Solutions to Pressing Nursing Issues

United States Nursing Professional Issues

Naomi O.

There should be federal and state policies that focus on workplace violence for nurses. Such policies will ensure that nurses feel safe to attend to their patients and can be compensated when faced with violence (Somani et al., 2021). Are there any laws in place within the state focusing on workplace violence against nurses? If not, are there any attempts being made to implement such laws? Considering the nursing shortages in the United States, it is disheartening to discover more nurses are leaving the profession due to workplace violence. The continued reduction of nurses in the profession means there will be fewer nurses to attend to patients, and the incidences of violence will probably increase since one nurse has to attend to numerous patients. Action needs to be taken, and stiff punishment given to the perpetrators (Crawford et al., 2019). There are laws against violence toward police officers, which should be pushed for nurses and healthcare workers. When people know there is a harsh penalty for assaulting a health worker, they will be less violent toward them.

NO O.

The strategies mentioned for increasing the number of nurses would only be effective if we could have more nurses taking up teaching roles. However, this still increases the current shortages because fewer nurses will still be in healthcare facilities as we increase nurses in learning institutions. The best strategy is to train more nurses to take up teaching roles after obtaining their degrees (Mar? et al., 2019). There should be incentives given to the nurses to train future nurses. When we have a good balance of nurses in healthcare facilities and learning institutions, we can be certain to address the nursing shortages. Considering the high turnover of nurses due to the stressful nature of their work. There should be changes instituted to improve the work environment for nurses. The goal should be to reduce the number of nurses leaving the field. Healthcare facilities need to implement policies to protect nurses' mental health (Shang et al., 2019). There should be a Code Lavender protocol allowing team members to identify when a peer needs to be removed from a situation that is overwhelming to them.

References

Crawford, C. L., Chu, F., Judson, L. H., Cuenca, E., Jadalla, A. A., Tze-Polo, L., Kawar, L. N., Runnels, C., & Garvida Jr, R. (2019). An integrative review of nurse-to-nurse incivility, hostility, and workplace violence: a GPS for nurse leaders. Nursing administration quarterly, 43(2), 138-156. https://doi.org/10.1097/NAQ.0000000000000338