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Nurse Staffing Shortage

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It is a well-known fact in any healthcare system that the backbone to medicine and the real players in any healthcare organization are the nurses. In a patient’s visit or hospitalization time, the nurse is the one person on staff that spends most of the time with the patient. From the beginning of their admission to their discharge, nurses become experts on each individual’s case. Despite the great amount of time spent by nurses on patients, it was determined that nurses still spend only 37% of their time on patient care. The rest of that time is pend on paperwork and other unrelated tasks (Westbrook, Duffield & Creswick, 2011). To improve this percentage a few things need to be put into consideration. In order to have an efficient staff, a system of hierarchy is to be established. Through that system, nurses will have different daily functions that would be divided among the staff. Each group of nurses will have an …show more content…

The problem is a universal one where numerous nursing positions are left vacant as less individuals are becoming interested in the career or experienced ones are choosing different career paths (Fox & Abrahamson, 2009). To solve this problem, nursing positions will be filled with certified emergency medical technicians (EMTs) who are capable of performing basic nursing functions. The EMTs would work under the supervision of experienced nurses and report to the administrative nurse of the day for quality assurance. EMTs would be working in part-time positions rather than full time to reduce spending. Through EMTs, frustrated nurses who feel overwhelmed with their tasks and feel the need for assistance will be less stressed and gain the ability to focus on heathcare. Moreover, EMTs will be helping nurses with patient related paperwork and discharge arrangements (I need a PA to do the paperwork that takes me away from nursing,

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