The Nursing Shortage–It’s Back!

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Abstract
Nursing shortages have been cyclic events during the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s. Recent downsizings and reengineerings have witnessed professional nurses in reduction of workforce actions. Acute-care settings, with goals of increased productivity and cost reduction, have decreased ratios of professional to nonlicensed staff frequently forcing nurses to practice with fewer resources and in diverse healthcare settings. As inpatient settings find a higher acuity level of patients receiving care from a "leaner" high-percentage agency workforce, many experts believe we are beginning to experience a new wave of shortages that will be more critical than those of the past. Hospitals and other healthcare practice sites will experience a shortage of professionals necessary to provide care to patients and will be competing for those scarce resources. This article presents a discussion of the important factors of supply and demand related to the shortage and possible strategies for hospitals to use when approaching the large and complex challenge.

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