Summary of the Chosen Economic Issue and Its Impact NHS FPX 6008 Assessment 2 Needs Analysis for Change

The selected issue for the project is inadequate staffing among nurses. According to the data by World Health Statistics Report, America has 3.9 million of the 29 million nurses globally. Despite this, it experienced an acute shortage of more than one million nurses by 2020. The statistics by the American Nurses Association show that more than 275000 nurses will be needed from 2020 to 2030 to fill the current gap in healthcare workforce. The issues of concern contributing to the worsening shortage of nurses in America include aging population, high turnover rates, lack of nursing educators, and inequitable workforce distribution (Haddad et al., 2022). Nursing shortage have negative impacts on healthcare, patients, and colleagues. First, it increases nurses’ workload, which causes burnout, occupational stress, low job satisfaction, and high turnover rates among nurses. Nursing shortage also lowers the quality of care due to increased cases of safety issues such as medical errors in the care process. Communities suffer from poor quality of care, increased safety issues, and disease burden among the population. Nursing shortage also increases costs incurred by healthcare organizations in hiring, training, and struggling to retain their staff (Haryanto, 2019; Marć et al., 2019). Despite the pervasiveness in nursing shortage, minimal interventions have been adopted in my practice site to address the issue. In addition, nurses have not explored evidence-based interventions that can be used to improve retention rates among them. Consequently, it is crucial to implement measures that will address the issue for optimum outcomes in healthcare.

Socioeconomic or Diversity Disparity

Sociodemographic factors contribute to the worsening shortage of nurses in the USA. Accordingly, nursing workforce ages the same way the population does. Currently more than 1 million nurses in America are aged more than 50 years, which translate into their potential retirement within the next decade. The challenge with this number retiring is that training institutions cannot train new nurses to match those exiting the service through retirement (Haddad et al., 2022). There is also the decline in faculty members that can handle a high number of nursing students enrolled in different institutions to address the problem. The other factor contributing to the difference in nursing shortage across health organizations is unhealthy workplaces. Nurses comprise the most vulnerable population to workplace violence as compared to any other profession in healthcare (Haryanto, 2019). Workplace violence increases turnover rate among them due to its associated physical and psychosocial impacts.

The Need to Address the Chosen Issue

Nursing shortage should be addressed because of its effects on healthcare organizations, patients, and healthcare providers. As noted initially, nursing shortage increases the workload for the existing staff. The increase in workload is attributed to the imbalance between the patient and nurses’ numbers in an organization. The effects of high workload include burnout, stress, lack of job satisfaction, and high level of turnover among nurses. Nursing shortage also increase the risk and rate of errors, delays in care, high morbidity, and mortality rates. Nursing shortage also as cost implications to healthcare organizations (Park & Yu, 2019; Spurlock, 2020). Accordingly, there is an increase in use of resources because of extended hospital stays for patients, hiring, training, and retaining new staff, and lawsuits for issues such as negligence among healthcare providers.

Some interventions can be explored to address the issue of nursing shortage. One of them is empowerment where health organizations can prioritize nurses’ needs. Health organizations should strive to create safety culture. They should also ensure the adoption of interventions that increase retention among nurses such as offering training opportunities for continued professional development and better remuneration to minimize their turnover rates (Haddad et al., 2022; Park & Yu, 2019).

Predicted Outcomes and Opportunities for Growth

Health organizations that empower their nurses and create safety culture not only address the issue of nursing shortage but also improve care outcomes and performance. Reduction in errors, hospitalization costs, and turnover rates improve the safety, quality, and efficiency of care given in an organization. It also provides organizations insights into inefficient systems and processes that should be addressed to enhance performance. Addressing nurses’ needs contributing to high turnover rates among them also leads to patient satisfaction with the care given in their organization (Park & Yu, 2019). As a result, organizations, nurses, and patients benefit f