In recent years, the health industry has been dealing with complains of the nursing shortage. There are difficulties in recruiting and retaining nurses. Most students are not undertaking as a career because they undermine the nursing industry. This makes it difficult for hospital leaders to hire, recruit and retain the nurses. Nurses are in high demand to take care of the patients as well as to educate others. Due to the nursing shortage, the service being provided is insufficient and unsafe. Nursing leaders and managers have the role in providing proper services to the community in an efficient, professional, appropriate and equitable manner. Therefore, this study looks at how managers and leaders can handle the nursing shortage rationale.
The shortage can be termed as a problem that required an immediate response. Nursing leaders and managers are required to put in place strategies that will immediately mediate the situation. Given the role of nursing leaders and managers, it is expected that they be on the forefront in the approach in tackling the problem. Nursing managers' roles are supervisory. They are responsible for supervising nurses in a hospital or a clinic. They also make management and budgetary decisions, set work schedules and coordinate meetings. Above that, they oversee patient care. They are to create a safe, healthy environment that supports the work of the health care team and supports patient care. On the other hand, nursing leaders are nurses in management positions. Leaders influence others into accomplishing set goals and objectives. Effective leadership plays an integral role of maximizing efficiency in providing quality care.
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Nursing leaders utilize transformational theory to promote nurses satisfaction that in turn improves productivity. The prevalence of nursing shortage has always been witnessed over the years. Management of staff as a role of nursing leaders and managers comes in play. If the number of nurses in the health facility is less than the expected, then the nurse to patient ratio will also be below the accepted level. This may cause staff burnout and high turnover rate. The leaders therefore use transformational theory to improve satisfaction and commitment to achieve set goals. The leaders should also employ the participative theory that involves the nurses in decision making process. The nurses’ shortage is felt by all stakeholders and therefore calls for input from various participants to reach to an optimal solution to the problem (Xu, 2017) .
The available nursing training facilities release a small number of professionals per annum. Nursing leaders and managers can establish the reason for that. Is it that the carrying capacity of the training institutions is less or is it that the student interested in taking nursing as a career is less? With this question answered then the problem could be tackled with minimum struggle. If the carrying capacity of the training institutions is the problem, then more institutions can be set up, or the available ones can be expanded. On the other hand, if the number of students interested in venturing in a nursing career is the problem, then more nursing career seminars can be conducted to ensure students are taken through the benefits of the profession.
Above stated, nursing leaders and managers should formulate strategies to curb nursing shortage because, with the shortage, their duties in the facilities are infringed. A collaboration between nursing institutions and health facilities should be embraced to establish mutual grounds for beneficial services. It is upon the leaders to raise the initial flag while the situation is still manageable. It is also expected of the leaders to formulate new education designs that would global healthcare needs.
Nursing managers as members of the budgetary committee should ensure nurses are paid well. A well-paying professional is attractive to many. If the problem is the number of registered nurses being down, then it can be linked to a low number of graduate nurses (Leggott, 2010) . The low wages and overworked staff would cause people shun away from this particular profession. It is upon the nursing managers and leaders to air the nurses' demands to relevant authorities and to ensure trouble less fraternity of nurses. Managers and leaders should complement each other in providing a conducive professional environment for the nurses. It clear that a division develops here between the nurses and their bosses ( Leggot, 2010).
My personal and professional philosophy of nursing goes for the approach of admitting more nursing students to the training institutions. A study should be conducted to establish the reason for the nursing shortage concerning the number of graduates released by training institutions per annum. Several factors will come to play here. First, if there are adequate career talks that seek to sell nursing as a career and the number of admission to institutions is high enough, then the cause for dropouts will be established. Second, if indeed the admission rate is the problem, then the nursing career requires marketing, and this is possible through career talks and seminars. Third, the number of students willing to undertake nursing might be high, but the problem could be the carrying capacity of the available institutions (Park, 2015) . More institutions can be established, or the existing ones are expanded. This is the best approach because, before everything else, we are sure of human resources. Human resources in the field of medicine are the most critical element. It is witnessed countries with inadequate human resources in this field seek to import workforce from other countries. I would advise for the approach to training our own to avoid this dependency from other countries. Imported human resources are expensive and require intensive training to adapt to the environment. This adds burden to the already overloaded budget. Also, the good thing with this approach, it is simple since we only require data from the training institutions, that is the number of admitted student to study nursing and the number of those released from the institution having completed the course.
The state of Florida is one of the states in the US that are affected by the nursing shortage. The state government is one of the sources that should step up to address the problem. This is because it is the work of the government to protect public health and to ensure control and prevention of diseases. Another source in Florida is Disease Control and Health Protection (DOH), a department that protects, promotes and improves the health of all residents through integrates state, county and community effort. It has made the solving of nursing shortage a priority in the area. The state government could allocate more sources to training institutions and also facilities to promote safe and satisfactory environment (Somers et al., 2010) .
In conclusion, nursing is critical to general public health. More nursing professions should be trained and registered annually to curb the nursing shortage problem which has been witnessed in recent years. Managers and leaders have an integral role in addressing the shortage. The two should complement each other to formulate and design frameworks that could eliminate the problem. The approach of the leaders and managers to solve the nurses’ shortage could vary due to the different principles and roles. The solution to the problem should be handled from first establishing the root cause of the problem. The strategies should then be formulated to solve the outlined causes.
References
Leggott, J. (2010). Who should manage nurses?. Nursing Standard , 24(35), pp.63-63.
Park, S. (2015). Effects of Discipline-based Career Course on Nursing Students' Career Search Self-efficacy, Career Preparation Behavior, and Perceptions of Career Barriers. Asian Nursing Research , 9(3), pp.259-264.
Somers, M., Finch, L., and Birnbaum, D. (2010). Marketing Nursing as a Profession: Integrated Marketing Strategies to Address the Nursing Shortage. Health Marketing Quarterly , 27(3), pp.291-306.
Xu, J.-H. (2017). Leadership Theory in Clinical Practice. Chinese Nursing Research , 4(4): 155-157.
