Nursing Professionals Assignment Discussion
The healthcare industry is experiencing issues and challenges that jeopardize the nature of services offered and the capacity to handle the growing and complex population needs. The growing population needs and the advancing health technology demand the implementation of strategic approaches that ensure that the services delivered are optimal. The growing health needs demand a steady supply of healthcare professionals, particularly nurses, to offer individualized services to patients and populations. Addressing the shortage issue in the healthcare industry requires trainers who can equip professionals with evidence-based skills for handling dynamic healthcare needs (Tamata & Mohammadnezhad, 2022)Nursing Professionals Assignment Discussion.
However, deficiency in qualified nursing instructors continues to impact the supply of nurses and the ability of existing nursing professionals to implement evidence-based strategies to handle unique patient needs. Therefore, addressing the issue demands conducting a root-cause assessment and developing specific and appropriate strategies that respond to the issue.
Lack of Qualified Nursing Instructors on Patient Care and Evidence-based Practice
The growing healthcare needs require a steady supply of skilled nursing professionals who can develop individualized strategies for managing specific patient needs. Insufficient trainers have been linked to poor quality nursing education, which limits the nursing profession’s capacity to manage patients’ specific needs and preferences. Insufficient nursing trainers impact the readiness of the nursing profession to address the specific needs which may be challenging to address in the healthcare industry. Research conducted by Mlambo et al. (2021) demonstrates that nursing education depends on the ability of nursing educators to deliver quality education that ensures that nursing students develop appropriate strategies for addressing population health needs. Therefore, due to the limitations of nursing trainers, nursing students lack adequate skills for developing the best practices and incorporating evidence in nursing practice Nursing Professionals Assignment Discussion.
Nursing instructors also play critical roles in promoting a culture of lifelong learning among nursing professionals and developing adaptive skills that attain the best healthcare goals. Nursing trainers also play a critical role in evaluating performance and conducting needs assessments in healthcare organizations. Therefore, failure to effectively conduct a needs assessment and identify the specific factors contributing to these needs may result in several unidentified gaps. In this case, healthcare professionals are unable to incorporate these strategies in routine service delivery, resulting in compromised quality and safety at the point of service delivery (Farokhzadian et al., 2024). Consequently, the situation limits the capacity of healthcare organizations to develop appropriate strategies for mitigating the quality and safety issues within the healthcare environment.
The Topic Choice
My interest has been to develop evidence-based strategies that ensure that all healthcare needs and issues affecting patients receive optimal interventions. One of the key issues that affect the implementation and application of evidence-based practice is the lack of nursing education and skills in developing the best practices and addressing the underlying issues (Mlambo et al., 2021)Nursing Professionals Assignment Discussion. Inadequate knowledge and skills emanate from insufficient training and inadequate healthcare professionals to impact the ability of patients to develop evidence-based practices. Therefore, addressing the faculty shortage issue is an urgent practice intervention that healthcare stakeholders must address to achieve the best outcome. This project will form the basis for exploring the impact of faculty shortage and recommend strategies for handling the issue and attaining an efficient healthcare industry that responds to specific patient and population needs using quality nursing education and evidence-based practice.
The Background and Significance of the Issue
The nursing industry continues to experience nursing shortage issues, which limit the profession’s ability to respond to the underlying healthcare needs and gaps affecting patients and populations. Evidence from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (2022) indicates that faculty shortage is one of the significant issues impacting nursing education and a steady supply of nursing professionals. The rate at which nursing faculties leave the profession due to aging and the rate at which new professionals join the nursing education sector go unmatched, resulting in the growing shortage of nursing educators. Hakin (2023) indicates that the aging workforce, competitive salaries in the clinical practice, and increasing complexity of nursing education have significantly reduced the number of nursing educators able to provide quality nursing education. Therefore, the nursing shortage issue emanates from the nursing faculty shortage that has resulted in the closure of some nursing schools or the failure to create new schools to produce enough nurses that will respond to the population’s needs (Sumpter et al., 2022)Nursing Professionals Assignment Discussion. By exploring the project, stakeholders get to understand the root cause of the issue, develop policies that address the problem, and engage evidence-based approaches to respond to the underlying issues and needs.
