How Nurse Burnout or Shortage Affects Patients’ Safety (Research Paper Sample)

How Nurse Burnout or Shortage Affects Patients’ Safety
Student’s Name
Institution
Instructor
Course
Due Date
 
 
How Nurse Burnout or Shortage Affects Patients’ Safety
Background
Nurses play a critical role in the healthcare system. Besides, nurses constitute the largest section of healthcare workers (Haddad, Annamaraju., & Tony-Butler, 2022). The World Health Organization (WHO) statistics estimates show that there are about 30 million nurses globally, with about 4 million based in the United States (WHO, 2022). However, additional nurses are needed because the current staffing in healthcare systems is yet to meet global healthcare demands. The high demand for nurses is a result of significant shortages of practicing nurses. The lack of adequate educators, high nurse turnover, and rapid increase of the aging population has caused a shortage in the nursing population. The few practicing nurses have to provide care for the aging population with increased demand for health services and other patients.
Clinical Problem Statement
Nurses’ shortage is the primary cause of nurse burnout, and subsequent decrease in patient safety. Besides the decreasing number of nurses, people in this profession play multiple roles in healthcare, including mid-wifely duties, anesthetize, and assisting physicists, among other bedside duties. Nurses’ shortage and burnout have similar effects on patients’ safety as they contribute to increased medical errors. Healthcare facilities with nursing shortages have a high nurse-to-patient ratio, leading to burnout and dissatisfaction. Nursing shortages also cause higher mortality rates as a result of failure-to rescue. Therefore, efficient evidence-based interventions are required to address the nurse shortage problem.
Purpose of the Change Proposal in Relation to Patient Care and the Healthcare System
Nursing shortage severely affects patient care and services in the healthcare system. As the registered nurse to patient ratio continues to increase, healthcare disparities continue to increase, with patients receiving low-quality care. The change proposal seeks to recognize the possible impact of nurse shortage on patient care, which includes increased risk of medical errors and low-quality patient care (Ghafoor et al., 2021). The proposal will also provide evidence-based interventions for addressing nurse shortage and subsequent burnout. The proposed interventions will help reduce RN to patient ratio, promoting quality care and reduce mortality as a result of medical error. Additionally, the proposed change will help restore confidence in the healthcare system as patients will access quality care from nurses who are not overburdened. Applying