Increasing the level of staffing nurses is not an easy task even though low levels of nurse staffing is commonly associated with reduced services. Notably, this is because numerous factors contribute to this challenge. Some of them are the countrywide gap that exists between the positions that are available and the total numbers of RNs (Registered nurses) who are willing to work and are registered. Many factors have contributed to this, such as economic hardship and mismatch of skills among other factors. It is, therefore , imperative to ascertain the effects of nurse understaffing.
There are many effects of nurse understaffing. First, it is associated with high negative rates of outcome in the health sector. Hospitals with understaffed nurses usually record poor results due to lack of enough personnel or qualified nurses. Second, the rate of pneumonia is sensitive, especially to levels of staffing ("Hospital Nurse Staffing and Quality of Care | AHRQ Archive ," 2018) . The significant relationship between pneumonia and staffing can be linked to the enormous obligation RNs have for surgical patients under respiratory care.
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Finally, mortality is also associated with staffing levels. Despite numerous studies not giving a consistent indication on the relationship between high patient mortality and higher nursing workload , some studies assert that the likelihood of an patient to be helped increases when nurses are adequately staffed than when they are understaffed ("Hospital Nurse Staffing and Quality of Care | AHRQ Archive ," 2018) . It is thus, evident that the rate of mortality is inversely proportional to the staffing levels.
In conclusion, understaffing had negative impacts on the overall healthcare services in various ways as mentioned above. However, despite the problem becoming common, it is still not simple to staff hospital with nurses. The difficulty in finding qualified individuals and willing to work as nurses, among other factors, contribute to the situation.
Reference
Domoto Hospital Nurse Staffing and Quality of Care | AHRQ Archive. (2018). Retrieved from https://archive.ahrq.gov/research/findings/factsheets/services/nursestaffing/nursestaff