Relating Evidence-based Practice and Nursing Research
Nursing research forms one of the key pillars of evidence-based practice that forms the basis for developing quality decisions that achieve the best and optimal results. Nursing research provides data and insights on the current practice issue and outlines strategies for refining, updating, and addressing the clinical practice issue. In nursing practice, healthcare professionals get to understand what other professionals have implemented on the practice issue and determine the level of success, practice gaps, and opportunities for improvement (Mlambo et al., 2021)Nursing Professionals Assignment Discussion. Nursing research is a critical component that uncovers new knowledge, validates the existing practice, and challenges outdated practice issues.
My research on the shortage of qualified nursing instructors will form the basis for addressing the nursing shortage issue and developing viable solutions to the practice issue. The research will identify the critical issues contributing to the faculty shortage, identify the existing policies and strategies that have been implemented to address the issue and predict the potential approaches for managing the issue and enhancing the performance of the healthcare organization. Proposing these approaches will provide the foundation for addressing the faculty shortage and designing evidence-based strategies that enhance the quality of care.
Conclusion
Nursing instructor shortage is one of the critical issues contributing to a shortage of nursing professionals. The issue also results in delays in evidence-based practice application and limitations in the adaptability of the nursing profession to address specific population needs. Nursing professionals must explore the issue through evidence-based practices to determine the specific causes of the issue, recommend the best mechanisms, and incorporate cost-effective, economic, and appropriate mechanisms to address the issue and achieve the best healthcare outcomes.
References
American Association of Colleges of Nursing. (2022, October). Nursing faculty shortage fact sheet. Www.aacnnursing.org. https://www.aacnnursing.org/news-data/fact-sheets/nursing-faculty-shortage
Farokhzadian, J., Eskici, G. T., Molavi-Taleghani, Y., Tavan, A., & Farahmandnia, H. (2024). Nursing students’ patient safety competencies in the classroom and clinical settings: A cross-sectional study. BMC Nursing, 23(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-024-01708-3
Hakim, A. (2023). Investigating the challenges of clinical education from the viewpoint of nursing educators and students: A cross-sectional study. SAGE Open Medicine, 11, 20503121221143578. https://doi.org/10.1177/20503121221143578
Mlambo, M., Silén, C., & McGrath, C. (2021). Lifelong learning and nurses’ continuing professional development, a metasynthesis of the literature. BMC Nursing, 20(62), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-021-00579-2
Sumpter, D., Blodgett, N., Beard, K., & Howard, V. (2022). Transforming nursing education in response to the Future of Nursing 2020–2030 report. Nursing Outlook, 70(6), S20–S31. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.outlook.2022.02.007
Tamata, A. T., & Mohammadnezhad, M. (2022). A systematic review study on the factors affecting shortage of nursing workforce in the hospitals. Nursing Open, 10(3), 1247–1257. https://doi.org/10.1002/nop2.1434 Nursing Professionals Assignment Discussion
Nur440 Research and Evidence Based Practice
Topic Proposal
Overview
In Milestone One, you will submit a topic proposal for instructor approval which identifies your chosen professional practice issue. A professional practice issue is any issue or situation that either compromises client care/service by placing a client at ri sk or affects a nurse’s ability to provide care/service consistent with standards and guidelines and agency or organization policies or procedures. By the end of this course, your topic also has the potential to be explored further as part of your capstone project. As the first piece of your final project, the topic proposal will enable you to explain the background and significance of the issue, develop your PICO question in Milestone Two and begin the introduction of your final project. A good topic proposal is engaging, identifies a specific and original topic, explains the background and significance, and establishes a purpose. Nursing Professionals Assignment Discussion
Prompt
Choose a professional practice issue of local, state, or national importance that might be encountered in nursing practice. Be sure to include the following elements in your topic proposal:
Topic Proposal-Lack of qualified nursing instructors and the effect on evidence-based practice and patient outcomes. I was an instructor in a rural area for a Practical Nursing Program that did not have a program this year due to lack of instructors.
Your topic proposal must be submitted as a Microsoft Word document with 12-point Times New Roman font and one-inch margins. Submission should include at least three evidence-based resources published within the last five years. All citations and references should be formatted according to the most recent APA guidelines. Nursing Professionals Assignment Discussion