The Nursing Shortage and Its Effects on Patient Care

The healthcare industry has many challenges to face when it is delivering its services to patients. Not only are there an unbelievable number of diseases and illnesses to diagnose and treat but there is also the need to treat these illnesses in a timely manner. One of the most prevalent issues in the healthcare industry today is the nursing shortage and the affect it has on patient assessment, diagnosis, and treatment.

Depending on hospital size and the number of patient beds it has, there are a certain number of nurses it hires to care for its patients. The patient to nurse ratio on a day to day basis is dependent on the number of patients each department or floor has. Most hospitals also employ a "float" nurse who works on whatever floor has the most patients. The nurse to patient ratio is usually somewhere between five and eight. When thinking about all the care that goes into a single patient, medications, vitals, patient history etc, that can be a lot of work for a nurse. Then add several patients to the mix and you have got your hands full. So what happens when you have more patients than you can handle so you are giving them the care they deserve? What happens is the attention they receive gets cut short and the care they receive may be less than what it should be. While I am in no way condoning this as a way to make it through the shortage, it usually is not that bad on the patient floors. Where you can really run into trouble having a shortage of nurses is the Emergency Room.