increased poor performance, the service delivery in such institutions is likely to depreciate, and as such, Hallways hospital has been greatly affected (Buerhaus, Straiger and Auerbach, 2009). With increased decline in service delivery, there is indeed reduced in the number of patients who would come to seek for medical assistance from such an institution and, ideally, that is the situation that Hallways Hospital is currently facing.

With reduced number of nurses, it is clear that such a requirement is not easily met and, therefore, the quality of service is compromised. A similar point of view is evident on the ethical implication of nurses’ shortage in Hallways Hospital. In its perspective, the ethical implication faced by Hallways Hospital because of reduced nurses is that there is reduced performance of the few workers as a result of exhaustion from the overwhelming work that the individuals engage (AACN, 2009). ReferencesAmerican Association of Colleges of Nursing.

(2009, September, 28). "Nursing Shortage Fact Sheet" (9-09.DOC). USA: AACN. Buerhaus, P. I., Staiger, D., & Auerbach, D. I. (2009). The future of the nursing workforce in the United States: data, trends, and implications. Boston: Jones and Bartlett Publishers. Cowen, P. S., & Moorhead, S. (2011). Current issues in nursing (8th ed.). St. Louis, Mo.: Mosby Elsevier. Huston, C. J. (2009). Professional issues in nursing: challenges and opportunities (2nd ed.). Philadelphia, Pa.: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.