The nursing shortage issue has been a major issue in healthcare delivery in the United States with the government implementing different strategies, which are meant to address this issue (Shi & Singh, 2019). This issue is important and should be effectively addressed since it has been indicated to negatively impact the achievement of healthcare goals which include having improved healthcare outcomes (Shi & Singh, 2019). There are different explanations for the nursing shortage with the accepted definition including a shortage in the demand for healthcare services, which is attributed to a limited supply of healthcare services, which are largely provided by nurses (Shi & Singh, 2019). In this situation, the quality of healthcare services is affected since the available nurses are overworked which negatively affects their performance.
For this to be effectively addressed, more nurses should be employed to help the available nurses in addressing the increasing demand which will lead to optimal performance by the nurses in performing their roles and responsibilities (Shi & Singh, 2019). The explanation ‘There is no ‘shortage’ of nurses there is a shortage of people willing to put up with the conditions nurses must work under.’ is wrong since it is the right for all American citizens to receive quality healthcare services (Zerwekh & Garneau, 2014). Most of the healthcare management responsibilities and policies are out of their control, which shifts the responsibility of ensuring a sufficient number of healthcare workers to the healthcare stakeholders and the government (Zerwekh & Garneau, 2014).
The government and other stakeholders in the healthcare sector have been for a long time responsible for ensuring that the American citizens receive quality healthcare services. This has been achieved by ensuring that there is adequate healthcare resources with having an adequate healthcare workforce being one of these responsibilities (Zerwekh & Garneau, 2014). It is not the responsibility of the people to put up with conditions that nurses work under since they pay taxes which are meant to ensure that effective and adequate resources are provided to ensure the provision of quality healthcare services (Zerwekh & Garneau, 2014).
References
- Shi, L., & Singh, D. A. (2019). Delivering health care in America: A systems approach. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
- Zerwekh, J. A. G., & Garneau, A. Z. (2014). Nursing today: Transition and trends. St. Louis, Missouri: Elsevier/Saunders.”,”2020-08-04 14:22:21 “
