Creative Strategies for Addressing Today's Nurse Staffing Challenges

June 06, 2023

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Consequences of Staffing Issues on Patients and Healthcare Organizations

• Strategies You Can Use to Mitigate Your Nurse Staffing Challenges

• How International Staffing Solves the Nurse Shortage Issues at Healthcare Facilities

Hospitals around the country have been dealing with significant nurse staffing challenges, making it a public health crisis. Nurse staffing shortages affect hospital executives and lead to poor patient outcomes, which can cause consequences for hospital staff. According to the International Centre on Nurse Migration, there is projected to be a staffing shortage of 13 million nurses by 2030. There is a need for safe nurse staffing levels in emergency departments, pediatrics, and intensive care units. Hospital executives must find new strategies to address the challenges impacting their staffing levels and patient care.

Consequences of Nurse Staffing Issues on Patient Care and Healthcare Organizations

There are many consequences that hospital executives will face if they do not look for outside strategies to establish appropriate staffing levels at their facilities. Staffing issues have put hospital executives and healthcare systems in critical condition, creating a ripple effect that will impact healthcare workers and the nursing industry for decades. The alternative to finding proper staffing strategies will result in poor healthcare settings and dire patient outcomes. Some of the most significant and impactful consequences are: 

Patient Safety

Patient safety is paramount in any healthcare setting, and adequate nurse staffing is crucial to ensuring it. When nurse-to-patient ratios are unbalanced, patient safety can be compromised. Overworked and overwhelmed nurses may struggle to provide optimal care to ensure positive patient outcomes. The risk of medication errors, delays in treatment, and missed critical observations increases, putting patients at potential harm.

Nurse Burnout

Low nurse staffing levels contribute significantly to nurse burnout, a pervasive issue in the healthcare industry. Nurses' physical, emotional, and mental well-being suffers when they are overburdened with excessive workloads and prolonged hours. Chronic stress, fatigue, and emotional exhaustion can lead to decreased job satisfaction and high rates of burnout. This affects nurses' health and compromises their ability to provide compassionate and high-quality care to patients.

Patient Mortality

Studies have shown a direct correlation between low nurse staffing levels and increased patient mortality rates. Patient outcomes can improve when an adequate number of nurses are available to provide timely appointments, monitor patients, and address emergent situations. The lack of proper staffing can delay recognizing and addressing deteriorating conditions, potentially increasing mortality rates.

Patient Care Quality 

Nurse staffing is necessary to maintain the quality of care delivered to patients. Nurses are responsible for various critical tasks, including administering medications, monitoring vital signs, providing patient education, and coordinating care. When there are not enough nurses to fulfill these responsibilities, the quality of care can be compromised. Patients may experience longer waiting times, decreased attention from nursing staff, and reduced overall satisfaction with their healthcare experience.

Reputation Damage

Low nurse staffing levels can have long-lasting effects on the reputation of healthcare organizations. When patients and their families perceive inadequate staffing as a sign of poor quality care, it can tarnish the reputation of hospitals and healthcare facilities. Negative experiences shared through word-of-mouth or online platforms can harm the organization's image, leading to a loss of trust and potential revenue.

Impact on Community Health

The nursing shortage and low nurse staffing levels have broader implications for community health. When healthcare facilities struggle to meet the demands for nursing care, access to timely and adequate healthcare services becomes compromised. This can lead to delayed diagnoses, limited preventive care, and reduced availability of healthcare resources for the community. The overall health and well-being of the population may suffer as a result.

High Nursing Turnover

The nursing shortage exacerbates high turnover rates among nurses. The increased workload, stress, and burnout from low nurse staffing levels contribute to job dissatisfaction and turnover. High turnover rates perpetuate the cycle of understaffing, further impacting patient care and exacerbating the nursing shortage itself.

Strategies You Can Use To Mitigate Your Shortage Of Registered Nurses

Healthcare systems nationwide have found themselves in a critical state brought on by nurse recruitment and retention challenges. While many hospital executives in the past have put procedures in place to hire and retain staff during the COVID-19 pandemic, many of these ideas have quickly become short-term options. Now, hospital executives will need to find new and practical strategies that will work long-term at their facilities to address the current nursing shortage in the nursing profession. Below are some tips on how nurse leaders can create safe staffing levels at their facilities. 

