Spread too thin
Lacking adequate hospital staff can affect the health of employees and patients. Overworked nurses will be stressed nurses. Stress and fatigue contribute to sickness as well as potential errors in judgment and attentiveness.

“My license could be at risk if I made an error,” says Peterson, pointing out a major concern of overworked staff.

Earlier this year, nurses in Minnesota spent months fighting Twin Cities hospitals to adjust the nurse-to-patient ratio language in their new contract, arguing that the current ratio was not safe.

“Our nurses feel like with the recent layoffs and cutbacks through the recession, [hospitals] are asking the remaining nurses to do more with less,” Minnesota Nurses Association spokesman John Nemo told DOTmed News in May. “It’s getting to the point where nurses think [hospitals] are dangerously understaffed, where patients’ lives are at risk.”

“Increasingly, hospital management pushes nurses to take more patients or to continue with patient loads that compromise quality or even result in complications,” said MNA member and nurse Nellie Munn, in an e-mail interview with DOTmed News. “When mistakes are made or care and treatments are delayed or missed, the focus is on the competence of the nurse, rather than the conditions of the work environment, especially staffing levels.”

In July, the nurses and 14 hospitals finally agreed on a contract that calls for “renewed commitment” to looking at the staffing issues presented by both the nurses and the hospital employers.

“Nurses who work on units that are understaffed definitely feel the pressure,” says AACN’s Rosseter. “It impacts their productivity and ability to give the care they know they should be giving. Frustration leads to bad patient outcomes.”

Recruitment: Health care wants YOU
When it comes to recruitment for the health care workforce, education programs and organizations work to attract potentials from all backgrounds and socioeconomic status. Tapping into different communities would bring about more interest and thus, more nurses.

Peterson believes education plays an important role in shedding light on the value of the profession, in hopes of attracting minorities.

The health care law has provisions to increase the nursing workforce pool by including a youth public health program to expose and recruit high school students into health care with a career focus on public health; promoting training of a diverse workforce; and providing grants to increase minority representation with loan opportunities and scholarships.

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