Leverage Technology Wherever You Can

In 2023, hospitals nationwide will see an overwhelming impact of technology on their day-to-day work duties. While technology won’t bring new staff members to join a hospital team, it will be able to reduce the amount of work and tasks piling on current hospital staff. Current nursing staff can care for patients more effectively and efficiently by utilizing technologies such as electronic recordkeeping, telehealth appointments, and automatic dispensaries. With the right technological solutions, hospital executives may be able to get more out of their existing, limited staff by making their duties more manageable, resulting in a reduced number of required staff.

Enhance Employee Engagement and Retention

Enhancing nurse engagement and retention will result in lower nurse turnover rates for hospital staff and increase how many nurses return to their positions following the COVID-19 pandemic. Nurse turnover creates high costs for hospital staff and adds stress to already low nurse staffing levels some hospitals face. Finding strategies to retain nurses is crucial as it promotes a cohesive and cooperative hospital unit. One way to enhance employee engagement and retention is by choosing an effective preceptor or mentor for new nursing staff. Many new nurses have had limited technical training opportunities due to COVID-19, but with tenured nursing staff available to assist and train them, they will be better adapted to the facility and the work required. 

To enhance employee engagement, there are multiple approaches healthcare executives can take. Hospitals can offer competitive salaries, sign-on bonuses, and additional monetary incentives to encourage nursing staff to take on more duties and assist with high workloads. This is turn will cause nursing staff to feel more valued in their positions. Hospital executives can also review nurse-to-patient staff ratios, which has left current nursing staff feeling overworked. When reviewing staff ratios, partnering with a staffing agency such as Avant Healthcare Professionals will allow hospital executives to aid their nurse staffing levels. By hiring international nurses, healthcare executives can enhance employee satisfaction as staffing ratios won’t be as challenging as they were before.

How International Staffing Can Solve Your Nurse Staffing Challenges 

Hospital executives continue to look for alternative options to aid their current staffing levels, especially as rates for travel nurses continue to rise to an unprecedented amount, leaving hospital executives to pay over $175 an hour for travel nursing staff.

International nurse staffing has been introduced as an alternative to travel nurse staffing. Typically, International nurses are contracted for two-to-three-year assignments at a hospital for rates far less than travel nurses. These nurses provide more stability and retention at the unit level versus the short-term 13-week commitment of travel nurse contracts. International nurses have years of experience and can help reduce staffing issues and stress among hospital executives and produce quality patient care for the high volume of patients many hospitals see daily. Below are just some of the ways international nurses can reduce and solve the staffing shortage at facilities nationwide:

• Expanding the Talent Pool

• Culturally Diverse Nurses

• Balancing Workload

• Pre-Screening and Credential Verification

• Closing the Experience Gap

Frequently Asked Questions About Nurse Staffing

How Do You Address Nurse Staffing Issues?

Healthcare systems need to review their procedures for training, onboarding, and working with new nurses. They should open lines of communication with their current staff and see where the pain points are among their team. They should look into adjusting staff schedules, working with nursing schools, nursing students, and graduate programs to properly train new nursing staff, adapting current work conditions, and improving the responsibilities process among staff to ensure adequate distribution of duties. By exploring staffing agencies to hire additional staff, such as Avant Healthcare Professionals, they can trust that these nurses will convert to becoming a full time staff members Avant has an over 90% conversion rate of their healthcare professionals. All of these approaches can aid in mitigating nurse staffing issues at facilities nationwide. 

How Can Nurse Staffing Ratios Be Improved?

There are strategies that hospital executives can look into to fill their current RN openings and improve their staffing ratios. Hospital executives can hire new nursing graduates, engage in internal recruitment and external advertising tactics, offer sign-on bonuses, improve pay packages, and partner with international staffing agencies to aid in staffing their facilities. International nurse staffing agencies can improve nurse staffing ratios as many of the nurses hired by Avant Healthcare Professionals undergo a clinical and cultural transitions program before they arrive at your facility preparing them to immediately begin work at your facility.